“You’d be able to do it,” I tell her. “Honestly, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“We have a house, joint accounts, cars, our families love each other . . . it’s not just as easy as walking away. I wish it were. Nobody would understand. Can you imagine my family if I told them I was leaving Patrick?”
Yes, I can imagine.
Joanne was raised in the perfect household. Perfect parents. Perfect life. Perfect car. Perfect school. Their perfect little daughter was matched with a perfect husband. I believe she thought she wanted that life too, but when she finally got it, she realized how utterly bored with it she was. When I first met her, back before we had the accident, she was still so well behaved, but slowly, slowly, she’s changing.
Last week she went and got a tattoo—shock, horror.
It’s safe to say Patrick wasn’t happy.
“You’re right. They wouldn’t like it.” I laugh. “But fuck them, honey. You’re a grown-ass lady; you can do what you want.”
“I wish it were that easy,” she exhales. “Sometimes, I honestly feel like I’m trapped. No matter how I look at it, it feels like there is no way out.”
I reach over, squeezing her arm. Outside of a couple of fights, I haven’t touched another human being in a kind way for years until today. It feels strange. The hug, it was nice, but comforting someone . . . probably not my specialty anymore. I don’t know who I am, what I’m supposed to do, and even what my purpose in this world is right now.
I’m lost—entering the world of the unknown.
“There is always a way out,” I tell her.
She smiles, and then shakes it off and says, “Anyway, what are we going to do on your first night of freedom?”
I grin at her. “Honey, we’re getting cheeseburgers, and beer, and we’re getting really, really drunk.”
“Sounds perfect to me!”
She’s right.
It really does.
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?” I laugh, throwing my head back and shaking it as I do, the laughter flowing out. My hair flicks from side to side.
One thing I refused to do when I was inside was cut my hair off. I let it grow, the long brunette locks now touching the middle of my back. I didn’t want to become a woman who looked hard. I wanted to come out and still fit in with the rest of the world. But prison has a way of hardening parts of you.
“Yep, we were right in the middle of it, and he farted. Farted. I’m not even joking. Is it so bad that I’m so turned off by my own husband? Oh, do I dream of meeting some gorgeous man, all rugged and covered in tattoos, who will take me and bend me over some nasty bike and fuck me until my eyes water.”
I laugh harder until beer snorts out my nose, and then I’m choking, trying not to splutter liquid all over the carpet in our apartment. “Oh lord, you’ve really thought that through.”
“Wouldn’t you, if you’d been farted on during sex?”
We both snort, and then giggle, and then snort again.
It feels so damned good to laugh.
“I can’t believe he did that. Did he at least say sorry?”
She shakes her head, tears running down her cheeks. “Nope, he acted like he didn’t even know he did it. The whole room started to smell, and I was trying not to gag.”
“Oh my God!” I double over, clutching my stomach, trying to stop it cramping from laughter.
“Yep, so you can understand why I’m feeling a little lost in the world right now. My husband, he’s just . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Not turning you on anymore,” I point out.
“No, that’s exactly it. Anyway, enough about him. Let’s talk about you. What do you want to do now you’re free?”
I huff. “You make it sound like I’ve been locked away forever. It wasn’t so bad. I’m not too old; I’ve got my whole life ahead of me to fix my wrongdoings.”
Joanne looks sad for me, and I know she is, because she’s the only person who believes me. The only one who believes that Celia Yates jumped in front of my car that night, and that I didn’t hit her as she was crossing the road. Not one other person, except my brother, Max, and even he had doubts, believed that story. Not even my own parents believed it.
“You don’t owe anyone anything,” Joanne says.
“I do, though. Not only did the other girls suffer, but so did my family, and Celia’s family. I want to prove that it was an accident. I don’t want to live forever as the girl who killed someone because she wasn’t paying attention.”
Joanne frowns. “You can’t prove that. If you could, you never would have been locked up.”
I shake my head. “No, I would have been locked up, but probably not for as long. In the end, I still wasn’t paying attention, so even if she was crossing the road, I could have hit her. But she wasn’t. She stepped in front of my car. I intend to find out why.”
