by Rebel Hart
In spite of the fact that I knew almost instantly that I wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night, I gave it a solid try until just after midnight. I’d drift off for twenty minutes and then come back to, praying I’d actually slept through the entire night, only to be sorely disappointed. I looked out the window from my bedroom into the night sky and figured if I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, at least I could enjoy the beautiful South Postings evening sky. It wasn’t as light-polluted there as Postings Proper and the stars were actually visible. It was just shy of a full moon, and it had been years since I’d taken any sort of night dip in the pool, so I climbed out of bed, changed into my bathing suit, and left my room in the interest of a swim.
As I was passing Kyle’s bedroom door, it opened, and Brayden walked out. He was too busy trying to sneak that he didn’t notice me standing there until he turned and came face-to-face with me.
“Hi,” he said.
There were a thousand things I could have said in that moment, but it was clear Brayden still wasn’t comfortable with discussing his and Kyle’s relationship, so I settled for a simple, “Can’t sleep either?”
His face actually registered a little relief,then he leaned against the wall and shook his head. “No. I’ve been trying, but I just can’t make it happen.”
“Same here,” I said, then I motioned to myself in my bathing suit. “I’ve decided to wash my worries away in the pool. Wanna join me?”
Brayden and I had been far from besties before The Royal Court went through all its shit, and ever since I’d returned, we’d only spoken here and there out of necessity. We talked a bit more while Brayden was helping us try and find where Connor was dragging him off to. Since that turned into a dead end and we were relying more on other avenues, a passing comment was all either of us spared. Brayden was, however, a kindred spirit. Our torrid feelings for Nathan, whatever they were, had left us both in precarious positions, and with me trying to move into more of a sisterly position with him, and Brayden trying to back down to be a true best friend, we were both being awkward as hell around the man.
“Sure,” Brayden said. “I just have to change.”
He started off down the hallway and I followed, waiting outside his room while he quickly slipped in to get changed. A few minutes later he came back out, and we both walked down the stairs and out the back door to the pool. Instinctively, I headed towards the utility shed near the pool to crack on the lights and turn on the auto-heat, but then I noticed the glow of lights from the area already.
“Someone’s out here I think,” Brayden said.
We walked down the path to the pool and saw that there was already an occupant. Nikita was sitting on the edge of the pool’s deep end, just in front of the bar, with her feet in the water, flicking through her phone. When Brayden opened the gate to let us in, she looked up and tilted her head.
“Wow,” she said. “I don’t typically have visitors for late night dips.”
“Do you come out here often?” Brayden asked.
“Once a week I’d say. During the warm months anyway,” Nikita replied.
Brayden walked around to sit on the edge next to Nikita, while I opted to wade into the shallow end of the pool, grab one of the floating noodles, and swim to the deep end. I kept myself aloft with the noodle under my arms and splashed around in the warm water.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Nikita asked.
“I’m too anxious for tomorrow,” I said. “The fact that we may get an actual, solid lead on where Deon is has me on edge.”
“That makes sense,” Nikita said.
“You?” I asked.
Nikita shrugged. “I don’t sleep well in general. In a weird way, whenever we sleep in Nathan’s house instead of our room in the main house, I sleep worse. I think it’s because I’m constantly afraid I’m going to wake up to find you guys all dead or missing or something. Being at the pool gives me a clear shot of the house just in case.”
“I think that’s kind of my problem too,” Brayden said. He gave Nikita an awkward look, but decided to press on regardless. “You know, when Nathan’s not under the same roof it makes me nervous something’s going to happen when we’re not all around to help out.”
“I mean, Nikita could kick just about anyone’s ass,” I said.
Brayden nodded. “I know. Plus, he’s not all that weak himself, it’s just…” He kicked the water. “Old habits.”
“We’re a group, aren’t we?” I said with a laugh. “We’re so fucking dysfunctional we can’t see straight.”
