Prison Promise

by Demi Vice

  “I hope you find him.”

  “Me…too.” I sighed.

  “So, what about the Jack Skellington tattoos? You’ve got two of them.”

  I blinked slowly at Ahri. I wonder if I should tell her, it’s not that big of a deal, but I also said I was never going to tell anyone.

  But Ahri isn’t anyone.

  I cleared my throat. “My names not Jack.”

  “What?” she said in a breathy voice, head tilted to the side as she looked at me with her wide black button eyes.

  “My ‘birth’ name wasn’t Jack Baron. It was Igor Patryk Baronski. I wasn’t a huge fan of Igor. Always reminded me of an old man with a hunchback wearing old rags for clothes. It didn’t feel like an Igor.”

  I cleared my throat, nervous from Ahri’s tense narrow eyes.

  “Anyway, I went over to see Link, and he was watching a movie called The Nightmare Before Christmas on VHS. I was about eleven, and I ended up watching the whole movie with him. I fell in love with the name Jack and the creepy style of Tim Burton’s movie. After that day, I wanted to be called Jack. I told Link about it, but he didn’t like it. He had been calling me Gory—short for Igor—for so long he thought it was weird to change my name. But over the years my name turned from Gory to Gory Jack which was something. I liked the sound of Gory Jack, but Jack was better.”

  Ahri softly smiled.

  “Made ‘Jack’ official when I was sixteen. I didn’t need an adult, just my birth certificate and I was set. I Americanized my last name to Baron then moved Igor to my middle name. Mama Baronski named me and I couldn’t bring myself to abandoning it. Anyway, now I am Jack Igor Baron.”

  Ahri hummed. “Ahrianna Naomi Lore.” She stuck out her hand, giving me a warm one dimpled smile as I shook it.

  “Nice to meet you.” I winked.

  There was a long pause as we simply shook hands like strangers, but we were the opposite of that. We were bound, intertwined, and fused together with more than just our physical beings.

  “You wanna know what else made me fall in love with the name Jack?” Ahri shook her head. I cocked my eyebrow ready to unleash my dad jokes. “I’m a Jackass. I’m Jacked up. I’m the Jackpot of all Men, the Jackhammer of all Fucks, the Jack of all Trades, baby girl.” I laughed my ass off as I kissed Ahri on the nose. She slapped my not-so-sore stomach and rolled her eyes at my lame joke.

  “You’re such a loser,” Ahri growled, but that smile said it all.

  “I know. Anyway, you got two turns. Linked forever and my Jack tattoos. So, now it’s your turn.”

  Ahri pursed her lips and her once lively face started to fall. “You know how I told you some scars are personal, some depressing and some stupid?”

  I nodded.

  “Well…” she elongated her word.

  Ahri rolled up her tank top over her thighs. The dryer buzzed, letting us know her clothes were done. I lightly trailed my finger over one of her old cuts. The touch of her scar left my body empty so that I could become Ahri’s armor.

  “What happened?”

  “Life.”

  She pointed at a small long cut on top of her thigh.

  “One of them is from me. I was feeling really down, thinking about our lives and how unfair it was that some people get the shortest stick.” Ahri deeply exhaled. “Over the years my dad got worse and worse until it was not only me he hit, but Luke as well. My dad took out his drunken rage on a thirteen-year-old Luke, and I was completely heartbroken. There were times I started fights with my dad on purpose, so I knew I was the only one he was mad at. He could abuse me, hurt me, turn me into ground beef and feed me to the dogs. I didn’t care. It never hurt, and it never made me cry. But when anyone physically hurt my family, that’s when I died a little inside. That’s when I thought all was lost.”

  I rubbed Ahri’s thigh, letting her know that it was okay.

  “I cut myself the night my dad beat Luke so hard he broke his arm and a few ribs. Luke saw the cut a few days later. He didn’t know what to think, so he took in every emotion that passed through him. He cried and yelled, telling me never to do it again and if I did he would hate me for the rest of my life. And I didn’t. I never cut myself ever again.” Ahri bit her lip hard as I looked at all the other cuts on her legs.

