She Sends Kisses

 

 

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Part Thirteen: The Good That Won't Come Out

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All of the good that won't come out of me

And all the stupid lies I hide behind

It's such a big mistake, lying here in your warm embrace

- Rilo Kiley, The Good That Won't Come Out

 

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Buffy's POV

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A few weeks later, we lay in bed again. This time, Faith is laying on her side, closest to the wall, and I lay on my side in front of her with her arm wrapped protectively over my waist. Someone convinced the guards to turn on the radio and the faint sounds of an Avril Lavigne remix make their way into the cell, causing Faith to groan every time the chorus starts again.

"Just end it already, jesus," she grunts, pulling up the second pillow and putting it over her face.

I roll onto my back with a grin. "Not a big Avril fan, I take it?"

She pulls the pillow back just enough to glare at me. "I may have to kill again."

I laugh a little, despite myself, and look up at the underside of the top bunk. The mattresses--if you can really even call them that--have this strange black and white pattern, almost like what the chef's pants look like, and it's hypnotizing after awhile. Like one of those Magic Eye pictures, where you have to cross your eyes to see the picture.

I keep looking, but all I see is a mattress with an annoying pattern.

Faith shifts and rests against my side, and I close my eyes, relaxing. If I have to spend the next ten years of my life in this hellhole, this is really the only way to do it. The only way I'd survive it. Having someone I can count on, which, it turns out, Faith is.

Who knew?

"Summers?" a voice calls from the common area. I lift my head and frown. "Buffy Summers. 598439."

I look back at Faith, who motions me forward. I get up and walk out of the cell, to the common room, and clear my throat. "I'm Buffy Summers."

The guard eyes me up and down, like he thinks I'm lying to him. "You've got a meeting with Thomas."

Oh. Right.

I follow him through a maze of hallways, and he keeps one eye on me until we get to the warden's office. "We're meeting here?" I ask him.

He shrugs. "This paper says you are." He doesn't show me the paper, but he opens the door and sure enough, Thomas is in there. With the warden.

Well, this can't be good.

 

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Faith's POV

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I guess I pass out for awhile when Buffy leaves, because when I wake up, she's back, curled onto her side and facing away from me. I stretch a little, trying to stay quiet in case she's sleeping, too.

"I want a tattoo," she says, rolling onto her back and looking at me, very much awake.

I frown a little, furrowing my brows. "Who are you?"

"I mean it. I've always wanted one, and by the time I get out of here and get one, my skin will be all saggy and gross and it won't look right."

I sit up, 'cause this is just a little too much to handle laying down. "You're planning to be all saggy by your early thirties?"

"Mhm." she nods.

"You know they'd flip the fuck out if they catch us, right? Getting caught doing tats is pretty much one of the worst things you can be busted for. Comes right after breaking out and dealing."

She shrugs. "Then we don't get caught. Please?"

I sigh and scoot down to the foot of the bed, sliding off it. "Give me five."

I take off without waiting for an answer, and head down the block a few cells, knocking on the bars of one of the cells.

"Yo?" comes a voice from under the bed. A skinny girl with a shaved head, who everyone calls Bubbles for some reason, pops out from under it. "Damn, you managed to pull yourself away from Jailbird Barbie long enough to pay me a visit? To what do I owe the occasion?"

I shrug and lean against the bars. "Got a need."

"Don't we all." She pulls a cigarette from behind her ear and lights it.

"Looking for a lighter, pen, needle," I glance pointedly at the lighter in her hand.

She smirks, crossing her legs indian-style on the bed and laughing a little. "The lovebirds gettin' matching ink?" I shrug, cause she doesn't really give a shit what the answer is. "I might have some stuff. Depends what you got for me."

I reach into my tanktop and pull a little key out from between my breasts. Figured my sticky fingers would come in handy sometime. I dangle it for her, and she looks scandalized. "What's it open?"

"Pantry. All you can eat Coke and cupcakes, whenever you want." She goes to grab it, and I pull it out of her reach. "Not so fast. We both know this key is worth a shitload more than some tat supplies." Mostly because it gives her more shit to barter.

"Knew there was a catch. What do you want?"

"Your undying gratitude. And a raincheck."

"Raincheck?" Bubbles furrows her brows. "What's that?"

"Means I might come up to you on some random rainy Tuesday and want an umbrella or something, you get me?"