Nikita laughed. “Yeah, and I’m in therapy.”
“Maybe we need a good, old fashioned clearing of the air,” I said. Both Nikita and Brayden looked at me strangely, and I rolled my eyes. “Oh come on. Are we not going to acknowledge the big-ass, Nathan-shaped elephant in the room?”
They looked at each other, then back at me, and Brayden was the first to break, oddly enough. “Being around you two really freaks me out. I mean, I was so jealous of you, Cherri. Then I was jealous of Nikita. I’m not really all that jealous at all anymore, but I don’t know how to get my mind off of it, you know? It’s like…” He looked at me. “We’re clearing the air, right?”
I swished around in the water. “Let it out.”
“I hated you. I mean, I fucking hated you. Whenever Nathan would be trying to run around behind your back, even though I knew it was because he didn’t really have feelings for you, I encouraged it. I wanted to torpedo your relationship.”
“That’s not really news to me,” I said.
He shrugged. “Then he started going out with Nikki, and I was happy for him, but I had these feelings too.” I could see Nikita sitting as still as I was. It was the most open about his feelings Brayden had ever been, at least with anyone other than Kyle. “I don’t really think I feel that way anymore, but still when he walks into a room my heart… does the thing.”
“Maybe you still do have feelings?” Nikita said.
Brayden shook his head. “I don’t, though. Nathan was like… the one who helped me realize it, but now…” His voice faded away.
“Kyle?” I said.
Brayden’s hands came up to his face. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
Nikita smiled widely. “That’s awesome.”
“I’m so scared though. Like, terrified.”
“True love is scary,” I said. “Right Nikki?”
Nikita rolled her eyes. “Horrifying. Seriously. It fucking sucks.”
We shared a quiet laugh and a moment of mutual understanding for one another. “Can I tell you something else, Brayden? My heart still does the thing too.”
Both Brayden and Nikita looked over at me. “Really?” Nikita asked.
“Yeah. For four years he was my boyfriend. I always stood closest to him or would kiss him or whatever. I’m still very drawn to him, just not romantically. I think that’s why my stomach gives out a little, because I don’t know how to reconcile what I want our relationship to be with what it used to be.”
“Yeah!” Brayden yelped. “That’s it exactly.”
“I’ve talked to him about it, and I think you should too. Trust me, he’ll be super understanding,” I said.
“Plus, he loves you,” Nikita said. “Not that way, but he really does. You two were so close, and the wedge between you now, he feels it and talks about it often. I know it’d make him feel so much better if you guys could take steps back towards where you used to be.” Nikita looked at me. “You too.”
Something between relief and excitement filled the space between us. “Yeah.”
“And maybe if you do that, you two can stop being so goddamn weird with me,” Nikita said. “I want to be friends with you guys, for real.” Then Nikita’s eyes widened and she looked over at me. “Oh my god, you know what I just realized?”
“What?”
“If I end up with Nathan, and you end up with Deon, which I think is where we’re headed, we’ll be sisters-in-law.”
“Oh shit! That’s true!” I splashed the water out of pure excitement. “I’ve always wanted a sister!”
“Can I have a really big role in your weddings?” Brayden asked. “For friendship reasons, but mostly because I like attention.”
I started to laugh. “Fuck. I nearly forgot what a tool you are.”
“You can be my ring bearer,” Nikita said.
“Oh!” I clapped my hands. “You can be my flower girl!”
Brayden pointed at me. “Yes!!”
“You’re right. That’s so much better than mine. Start practicing,” Nikita said.
Brayden kicked his legs in the water. “I’m actually so excited.”
The rest of the morning was a downright delight. None of us made any attempt to go back to our rooms to go to sleep and just committed ourselves to sleeping when we’re dead. After some coaxing, Nikita and Brayden eventually got in the pool and we hung out and talked until the sun came up.
It was amazing.
