Page 7 of The Sharpest Edges

When Nick finally shows up, it’s with the telltale sign of donut powder still on his lips, whisking Dean away and back down the hall again.

Ava’s already thinking about their next visit while scolding herself for looking forward to it.

* * *

When she gets home later that night, she exits the mundane Ford Escape she drives to and from work and takes two steps to the left in her driveway, putting herself directly behind the cherry-red Spider. Sleek lines and curved edges stare back at her. The front hood is a slightly darker shade of red, a replacement part for the one crushed like a tin can, but therest looks brand new. Shiny and proud, a ball and chain fixed to her ankle.

She is flooded with equal parts disdain and affection for the hunk of metal she can’t seem to part with. Everything in her screams to sell it. She’ll never be able to move on if she can’t rid herself of tangible memories like this. Easier said than done, though. She’s stuck in a weird limbo that keeps her tending to this thing, repairing and restoring it, and emptying her bank account in the process. Keeping the car they died in is a form of spite toward her late husband John and reverence for her late daughter Charlotte.

Her obsession with it is completely fucked up and she’s well aware that what she actually needs is years worth of therapy, not this pretty red car filled with ghosts.

That doesn’t stop her from pulling out her phone, popping open the hood, and snapping a few pictures of the inner workings. She’s breaking a dozen rules that could get her fired just by talking to Dean about this car, let alone taking photos that she’ll show him later. It’s harmless though. She’s not showing him her license plate, not snapping pictures of anything scandalous, only a cluster of metal innards and that hardly feels like a big deal at all. It’s something she can rationalize away easily enough.

She still doesn’t know what landed Dean in jail, but she would be surprised if it were a serious crime. Wouldn’t be entertaining this otherwise, wouldn’t feel that slight tug toward him if he were a murderer or rapist. A self-deprecating huff leaves her as she walks into her house and locks the door behind her. She’s the worst judge of character, always has been. She married John, after all. Thought he was a good man when they first met. Thought he loved her. Thought he wasgentle.

Still, no matter how she tries, she can’t picture Dean hurting anyone. Even knowing as little as she does about him, that image doesn’t compute. She almost asked him today what crime he committed, but that felt too heavy a thing considering how down he was, like he could collapse onto the bed and sleep for a week.

He’d perked up when they talked about the car and his excitement, however subdued, had prompted the smallest hint of the same in her. It’s a foreign emotion by now, one she isn’t sure she likes or deserves, but there it is anyway, festering in her gut without her permission. Excitement. Not about the car. Her view of that thing is far too complicated to allow something so positive to blossom, but she felt it for him. Felt it for the possibility of having something they can talk about during their visits that doesn’t involve sewer water or broken toes.

In the end, she is glad to offer him a distraction, even if only for a little while, and grateful to have one herself.

Her friend Lori’s voice already whispers disapprovingly in the background of her mind, telling her that she’s a few steps away from being that woman in a Lifetime movie who digs a hole through the prison basement to help an inmate escape. Ridiculous, of course. But she’d never hear the end of it, so she won’t be sharing anything about Dean with Lori when she has dinner with her and her husband Greg tomorrow.

She’s not doing anything wrong. Not in the grand scheme of things and a lecture from the people who helped her get this job in the first place, when she had so few options and nothing but desperation, is the last thing she feels like sitting through. Without them, she might still be a jobless widow,out of the workforce for well over a decade at age thirty seven. She won’t risk them regretting the leg up they’ve given her.

None of this means anything, anyway. Ava tells herself that at least three times as she grabs a frozen dinner from the fridge and heats it in the microwave.

It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything. It absolutely does not mean anything.

She has never been less convincing.

4

Chapter 4

Dean cringes as another round of chaos echoes off the walls.

He hadn’t been kidding when he told Ava that he couldn’t sleep because this place is never quiet. What he neglected to mention was that it’s been intentional.

A group of the others, Walt and a few of his hanger-ons have taken to taunting another inmate and keeping him awake at all hours. They bang against the bars and make a general ruckus and when they bore of that one of them produces a small radio. Dean is convinced it’s contraband, but either way, they crank it up when the lights go out, placing it just outside the cell of the man they’ve got in their crosshairs.

Walt’s group has earplugs. The rest of them don’t.

Dean isn’t sure why they’re harassing not only this one guy, but by extension anyone else within hearing range, but Clyde keeps telling him to mind his business.

‘Don’t question them. Don’t start anything. If you get on the wrong side of that group again, you’ll have worse things to worry about than not sleeping well.’

His ribs and broken toe are a slowhealing, persistent reminder of how easily they’d taken him down. Still, he is curious. More than he should be, but the lack of anything else to do, coupled with the fact that this harassment is on his own doorstep every time the music blares, makes him wonder.

He nudges his good foot up against the mattress above him, calling out to Clyde, who isn’t getting a wink of sleep either. “How long is this shit gonna go on?”

He’s only loud enough to get the other man’s attention, not eager to raise suspicion to the others.

A moment later, Clyde’s red hair peeks over the edge of the bed. “Until whenever that poor bastard agrees, I guess. Told ya not to worry about it. Just mind yours and keep ya head down. If you’re lucky, they’ll skip right over you like they did me.”

“Skip over me?”

Clyde nods. “Yeah. They don’t bother everyone, but some get special treatment. They want him to join up. Be one of them.”

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