Free Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready

all about me.” My voice stays as cold as my skin feels. “You have no idea.”
    “Maybe. But I never will, if you chicken out.” He turns off the water, then towels his hands dry. “We’ll call today sick leave, with pay, even though it’s Saturday. It’s the least I can do.”
    “The least you can do is leave.”
    “Before I do, can I fix you something to eat?” He opens the refrigerator. “Oh.” His voice echoes in the emptiness. “Maybe I should get us some bagels.”
    My stomach growls without my permission, and I stuff the blanket against it. After the things he said, after what he’s trying to manipulate me into—damn it, I’m hungry.
    “Egg and cheese on sesame seed.”
    He rubs his hands together. “Good. Be right back.”
    “Cheddar cheese. And sausage. Sun-dried tomato if they don’t have sesame seed. If they do, I’ll take one of each. And a large coffee, three sugars. The Kenyan blend, if they have it.”
    I hear David murmur, “Students,” under his breath as he leaves.
    The moment he’s out the front door, I limp to the hall closet. I yank my suitcase from beneath a fallen coat and unzip the flap.
    “Shit on a stick.”
    Time was, I had a bag packed with all the essentials so I could skedaddle in five minutes flat. I was Ready. TheDepartment of Homeland Security would have held me up as the paragon of preparedness.
    The suitcase still contains my important papers, of which a person like me has very few. But over the last year I’ve raided it for underwear, shirts, and crackers when I’ve run low on laundry and groceries.
    Comfort begets contentment. Contentment begets complacency. Complacency begets carelessness. My folks taught me that family tree even before King David through Jesus. But the crowds only heard me recite the latter.
    I haul the nearly empty suitcase into my room. A handful of clothes from each drawer should cover it. A trip to the bathroom with a wrinkled shopping bag gives me a month’s worth of toiletries. I dash back to the bedroom, fast as the pain will allow. As my feet slip into my kindest pair of jeans, I’m suddenly glad there are no pets to leave behind.
    My CDs lie scattered on the shabby rug, where Shane left them last night.
    I remember the look on his face as he organized them, like something else had a hold of him. It wasn’t his choice to put Peter Gabriel before Godsmack. He was in the grip of something that was carrying him farther and farther from this world.
    I turn away from the stereo. Why should I care?
    Car keys lie on my desk next to the computer monitor. As I grab them, something snags my memory. A small thing that shackles my feet.
    If I leave now, I’ll never get it back.
    Without sitting down, I slam the space bar to wake the computer out of standby. The monitor blurts to life toshow my e-mail reader, where the M folder stands in bold with a “1” after it. I click.

Ciara honey,

I told you they’d let me have Internet access again if I was a good girl. If there’s one thing I excel at, it’s being a good girl. I trust the same can still be said of you
.

Did I tell you about the picture I have of you?Ikeep it wedged into my cellmate’s box spring so I can see it last thing before lights-out
.

In the picture you’re seven or eight—when your hair was so blonde, it made a halo when you stood in the sunlight. You’re wearing your pink Easter dress, showing off your new Bible. You remember the white one with your name in gold letters, the one with all the tho’us and thees in it? Back then, proper people still ‘used the King James
.
    My body grows heavy, but I don’t sit down.

The picture’s not square, because I had to tear out the legs of people walking by in the background. People ready for miracles
.

I miss the miracles, Ciara. We don’t get many of them in here
.

Let me know if your father contacts you. Let me know if he doesn’t. Phase just let me know anything. That you’re still okay, even though I know it’s