I’d gotten to know them so little because of the obvious barriers between us, but those things didn’t exist anymore, and it turned out we had much more than Nathan in common. When I finally realized it was after seven, we got out of the pool and broke apart briefly, only long enough to get dressed, and met back down in the kitchen just as the daily breakfast foods were being delivered. We continued to laugh and talk as everyone else filed down, and then in no time at all, the moment had arrived to drive to the prison.
“So, who all is going?” Alistair asked.
“Well, I could go,” Nathan said. “I know I can’t go in, but—”
“Actually,” I looked at Nikita and Brayden, “I think I’ll have Nikki and Brayden come with me.”
Everyone else exchanged confused looks, including Sicily, who’d spent the night and was pretty much planning on going.
“Uh,” Nathan looked at Nikita. “I guess?”
“Yeah. I’m there for you,” Nikita said with a smile. “Sisters stick together, right?”
I nodded. “Right.”
“And flower girls,” Brayden said, and the three of us burst out laughing.
Alistair raised his hand. “Is anyone else uncomfortable?”
“You good?” Kyle asked. “To go, I mean?”
Brayden turned and looked at Kyle and gave him a warm, inviting smile. Kyle’s face lit up at it, his own eyes sparkling. “Yeah. Cherri needs me, so I’m gonna go.”
“O-okay,” Kyle said. “Great.”
Brazenly, Nikita reached across the island and gave Brayden a high five, and then Avery raised her hand alongside Alistair. “Yep. I’m uncomfortable.”
“Too bad,” I said. “We’re all fucking friends now. So deal with it. Let’s go, guys.”
Nikita and Brayden stood up from their spots and followed me towards the front door. The last thing we heard before we left was Colette. “Never a predictable day around The Royal Court.”
I smiled, confident with Nikita and Brayden by my side.
No, there was not.
22
Cherri
Approaching the prison where Deon had been locked up for four years just to protect me was daunting to say the least. Even with Nikita and Brayden sticking close to me, the giant, imposing, cement facade and barbed fence encircling it made me want to turn tail and run. Deon spoke very highly of Venom, but there was absolutely no guarantee that he was as kind as he’d said. Maybe he cared about Deon, but he had no reason to talk to or be kind to me at all.
My heart thundered as we walked through the doors at the front of the building, and we were immediately met with the sight of dozens of people waiting for the visiting hours. There were single parents, both moms and dads, with children running around them while they waited. Elderly parents or maybe even grandparents, and a handful of isolated teenagers like us who appeared to have shown up to see a relative of some sort.
Nikita, Brayden and I must have looked incredibly out of place, because they all looked up and zeroed in on us. Some of them whispered to one another, and then some of the people who didn’t appear to be there together, turned and looked at each other and nodded off towards us. Probably several of those people, whether they knew one another or not, were used to seeing each other at visiting hours, and we were new.
“Over here I think,” Nikita said.
We turned right from the front door and walked over to a high counter with bulletproof plexiglass separating us from the uniformed people on the other side. We walked up to the counter and the man at the window we approached looked us up and down. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah, we’re here to visit someone,” I said.
“Are you registered for visits?” he asked.
“I am,” I said, grateful that Avery had realized an application was necessary to visit inmates and helped me fill it out after we made the plan to come.
“Which inmate are you visiting?” he said.
I looked at Nikita and Brayden as my heart sank.
I didn’t know his name.
Deon always called the man he was aided by ‘Venom,’ but I assumed that wasn’t the name on his birth certificate. “Um,” I said. “I only know his nickname?”
The officer crossed his arms. “If you don’t have a legal name, how am I supposed to know who to call to come down?”
That was a fantastic question. Still, Deon had made it seem like Venom had his run of the place. Maybe they’d know him by name. “His name, or the one I’ve always known him by, is Venom.”
Behind the glass, the officer took a step back. He looked left and right at the other officers behind the counter, then he looked back at me. “What’s your name?”
“Cherri,” I said.