  “Who did the rest, Ahrianna?”

  Ahri bit the bottom of her lip, thinking about the other cuts and if she wanted to tell me. After a minute of pure silence, I kissed her thigh. Her scars. Her never-ending, painfully memories.

  “You don’t have to—” I said before Ahri interrupted me.

  “My mom. My aunt.” She choked on her words as she looked down at her legs. “They were both fucking mental. Both psychopathic bitches who hated me for bullshit reasons. I never did anything to them, but they’d already made up their minds about me. My mom hated that I reminded her of my father and my aunt hated me because I was ‘scum.’ A thief who went to jail. But my intentions were always good. Always pure. Aurora and Luke knew that, and that’s all that mattered to me.”

  “Even though my dad was a raging drunk, he had his good moments. They were rare, but they were there. I couldn’t say the same thing about my mom or aunt. They were always on my ass, always trying to make me suffer. And it was only me, so I sucked it up.”

  I rested my head on Ahri’s lap, holding her waist tight in my arms. “You never asked for help? You never told them about your mom or aunt, did you?” My voice so weak I couldn’t hear myself.

  Ahri shook her head, petting my hair. “I had just come out of jail, and I was home all the time, studying for my GED or trying to find a real job. Aurora was either at work or school, and when she was home, she was sleeping. So I didn’t want to bother her with something that was temporary. As for Luke? He was either at school or with his friends. He was being a teenager; smoking weed, going to parties, taking joyrides—harmless shit. There was no need for him to worry. It was my problem. Only. Mine,” she growled.

  “Since I stayed home most of the time, my mom and aunt took it as their opportunity to release their hatred on me. They would get high off their minds. Shooting anything they could get their hands on into their veins.” Ahri swallowed and looked away from me. “They knew what they were doing when they came into my room after I fell asleep. They knew what they were doing when they held me down and slashed my thighs open. Some of them were deep. Others were just like cat scratches. But they always blamed the drugs. They always made excuses,” Ahri gritted.

  I hugged Ahri tighter.

  “For a year, that was my life. I found a job working at a small restaurant, but they still came in my room a handful of times that year. In a fucked-up way, I was happy that they only hurt me. I felt relieved that Aurora and Luke were safe, and they didn’t know what was happening to me. I tried to put a safety-filter on them as much as I could. I’m pretty sure that if I’d told them, they would have killed for me.” Ahri nervously chuckled.

  I would have.

  “Like I said, it only lasted a year until the night they both OD’d. After that, life was easy. It was just me, my sister, Luke and…”

  “Him?” I finished her sentence. “Who is ‘him’ Ahrianna?”

  “Someone who isn’t even worthy of a name for what he did.” Ahri ground her teeth so hard it sounded like thin ice shattering underneath my feet.

  “What did he do Ahrianna?”

  “Nothing. Nothing to me.”

  My heart throbbed in my throat. I picked out a line from Fidget’s letter. The one that always had me thinking of the worst.

  I know what he did to Aurora.

  “What did he do to Aurora?” I asked.

  Ahri didn’t say anything. She kept her eyes in front of her until she pushed me away and hopped off the dryer. Ahri grabbed her toasty warm sheets and wrapped them around her body, looking like a cloud ready to rain. But her tears never fell. Ahri sniffed and looked up at me with glossy eyes.

  “I have a question?” she asked.

&nbs
p; “I have an answer?” I said softly still trying to connect the pieces, but there was still so much missing.

  “How do you do it? How are you so happy? How do you put a smile on your face after what you’ve been through?”

  I shrugged, saying nothing.

  Ahri sighed, adjusting the covers so they wouldn’t hit the ground. “We both had fucked up childhoods—if you can even call them childhoods—but you seem to be carefree and happy like everything is going to be okay. Like everything’s going to work out in the end…” he sentence died.

  I smacked my lips. “Life is a fucking joke, and sometimes you need to laugh.” I gave a half-assed smile. “Let’s be honest. Sometimes life is either a one-step-forward-ten-steps-back kind of a deal, or it’s a you-won-the-lottery kind of a deal. Horrible things happen. Amazing things happen. Sometimes your luck runs out, and other times you think you’re giving a fucking leprechaun a piggyback ride. I like to focus on the amazing parts, and laugh and smile at the horrible parts. If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.”

