“Did what?” I ask, truly confused.
My heart pains for her when she leans over to open a drawer next to her hospital bed. Her face isn’t the only thing beaten up, so are her arms and torso.
“Who hurt you?” I ask when she hands me a compact mirror.
She tugs her nightwear in close to her body to hide her many bruises before lowering her eyes to her shoeless feet. “No one. I’m very clumsy. I often fall.”
I want to reply, headfirst into a fist by the looks of it, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m not one to judge. I look just as bad as her, except my cuts and bruises can’t be hidden with makeup. I’d need to grind out the stitches and staples running down my forehead first, and even then, I doubt the world’s highest-rated concealer would help.
The only good to come from my battered and bloody appearance is the knowledge I can stop bleaching my hair. Its natural red coloring doesn’t seem as bad as it did when I was a child. It gives me a unique edge not many women have.
It also may be the only way I can take the focus off the scar running down my forehead.
While licking my lips to soothe their deep cracks, I toss the compact back to the brunette’s side of our room. I’d walk it over to her like she did me, but since I’m cuffed to my bed, I can’t.
With that in mind, I ask, “If I’m so dangerous, why do I have a roommate?”
Her blue eyes widen to the size of saucers. “Umm…”
When she forcefully swallows, the truth smacks into me hard and fast. “We’re not in a standard hospital room, are we?”
She only shakes her head for a second, but it’s long enough for me to deserve the title of a mental patient. I scream like I’m in the process of being murdered while thrashing against the cuffs like I’ll have the strength to break out of them. I don’t. I’m too weak and pathetic for that, but my many pledges that I’m not insane does allow some clarity to form.
“We’re not in a mental hospital,” the brunette assures, pacing back to my side of the room. “We’re in a special wing of a hospital. A guarded wing.” Her next set of words take her nearly ten seconds to articulate. “It’s where they put criminals awaiting trial.”
“I’m not a criminal…” I stop talking when the first part of our conversation replays in my ears.
‘They said you murdered someone.’
‘That you cut him up into little pieces because he hurt you.’
“Who died?” I’m shocked I can talk with how hard fear is clutching my throat. Surely, I’m dreaming. This can’t be real.
The brunette rushes a spew bag to my side of our room when her reply makes me heave. She didn’t say any random old name. She said my boyfriend’s name—his full name. Eduardo Emanuel Cordova.
“I didn’t kill Eddie. I’d never hurt him,” I blubber out through violent sobs. “I loved him…” My words fall short when the deceit in my tone reaches my ears. I cared for Eddie, but it was nothing close to love.
I raise my watering eyes to the mystery brunette. “What happened?” When she drags over a chair, preparing to settle in for the long haul, I ask a second almost just as important question, “And why am I the only one cuffed?”
Chapter Nine
Roxanne
Who knew straight-up murder rates higher than a measly manslaughter charge? My ex-roommate drove her car headfirst into a cypress tree with her abusive boyfriend in the passenger seat, however she only faced a manslaughter charge. I was ‘allegedly’ rundown by my boyfriend before being run over by him. Then, miraculously, I somehow got myself to his apartment two towns over from where I was left to die to, I quote, “Torture the complainant over a six-hour period.” End quote.
Six. Hours.
That was the hole in my defense that had me transferred from the criminal wing of Erkinsvale Private Hospital to a standard ward. I was found in an ambulance bay by a medic going out to have a cigarette a little after one in the morning. Surveillance footage from my assault proves it occurred just after dusk. Despite wishing I was able to torture Eddie for six hours, it wasn’t possible for me to be in two places at once, hence the reason my charges were dropped.
Do I feel bad about what happened to Eddie? Yeah, in a way. I’m more remorseful for his family than him. They have nothing going for them and will most likely never get off welfare, but they didn’t deserve to lose their son the way they did.
I reached out to them a couple of weeks ago to offer my sympathies. When I got an automated message saying their number is no longer in service, I sent them a letter instead. Having their services cut is nothing out of the ordinary for the Cordovas.
“Are you ready?”
Ignoring the apprehension swishing in my stomach, I raise my eyes to my rock the past three months. My best friend, Estelle, grew up in the housing estate next to my nanna’s ranch. With my grandparents refusing to sell no matter how elaborate the offer, housing developments popped up all around them. Now they have the only ten-acre block left in this area of Erkinsvale.
The executor in charge of my grandparents’ will said I could make an impressive profit if I were willing to sell their decades of hard work. Sadly for him and his commission-seeking cousin, I missed my nanna’s funeral because I was in a coma, so the last thing I’ll ever do is see her legacy bulldozed.
She loved and took care of me when no one else would. Then she died alone.
I can’t forgive myself for that.
The injuries that placed me in a coma for a month weren’t my fault, but I do blame them for my nanna’s death. She had told me time and time again that Eddie was no good. If I had listened, she wouldn’t have been out searching for me when I failed to make curfew, and then she wouldn’t have been knocked down a ravine by a drunk driver.
Mistaking my remorseful face as sympathy for Eddie, Estelle says, “Don’t look so glum, Roxie. You survived for a reason.” I roll my eyes when she chuckles out, “We just need to find out why that is.” That’s just like her. Even when we should be blowing snot bubbles out of our nose while in the throes of despair, she finds humor in every situation.
When I take a right out of the hospital room I’ve called my home the past three months, Estelle wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Nu-uh. Claudia isn’t there anymore, remember?”
My sigh is soundless, but Estelle still hears it. My ex-roommate wasn’t as lucky as me. Even with numerous witnesses saying they saw Claudia’s boyfriend’s hand on the steering wheel in the lead up to their crash, prosecutors pushed forward with their case. Claudia will give birth to her son in prison since she was served three years for involuntary manslaughter last week.
“We could visit her next weekend?”
I raise my eyes to my best friend, loving that she can read me like no one else. “Yeah?”
She bumps me with her hip, causing me to smile. “Yeah. You know me, always open for a three-hour drive to a maximum-security women’s prison.”
“How could you not when you say it like that?”
Laughing, she breaks away from my side to open the passenger side door of her beat-up Honda for me. Her car is a total write-off, but she loves it as much as she loves me. Nothing screams freedom like your own set of wheels. I’m hoping to scrounge up enough money for my own sometime this year.