He looked at the female officer to his left and nodded, and she put up a ‘Be Right Back’ placard at her window and disappeared behind a door behind her. The cop looked at us, keeping a curious gaze on us, but said nothing. Had I made a mistake name-dropping Venom? His nickname was probably listed alongside his real name in some public record, somewhere. Why didn’t I think to look it up first?
We didn’t let the tension scare us and stayed standing in place. At one point, I must have been shivering and didn’t know it, because Brayden pulled off his zip-up hoodie and slung it around my arms. I smiled at him and Nikita rubbed my back. Even if Avery and Sicily had come with me, I wasn’t sure they’d have offered the same kind of support Brayden and Nikita were. The fact that we weren’t all that close kept them from doing too much. They just offered quiet support, which was exactly the kind I needed.
After what felt like an hour, but had only been around twenty minutes, the female officer came back. She pulled the officer we were dealing with back, and whispered something to him. He nodded at her, then turned around and faced us. He grabbed a clipboard with a paper on it, scribbled something on it, and then slid it through the window to me.
“Fill this out. I’ve already done the inmate name for you. Do you have an ID?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay. When you turn that form back in, you have to give me your ID too. I’ll hold it while you visit and return it when you’re done.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I grabbed the clipboard, and filled out all of the necessary information, then I pulled out my ID, clipped it to the clipboard and slid both the form and the ID back. I took a note of the inmate name on the paper before sliding it back.
The man I was there to see was Garrett Williams.
“Find a spot to sit and wait for the guard to call for visiting hours. You’ll have to go through the metal detector and you can’t take anything with you. No phone, no keys, no wallet, no nothing. I’d give that hoodie back. You’ll be cold back there, but deal. We don’t like baggy clothes here.”
“Fine,” I said. “Thank you.”
We went and found a couple of open seats and I handed my cell phone, wallet, and keys over to Nikita and returned Brayden’s hoodie. We waited for about thirty minutes, then a gu
ard came and stood at a door to the left of the room. The regulars must have recognized him, because a representative for each group started standing before he said anything, and as they were lining up he called out, “Line up for visiting hours!”
“Okay,” Nikita said to me. “We’re right out here. Good luck.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
Brayden gave my hand a squeeze as I stood up and left them behind to get in line. One cop was standing on our side of the door, that, when opened, gave me a clear view of the metal detector on the other side, behind which a cop was standing with another, handheld metal detector.
“Remember, folks. Visiting time is one hour long. You sit across from your loved one and talk using the phone. Any attempt to tamper with the glass, phone, chair, or booth will result in immediate termination of all visitation rights for the duration of your inmate’s stay.”
For a moment, I imagined visiting Deon while he was there. How I’d be one of the people in line ahead of me, moving on memory, used to doing this all already. I was glad that Deon and I reconnected after, even if I was sad to have been separated from him all those years. If it would have helped him at all, I would have visited him.
But thank god it didn’t come to that.
Once we were through the metal detectors, the same female officer who’d helped me earlier appeared from a door and led us down a long hallway. We entered a totally cement room with about a dozen seating booths lined along the center of the room. Plexiglass separated our side from the other side, and dividers separated each booth from the next one over. Each booth only had one chair, and I hesitated in the door, wondering if I needed to go to a specific booth, but everyone appeared to just be sitting down, so I went to the booth way at the end and sat down.
A loud buzzer echoed through the room, and a door at the end of the other side we were separated from opened and a different officer led in inmates who were cuffed at their wrists and ankles. They sat down at the booths as they passed the ones they were meant to be at, and I watched as one man’s eyes locked on me. He wasn’t as tall as I had imagined, but he was twice as built. His arms looked like he could punch right through the concrete if he wanted to, and his shoulders were so broad, they completely blocked out the view of anyone behind him. He had chocolate skin, and a bald head and walked with an overconfident swagger that made me feel like I wasn’t worthy of talking to him.