  Ahri hummed and looked down at her gray boots. “Not many people have that ability…turning shit into gold, you know?”

  “You have it,” I stated.

  Ahri’s face tensed up like she didn't understand what I had just said.

  “You might not be as happy, smiley, or jokey as me, but you have it. If you didn’t have it, you wouldn't be working so hard to have a better life. You’re headstrong, independent and full of passion and fury, Ahrianna. The deadly components to surviving.”

  Ahri blushed and hid her face under her clean cloud. Like a gentleman, I grabbed her bags, and we left. We walked in silence across the parking lot, cherishing the comfortable silence it took couples years to achieve, but a short time for Ahri and I to develop.

  We went upstairs, dropped our things, and I took a shower. Ahri took one after me, but she took her time. Lathering herself in brand name shampoo, conditioner, and body wash while taking in hot water inside a regular human-sized shower.

  I grabbed my things from her plastic bag, most importantly. My wallet. The letter. I’d folded it up into a tiny square, but before I could revisit the letter I’d read a hundred times, Ahri came out of the bathroom. She was in her underwear and socks, like me, which seemed to be our new matching pajamas. She crawled into my bed and turned her back toward me waiting to be pulled.

  “I thought you didn't do cuddling.” I chuckled, grabbing her in my arms.

  “I like it with you,” she admitted. “Only you.”

  That’s my girl.

  Like my hair, Ahri’s was wet. It cooled my neck and face, but her warm body made up for it. I ran my hand down her hip, feeling the texture of her burn. I tried not to press too hard since the bruise was still there. It didn’t look like it had healed much in the past four days.

  “Where did you get burned Ahri?”

  Ahri moved her body closer to mine and let out a heavy sigh. “Some other time, Jack. That story’s still fresh.”

  I wrapped my arms around Ahri’s chest and arms and grabbed her close to me. I pressed my lips on her shoulder. Ahri wiggled her ass, making sure my cock was snug and comfortable between her ass cheeks. With each minute, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, but as soon as I trailed off into my sleep, Ahri spoke.

  “Jack?”

  “Mmmm?” I moaned, smacking my lips.

  Ahri paused and lightly petted the Kraken tattoo on the arm that was around her waist before she let out a heavy sigh. “Do you think people can do inhuman things for the right reason?”

  I let my tired brain register that question before I answered. “Yeah.”

  “What about for purely selfish reasons?

  Absolutely. I did.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think it’s wrong?” She spoke the word like it was a different language.

  “No.” I played with Ahri’s hair as she moved her body closer to mine. “I think humans are the worst animals of them all. We’re selfish, greedy, and envious. We do what we can to survive, to have a better life, and sometimes we don’t always do what’s right, but that doesn't make it wrong.”

  “Mmmm.” Ahri nodded.

  She was thinking about Fidget and his crimes. The attempted murder part, of course.

  I cleared my throat and swallowed. “Think of some people like dogs in a cage fight. Some of us were forced to fight, to obey, to live life doing unspeakable things to survive. We come out with scars, bruises, and memories we don’t want to have or…we come out with memories we do want to have. To remind ourselves what we did to get where we are, this very second. Sometimes those memories are the real ones. The ones that remind us that there is a fine line between good and bad. Wrong or right.”

  Ahri turned around to face me. Her big black eyes were begging for more of my words. My truth.

  “Some of us will do horrible things especially when revenge, greed, or anger are in the mix. And love, too.”

  Or some of us will do vicious things if you’re that crazy, selfish, and persistent enough to have a better life.

  “You can be a champion and a loser. A victim and a criminal. A hero and a villain. It just makes you more realistic. More human.” I exhaled slowly. “Just because you’ve sinned does not make you a sinner. Some of us who’ve sinned still have the heart of a saint.”

  Ahri’s eyebrows dropped, and her bottom lip pouted out as she read my expression.

  “I know I do.”

