High Achiever Page 10

  “Oh.” It made sense. I wasn’t even mad. I was grateful to be out of that dungeon. We arrived at the door of Medical and while we waited for them to open it, he turned to me with a look of regret on his face. “I really am sorry about how things went up there. I’m planning on talking to a few people to see what happened. Probably a miscommunication.” Yeah, that was it.

  The door popped open and he led me to Medical cell seven. “Take care of yourself,” he said, opening the door.

  “Thank you, I will,” I said, smiling as he shut it behind me. I turned around to check out my new cell and was surprised to see another inmate. It had been so long, I was relieved to finally have someone to talk to.

  She was asleep in the corner and I didn’t want to wake her, so I tiptoed to the bed across from her and lay down. I turned to face her to see what she looked like, and when I caught a glimpse of her face my hand shot up over my mouth to keep from screaming.

  Fucking Daniels.

  19

  I couldn’t help but laugh to myself, honestly. Like, of all the places in the entire jail I could be placed, I was locked in a closet with my archnemesis.

  I stared at her sleeping face for a moment, noticing how sweet and peaceful she appeared while dreaming. I knew that the moment her eyes flipped open, however, it was going to be a different story.

  What the hell am I supposed to do here? She’s gonna wake up and turn into the Tasmanian Devil. There will be hair and fists flying all over the place. I could beat her ass while I had the advantage. I could pummel her while she slept, and by the time she realized what was happening, it would be too late. The guards would run in and separate us.

  Wait, they would move me back to isolation. In that case I’d rather she just wake up and murder me. I could fashion a flower out of toilet paper and, when she woke up, smile and hand it to her and be like, “Friends?” Perhaps I could just hide under my covers and play dead. I mean, that was really the only reasonable option.

  I pulled the wool blanket up over my face and immediately realized what a terrible idea that was. Not only was it impossible to breathe, but I was inhaling lint and pubic hairs.

  Fuck it. I’m not gonna hide, I didn’t do a damn thing to this girl. She sucker-punched me, and all I did was retaliate with a damn pillow. No, I’m done playing nice. I refuse to spend another second stressing over this little Chihuahua.

  I stood up from my bunk and walked over to hers. I quickly tapped her on the shoulder before I had a chance to change my mind. She started to stir but pulled the blanket up over her head and began snoring again.

  Shit. My heart was pounding out of my chest.

  I tapped again. This time she cussed from beneath her fort. “Go the fuck away, man.” I was so nervous that my hands were shaking, but I couldn’t sit back down and obsess about what was gonna happen. I needed to make something happen. If we were going to fight, I just wanted it to be over with.

  “Hey, Daniels. Wake up. It’s Johnson,” I said, taking a step back, in case she decided to come out swinging.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what I said.”

  She began laughing. Literally laughing. I wasn’t sure if she genuinely thought this predicament was hilarious, or if it was the laugh a serial killer does before ripping someone’s face off and making a hat.

  “So, anyway,” I began, “I figured we could just, um, get this out of the way now, since we are both obviously stuck in here. I don’t wanna get sucker-punched when I’m sleepin’, ya know?”

  She sat up, like straight up. She kept her head under the blanket and just sat the hell up. It was as if I’d just awoken a vampire from its slumber.

  She ripped the blanket down and squinted at me, her eyes swollen from sleep.

  “A’right, what’s up then?” she said, remaining seated—which was a good sign.

  “What’s up…with you…then?” I said. I am the fucking worst at comebacks.

  She tilted her head to the side and looked up at me. Her expression wasn’t threatening; she looked…tired.

  “A’right, you want it? Here it is. I’mma be real wit’chu, okay? You are the reason my two-year-old ain’t never gonna see his daddy. You went and fucking snitched on my baby daddy, and now he’s off to God knows where, but he’s gone. Cuz the fucking police is lookin’ for him, because of you.”

  She looked down at her feet and shook her head, then looked back up at me with tears welling in her eyes. She was trying to keep her chin from quivering, and looked away to hide the tears falling from her eyes.

  Well, damn.

  My muscles relaxed a bit, and my heart felt heavy. Although technically, I didn’t force this dude to buy those guns, I was partly responsible for the fact that this poor toddler wasn’t going to know his father, because when the police finally did catch up with him, he was going to be put away for a very long time.

  I thought about that little boy and felt a knot begin to form in my throat.

  “You know what the worst part is?” she said, staring past me, at the wall.

  Ugh, it gets worse?

  She turned to face me, hiccuping back sobs. “I’m five months pregnant, and he ain’t gonna be around for his daughter. He won’t be there for the birth, he won’t be there to buy diapers, or help me out. I gotta do this shit by myself. Because of you. So yeah, I don’t like you. In fact, I fucking hate your ass, but I ain’t gonna fight you. I’ve got bigger things to worry about. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna get some fucking sleep.”

  I stared in stunned silence as she lay back down and rolled over to face the wall.

  My very first thought was, Thank God I only hit her with a pillow.

  My second thought was, Well, now I feel like a big asshole.

