But Inside I'm Screaming - Elizabeth Flock Mills & Boon M&B

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on and on like they know.” Keisha juts her chin in the direction of the smoker’s deck, Kristen and Ben.

      Isabel knows Keisha wants to be asked about herself but cannot summon the energy it would take to enter into any conversation, much less this one. She turns and looks out the window and hopes nothing will be required of her in what is threatening to be a social interaction.

      “That ain’t it!” Keisha says to the window, after hearing another fragment of Ben’s prattle. “Okay, you want to know what happened?” She is addressing Isabel.

      Did I say I wanted to know what happened?

      But Isabel is finding herself begrudgingly drawn to the edgy teenager.

      “I wasn’t walkin’ in the street, first of all,” Keisha begins without encouragement. “The police came and got me from my sister’s place when neighbors called 911. Hours, my ass. It wasn’t no hours passed. A few minutes, sure. Maybe, and this I’m not sure about, but maybe half an hour. But no hours, Lord. They talkin’ shit out there,” she says, again motioning with her chin to the gossiping patients outdoors.

      “Wow,” Kristen says, exhaling smoke and looking down. “Hey, Ben? How do you know all this?”

      “You think I’m a freak, Kristen.” Ben pouts. “You think you’re the only one who’s got a clue. You’re not, you know. I know stuff, too.”

      Isabel looks over her shoulder and past Keisha toward the nurses’ station to see if anyone cares that they are eavesdropping.

      “Ben,” Kristen says, trying to soothe him. “We’re buddies, right? It’s just…well…I’m a little surprised that you know all about this girl. I just want to know what you know, sweetie.”

      Isabel marvels at the fact that both Ben and Kristen are missing the point. She looks longingly at the driveway.

      “You teasin’ me now, Kristen? Huh? You a fuckin’ tease now?” Ben is getting red in the face. He stomps toward the door to the unit and Isabel busies herself with the old National Geographics stacked on a corner table next to the window in case he is headed her way.

      Kristen throws what little is left of her cigarette to the ground and steps on it just as a nurse with a clipboard brushes past Isabel and opens the door to the outside.

      “Hi, Kristen,” she says, making a mark on her notepaper. “Just doing the check.”

      Kristen smiles and shakes out another cigarette. “Hi.”

      The nurse lets the door close and sees Isabel and Keisha. More marks on the clipboard.

      “Hi, ladies. I’m just making the rounds.”

      Isabel and Keisha turn their attention back out to Kristen, who is now talking towards Melanie.

      “He said her name’s Keisha,” she is telling Melanie, “and she was raped for hours and hours and hours. They found her naked in the street. The police. That’s how she ended up here. I guess she was on some kind of suicide watch….”

      “See you later,” Isabel says as she slips past Keisha, who is emphatically shaking her head. As Isabel crosses the room Keisha mutters, “Bitch don’t know what she talkin’ about.”

      A few minutes later Isabel is willing sleep to visit her in the little airtight room at the end of the hall.

      Six

      “Erin Hayes has exhausted all her appeals and now waits for a last-minute reprieve from the Texas governor. Her legal team is not optimistic, given the state’s well-known record on stays of execution. Crowds have already begun to gather here outside the state penitentiary in Huntsville. Some will hold candlelight vigils, others say they’ll cheer if and when Hayes goes to the electric chair.”

      —Isabel Murphy, ANN News, Huntsville, Texas.

      An overripe banana was the only health food in the Huntsville 7-Eleven. Isabel picked it up, felt the oblong bruise running along its backside and wondered if she could make herself eat around it.

      “Is that it?” the cashier asked.

      “Yes,” Isabel replied while putting the brown banana back into the basket by the register. “That’s it.”

      “Three seventy-eight.”

      Isabel picked through her change purse for quarters but remembered she’d used all of them for laundry. “Cigarettes sure are cheap here.”

      “Where you from?” the cashier asked politely, though Isabel thought she saw a bit of a sneer.

      “New York.”

      The cashier smiled as if she’d won a bet and made change from the five-dollar bill. “Have a nice day.”

      “Thanks,” said Isabel, shaking her Snapple. “By the way, could you tell me how far to the Motel 6?”

      “It’s about four miles from the prison gates. Two stop lights.” She was already ringing up the next customer.

      Before getting back into the rental car Isabel popped the safety seal on the Snapple and took a long swig. She balanced the glass bottle on the roof of the car while she opened her Marlboro Lights, turning her back to the highway to block the wind from passing trucks. After several failed attempts, she finally managed to light her first cigarette of the day.

      Breakfast.

      “This is one remote outpost,” Tom said, barreling out of the 7-Eleven, his camera equipment rattling against his back. “How does a 7-Eleven not have a Slurpee machine?”

      “I think the better question is, Who wants a Slurpee at 6:00 a.m.?”

      “Says the girl with the Snapple and cigarettes.”

      “At least I’ve gotten my fruit in.”

      “Ex-squeeze me?”

      “It’s raspberry iced tea Snapple. And raspberries are a super food. High in vitamin C. Or maybe it’s A. Vitamin A. I’m pretty sure it’s A.”

      “Guess you should be a personal trainer instead of a reporter. You’re one healthy chick.”

      “Says the guy choking down a ninety-nine-cent heart attack. I’m guessing there’s some sort of sausage ingredient in it, judging by the hieroglyphic grease markings on that waxed paper.”

      “That’s affirmative. Sausage-cheese biscuit,” Tom said with a full mouth. “Want a bite?”

      Tom lowered himself into the car and Isabel stepped on her cigarette and got back behind the wheel.

      “Tom?” Her tone serious.

      “Isabel?” His tone joking.

      “Seriously. About last night.” She shifted uncomfortably.

      “Forget it.”

      “No, I want to say this.” Isabel cleared her throat. “I drank way too much. I know that. I just…I mean…I just really…oh, God.”

      “Hey. Colonel. It’s me.”

      “I know, I know. It’s just that my life is going way too fast. And then I feel this pressure thing up here at my temples and I see spots and I go blank. It’s like I’m spiraling or something. Do you ever feel that way? Don’t you ever want to slow it all down so you can think, really think for a minute? I never mean to get out of control like that. I don’t plan it. God, listen to me. I just want you to know that I’m really grateful to you for taking such good care of me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

      “There’d be no one for the bartender to call to carry your ass home, that’s what you’d do without me.”

      Isabel winced with the memory.

      “I’ve been there, believe me,” Tom said. “I’m no one to

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