Love or Money - Elizabeth Roderick Page 0,3

been denying for months, suddenly crept in full force: it probably wasn’t going to happen.

Riel bit back a fresh wave of grief. Make yourself a new life. But how? It didn’t even seem like she had the raw material to start with. She’d worked hard to get her GED while in prison, but Isaias had made sure she had no real work experience and no friends. Would he even allow her to get a job or her own apartment? Or would it be the same shit as before she’d been arrested?

She wiped her eyes again and took the sheet of paper about probation, following another guard down a hallway.

The guard gave Riel a bundle of street clothes her sister Lizette had brought in: a pair of jeans, her favorite red shirt. She smiled looking at them as the guard locked her in a holding cell to change. The clothes were like old friends she’d almost forgotten about. Lizette had also brought in brand new hipster panties and a cute, purple lace pushup bra. Riel put the underwear on and looked down at her body, running a finger along the cleft between her breasts. It was good to have something on besides granny underwear, to feel sexy again. Riel imagined the look on Marissa’s face if her girlfriend could see her now. Marissa would put her hands inside her bra and pull her breasts free, take each nipple in her mouth, slowly slide the panties down around her ankles.

Riel sniffed and rubbed her swollen eyes, angrily pushing the thought aside.

She got dressed. The jeans were too big; they slipped down to the middle of her hips. The food had been horrible, and she’d also spent a lot of time in the gym letting off steam, so she’d been one of the few women who ended up losing weight in prison.

She sat down on the hard, wooden bench to wait. The cell was cold and windowless. She hugged her knees and watched the fluorescent lights flicker. It felt weird to be dressed in regular clothes again. She kept scratching her boobs, itchy from the lace of the bra. Every few moments, she’d remember she was about to get out and her blood would pound in her ears.

The wait seemed interminable. Her mind kept rolling over what was waiting for her on the outside, and who she was leaving behind on the inside. Maybe I should come back, she thought, but then she remembered Nora. She imagined an entire life spent within drab concrete walls, harassed by guards, immersed in petty prison drama as she slowly grew older and her life on the outside dwindled to a distant memory. She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. I’m going to make it somehow. Isaias can’t stop me.

She had waited so long, so immersed in her thoughts, that it startled her when she heard the lock click and the door open. “Gabriella Hernandez?”

Riel sat up straighter. “That’s me.”

The guard looked up from his clipboard, his gaze immediately wandering down to her cleavage. He gave her a look she didn’t like, which she’d seen on guards’ faces all too often over the past fourteen months. That look said she wasn’t really human. He could do anything he wanted with her, and no one would ever know or care. Each one of those looks had collected like sludge in the bottom of her soul. Would the feeling ever go away now that she was free?

The guard jerked his chin at her. “Come on, Hernandez.”

He took her through a warren of bare, echoing hallways. Another guard buzzed them through a locked door, and they went out into a bright waiting room.

Sunlight streamed through the windows, making Riel blink. A tall, thin silhouette resolved itself into her sister Lizette, who was a short, slim woman with straight brown hair falling down to her butt. She had a baby in one arm—Riel’s new niece, Corinne, three months old. Riel had never met her, only seen pictures. Lizette’s three-year-old daughter Jessica clung to her mother’s leg, watching Riel with wide, brown eyes.

Next to her sister, his beefy arms crossed over his broad chest, was Lizette’s husband Isaias.

Their eyes met, and Riel’s stomach clenched, bile rising into her throat. A look passed between them, a faint smile curving Isaias’ lips.

Riel tore her gaze from him and rushed up to her sister, giving her an awkward hug while trying to avoid stepping on Jessica or crushing the baby. “Lizette, oh my