  The things I did while using didn’t only affect me, or my victims, or my family; they affected a family I wasn’t even aware existed. The consequences of my actions rippled outward like a rock thrown into a pond.

  I stared at the outline of Daniels’s body for a moment. The guilt was overwhelming. I didn’t blame her for being angry; I would be too. She was a single mother with an addiction. I couldn’t imagine having to leave a child behind while I did time. Even harder to imagine was how difficult it would be to go through this hell—jail—with a baby inside me.

  “What the hell am I doing?” I said under my breath as I walked over and sat down at the foot of her bunk.

  “Hey, Daniels,” I called as I tapped her leg, “hey, real quick, before you go to sleep.”

  “I already was asleep, ho, why the hell you on my bed?” she said, looking at me like I was crazy.

  I took a deep breath and began speaking. I couldn’t hold back my emotions as the words started spilling from my lips like an overflowing sink.

  “I need you to know that I’m sorry, okay—”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I am, I really am sorry. I don’t have kids, so I can’t imagine how hard it must be to raise them. But I do know it has got to be ten times harder without a dad in the picture.” She sat up and inched backward away from me, until her back pressed against the wall.

  “I didn’t know Lazarus had kids. I was over there all the time and he never said a word. Honestly, though, it wouldn’t have mattered to me. I would have done the same thing anyway. He asked if I could get guns, he said he would hook me up with pills. I’m an addict, okay, I wasn’t thinking about the repercussions of what I was doing. I was thinking about getting high.” She rolled her eyes again, and I was certain that she wasn’t processing a thing I was saying, but I didn’t care. I had to say it.

  “For the record, he texted me about the guns. Okay? There was a record of him asking. I didn’t have to snitch, he snitched on himself. I am sorry about your son, I am sorry about your unborn daughter, I am. You need to
know I’m sorry, I never meant for any of this to happen. I was sick. I am sick. I need help.”

  She stared down at the bed in silence; she didn’t say a word. She began anxiously shaking her foot, and I could tell something was happening inside her head. I just didn’t know what.

  “Look, I appreciate you being real with me. Apologies are hard to come by in this place,” she said quietly. I felt so grateful that she was receptive to my apology; the goosebumps prickled up on my skin because it felt like we’d had a breakthrough. I opened my mouth to respond, but she interrupted suddenly.

  “He wants you dead,” she blurted.

  “I’m sorry?” I said, confused by her sudden outburst.

  “Lazarus, he wants you dead, or at least hurt bad. He prolly ain’t tryna kill you, but he’s a man of his word, and he doesn’t play. I talked to my cousin and she said that Lazarus told Greg to check online for when you get released. He’s gonna find you, he will. He’s a crazy motherfucker, man. You done got yourself into some deep shit. You kept it real wit’ me, so I wanted to return the favor. Just watch your back out there.”

  I stared at her for a moment. I had so many questions but couldn’t find the words. My mind began racing through thousands of scenarios, and images of my murder were playing like a movie in my head.

  “Can you please get off my bed now?”

  “Yup,” I said, standing abruptly.

  “Hey, um. There’s something else,” she said, as she lay back down.

  “God, what?”

  “Your friend, Kayla I think her name is? I guess she told Lazarus where your sister live at. You might want to call her….Just sayin’.”

  20

  Once Medical determined that I was no longer a danger to myself, or anyone else, they sent me back to population.

  Although Daniels and I were stuck in the same cell for around sixteen hours together, her warning was the last thing she said to me. She slept the rest of the time and honestly, I was fine with that.

  Her being asleep gave me the chance to not fuck up the good rapport we had established by saying something stupid—a tendency for which I’m notorious.

  When they opened the doors to the female pod, all eyes were fixed on me. I ignored them. I was on a mission and didn’t have time to entertain the curiosities of the other women.

  I needed to give my sister a heads-up. Brandy had warned me about this, but I had clearly misjudged the severity of the threat and, with all the craziness, put it in the back of my mind. A friend, who had spent around sixteen years in prison himself, had put some money on my books when he’d heard about my incarceration. I hadn’t spoken to him in over ten years, but having been in a similar situation himself, he hooked it up.

  However, I had used all that money up on toiletries, boxers, and socks, and I had been broke for a few weeks now. My father and sister had refused to give me any money, and, initially, I was pretty bitter about it.

  Over time, and the more my senses started coming back to me, I came to understand. I assume they wanted to make this experience as uncomfortable as possible for me. And I’ll tell you what, watching all the other women carry giant sacks of snacks back to their cells on commissary day was certainly a cruel punishment.

  I needed someone to give me a call. It cost $2.50 per phone call, and girls in here weren’t exactly the most giving of people, so I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

  I began by begging, running from girl to girl, flashing my best impression of a sad puppy, and being met with rejection left and right.

  I tried bargaining. “Someone can have my breakfast tray for the next three days—unless it’s pancakes—if you give me a call!” I yelled from the top of the stairs. Crickets. Apparently, everyone had gone deaf all of a sudden.