  “You've sinned?”

  “Hasn’t everyone?” I retorted.

  Ahri pressed her face against my chest and nodded. I took a deep breath, trying to control my heart, but it was no use. I was nervous and anxious. I was so close to telling her who I was. And what I'd done. Ahri flattened her hand against my chest and let out a relieved sigh as she melted into my arms.

  “Why did you ask, Ahrianna?” I soothed the back of her wet hair.

  “No reason.” She paused. “I was just thinking.”

  “About Luke?”

  She nodded faintly.

  “You know, he’s not a bad kid. Just stupid, right?”

  She nodded again this time I could feel her smile pressed against my chest.

  “So, have you talked to Luke recently?”

  Ahri shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  Ahri sighed and looked up at me. “He hates me. When I tried to talk to him, he was so pissed he didn’t even look me in the eye. He told me he never wanted to see me again, and if I tried, I was dead to him. I tried to give his lawyer updates on my life, like the address of the place I was looking at, Wazowski’s, but Luke didn't care. He didn’t care what happened to me.”

  “Why does he hate you so much?”

  “It’s complicated. That whole week was…complicated.” Ahri’s voice cracked.

  Whole week?

  “I'm sure he misses you,” I said.

  Ahri exhaled deeply into my chest and shook her head. “No, he doesn’t.”

  I held Ahri tight against my bare chest the whole night as we fell asleep with our legs entwined together, but this time it all felt different. The way her body burned my flesh, the way her cold breath hit my chest, and the way she felt in my arms.

  It was different.

  Ahri felt different. But in a right way. A great way. The perfect way.

  I opened myself up tonight with my Gory Jack story and my philosophy on wrong and right, which was clearly my life. The very definition of it. I was vulnerable and afraid, but I opened up to the right person. A person I know I could trust, even though I hadn’t been a hundred percent honest with her. Not yet.

  Something about Ahri just felt right. Like she already knew my story without me telling her, but she didn’t. She didn’t know the real Jack. Not by a long shot. Honestly, I had no clue what Ahri would do if I told her about everything.

  Leave? Stay? Hate me? Accept me?

  I kissed the top of Ahri’s wet hair and grabbed her tighter.

/>   I got his far, why don’t I keep digging my hole?

  Right, Jack?

  AHRI

  I stared at Jack’s tattoos on his chest, slowly falling and rising with each long breath he took. His lips were slightly parted, lightly snoring, and his hand on my hips twitched whenever he let out a faint moan. His black hair covered his face, mostly his eyes and that black beauty mark under his eye.

  When Jack didn’t blow dry his hair, it was just as wavy as mine. But it wasn't messy. Perfect waves and curled at the end. It was like someone had come in the middle of the night and curled it. Jack’s stubble was grown out well past a five o’clock shadow, and there were more silver hairs there than I’d expected him to have. He still looked good. Really good. It showed off his age.

  I would’ve loved to stay in bed, watching Jack sleep and stare at his tattoos and scars like it was my job. But I needed to do my homework.

  A dull sigh left my lips.

  I loved sleeping with Jack. I never fell asleep so fast or stayed asleep so long, and in my world, sleep was a rare gem, and Jack knew that. Jack took very good care of my gem. He wrapped it in a black silk bag, placed it on a foamy pillow, and stood guard, protecting it.

  I slowly turned over. I carefully picked up Jack’s big hand to get out from underneath him, but instead, I woke him up. He pulled me in and stole a gasp of air as he thrust his morning wood against me. He did a little stretch, wrapped his leg around me and let out a low growl. Jack bit and sucked on my shoulder, thumbing my nipple in the process and sending my body into a world of lust. But I had no time for this. No matter how much I wanted it, I needed to get to the library to work on my homework.

  “Jack.”

  He started to dry hump me like the fabric between us wasn’t even there. Jack moaned and rolled my nipple between his fingers, making my body snap to the highest temperature.

  “Jack, I need to go,” I moaned, pressing my ass harder into him with no control.

  Jack turned me on my stomach and got on top of me. He trapped me down, cock pressed on my ass as he nibbled on my ear.