She nods and pretends to jot something down on her palm. "I owe Faith a favor. Now gimme the key, bitch." I toss it at her and she reaches into the mattress of the top bunk and pulls out a baggie with a sewing needle, a ballpoint pen, and a lighter in it, tossing it back to me. "Pleasure doin' business with you."

I check the baggie and nod before turning around and heading back to my cell.

 

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Buffy's POV

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"How does it look?" I ask worriedly.

Faith rolls her eyes. "For the millionth time, it's beautiful. Which you'd know, if you could see it. Which you could, if you hadn't made me put it on the back of your neck."

I sigh. "I told you, I can hide it better there if someday I have a job that.. frowns on prison tattoos and ex-cons in general."

"Why would anyone frown on that?" she asks with a smirk, laying back on the bed. I study her for a minute, replaying the conversation in the warden's office in my head yet again. Before I even know I've decided to, I lean over and kiss her deeply, and she gasps in surprise before cupping her hand over the back of my head and responding.

I kiss her like I've never kissed anyone in my life, except maybe Angel, when I thought he was leaving for six months to trek across the world with an arm in a box. When I didn't know if I'd ever see him again.

She pulls back after a few minutes, taking a deep breath. "What.."

I just look at her, and I feel my eyes starting to well up. "Something happened, Faith."

Faith's brows knit in confusion. "You kissed me."

"No.. I mean, yes. Yeah, I did. I just.. before that. Um, when I went.. to see Thomas."

She sits up immediately, her entire body tensing into battle mode. "What did he do to you?"

I shake my head quickly, the tears threatening to escape. "No, it's.. not like that. We uh, met in the warden's office. He said.. I don't know. Something happened, and.. and Warren, remember I told you about him?" She nods a little. "Well.. it turns out.. um. He killed Katrina. And, uh.. framed me."

Her face pales a little. "He.. what?"

I swallow hard. "They're releasing me, Faith."

Her mouth opens, then closes again, and she rubs the bridge of her nose a little. "I--I don't understand. You're.. leaving?" I nod, and the tears start running down my cheeks. Her face tightens a little. "What.. the hell was that, then? What was that kiss, and that stupid tattoo? Some way of.. what? Easing the blow for me or something?"

I look away from her, focusing my eyes on the wall across from the bed. "So you'd know I'm not leaving you. This.. this doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything, B!" she cries out. "I mean, jesus. Of course I'm happy you get to go and live your life, and that you're all.. back to being better than me again. But, fuck, B. How can you think this doesn't change things?"

"It doesn't!" I insist, slapping my hand against the bed. "I still feel the same way about you, and.. and it's gonna be different now! I'mgonna come see you, and.. and when you get out, we'll be together again, and we can just.. pick up right where we left off."

She laughs, but it's a hard laugh. "Yeah, sure. I'm sure you'll go back to your life and hang out for the next ten or twenty years for me to finish up here."

"I will!"

"You won't," she snaps. "And it's just plain fucked up that you.. you kiss me, and get me feeling this way, and then just.. pull the rug out from under me! That was so unfair!"

"I'm sorry," my voice breaks. "I couldn't leave without.. you knowing."

Her eyes harden to stone. "When?"

I close my eyes, trying to maintain control. "Um. Pretty much now. They.. They gave me an hour to pack up my stuff."

She laughs again, her face ashen, and gets up, pacing back and forth.

It seems like hours before she talks again. "You're not packed," she points out.

I shrug. "Nothing I really need."

"Yeah, I'll say," she mutters under her breath.

"Faith, plea--"

"Just go!" she turns to face me, raising her voice. "Just get out already!"

"There a problem here?" I look up and a guard is standing outside the cell with a clipboard. Faith just leans against the bars dejectedly, ignoring him, and he turns to me. "We've just got a bunch of forms for you to sign, and then you're free."

I nod and stand up. "Faith.."

"Just go," she says softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

I lower my head, feeling myself break a little as I walk out of the cell for the last time. I start slowly down the hallway with the guard, each step a little closer to freedom.

I look back to see her, expecting her to be out of sight, to have climbed into the bed we shared for so long, cursing my name. But there she is, watching me through the bars with a nonchalant face, but her eyes betray her. She looks destroyed, and I mouth 'I love you' at her, but she just watches me hollowly until we turn the corner and walk through the metal doors, the little "B & F" in Faith's handwriting on the back of my neck still stinging.

It's funny how freedom can make you feel so caged.

 

The end.