  My mind was racing; I had to figure out a way to call my sister. Visions of her cheerfully answering her front door and being met with a gunshot haunted me.

  Tears began welling up in my eyes and my throat knotted up. I didn’t want to cry, because I was afraid that if I started, I wouldn’t stop. I felt so…helpless.

  Then it dawned on me. I had something, one thing that every girl in here wanted.

  I ran to my room and ripped my shirt off (calm down, this isn’t going where you’re thinking).

  I pulled my sports bra off and put my shirt back on. Sports bras were like crack in here. They were $20 in the commissary, and when faced with the choice of phone calls to baby daddies or letting their boobs hang loose, these girls chose the phone calls every time.

  I marched to the center of the dayroom and proudly thrust my bra into the air. “All right, ladies, deal of the century. This gorgeous white sports bra could be yours for the taking. All I need is one phone call!” I yelled triumphantly.

  “Man, sit yo’ ass down, ain’t nobody want your dusty-ass sports bra, get the hell outta here,” Shonda said, her face twisted in disgust.

  I dropped my hand to my side and let out a sigh.

  “Come on, man, I really need to call my sister. And for the record it isn’t dusty. I just got it back from laundry today and have only worn it for like five seconds. Anyway, pleeeeeeeeease. Someone. I’m begging. It’s basically life-or-death.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  I gasped and whipped my head in the direction of the angelic voice that had come to the rescue.

  It was a girl I didn’t recognize. She must have arrived while I was in Medical. I ran over to the gate of her cell and pressed my face up to the bars. “Oh my God, thank you so much. I really need to make this call. I’m Tiffany, by the way.”

  “I’m Alicia.”

  Alicia, my new best friend, punched her code into the phone and dialed my sister’s number.

  “It’s ringing,” she said, handing me the phone.

  My heart was pounding. “Please pick up, please pick up.”

  “Hello?”

  My heart leapt from my chest. Thank God. I smiled at Alicia and gave her a thumbs-up. She raised her eyebrows pretending to be excited.

  “You have a collect call from the county jail. Inmate Alicia Dober is on the line. To accept this call, press one.”

  I waited for her to punch the button, but instead I heard click, followed by a dial tone.

  I gasped. “Hello?” I said into the receiver. “Hell-oooo?”

  She had hung up.

  My heart began pounding even faster, and anxiety had twisted up my insides like a pretzel.

  I looked over at Alicia as I slowly hung up the phone.

  “If y’all are done, you need to move. We only have ten minutes left to use the phone and I am next in line,” a girl behind me said.

  My head twisted around like the Exorcist. “Hold the fuck on.” She backed up and crossed her arms but didn’t say a word. I’m sure she could tell from my expression that now was not the time to try me.

  “Can you please call her back, Alicia? One more time? It didn’t charge your account because she didn’t accept the call. It said your name when she picked up so she was probably confused,” I pleaded.

  “Yeah, a’right. I’ll try again. But we gotta make this quick because I need a call too.”

  She dialed the number and handed me the phone. It rang twice, and I was sent to voicemail.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I don’t know why the hell my sister just did that. It’s obvious it was me calling even though it wasn’t my name. Who the hell else would be calling her from jail?

  I started to feel angry.

  Now, not only were my boobs flopping around like I was in a National Geographic documentary, but I still didn’t get to warn my sister and my arm was still killing me. It was black-and-blue in a bunch of different places and felt like it was on fire. Drugs sounded really fucking good right about now.

  After the failed call to my sist
er, I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, and suddenly my mind was consumed with thoughts of getting high. The physical pain combined with the emotional pain was too much to handle while sober. This was all still new to me; I didn’t know how to cope. The nurse in Medical had said that if I started to become overwhelmed with my current situation, instead of panicking and letting anxiety cause me to make rash decisions, I needed to try praying.

  I had laughed in her face.

  There was no such thing as God. I know this for a fact. When my mom died, people tried to pull that bullshit with me: God has a plan. There’s a reason for everything. God needed your mother with Him in heaven.

  It was complete and utter bullshit. I needed her here, with me. Fuck God. I’m not gonna pray, I’m gonna get high. Drugs have always been there for me; God never has.

  A gnawing, aching, overwhelming need to feel the drugs coursing through my veins became my main focus.

  My hands began shaking as desperation crept in. I needed to find drugs, and I knew someone in this hellhole had them.

  I stood up with a burst of adrenaline and marched out of my cell. I knew these bitches in here had drugs, girls were always getting high. I just had to figure out who had them.

  I remembered a rumor about a girl named Sheila in cell one. Evidently she had smuggled fifty Roxicodones in her “back door.” I had never given the story a second thought—until today.

  I bounded toward her cell near the entrance of the pod, determined to do whatever it took to get one of her pills. As I passed the entrance, the door to the pod swung open. I stopped dead in my tracks as two young girls, who didn’t look a day over seventeen, came walking in wearing regular clothes and holding clipboards.

  I made eye contact with the girl closest to me as the door shut behind them. I was frozen, confused about why the jail would let these innocent-looking teenagers loose in here with an army of felonious addicts.