Outside the Lines: A Novel

David sat inside a nine-foot-square cinder-block room he had to share with a three-hundred-pound tattooed drug dealer named Rico. Rico was in on a nine-month stretch for selling cocaine, and the powers that be stuck David in with him because it was the only available bunk.

As his cell mate lay on the bottom bunk, David paced, but there was barely enough room to turn around. Back and forth, and back and forth. He couldn’t move fast enough. His thoughts spun. No alcohol or pot to calm the whirling tornados. Lydia could bail him out. Of course she could. She just didn’t want to. This was cheaper than paying for the hospital. Let the taxpayers foot the bill for straightening him out this time. Bitch. He was married to a bitch. She’d been out to get him from the beginning. She never really loved him. Getting pregnant was just a ploy to get him to marry her and help her get away from her parents. He couldn’t believe what he’d said to Eden, telling her that her mother never wanted her. He imagined the words bouncing around inside his child, their sharp edges slicing her tender flesh to shreds.

“No,” he muttered under his breath. “No, no, no.” He couldn’t do this here. He had to find a way to get his spinning thoughts to stop. He grabbed the sides of his head with both hands, yanking on his hair until his scalp stung. Maybe he would bleed. He would bleed and have to go to the infirmary and they’d look away and he could escape.

“Dude,” Rico said from the bottom bunk, interrupting David’s thoughts, “who you sayin’ no to? And quit fucking pacing.”

He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t do this for another minute. He spun around, his fingers still gripping his hair, and ran toward the wall. The top of his head hit the cement first.

“Holy shit!” Rico exclaimed, struggling to lift his enormous frame out from his bed. “What the hell you doin’?”

I’m silencing the demons, David thought. It’s the only way to stop them. He lifted his eyes and stared at the wall as his forehead rammed into the cement. Lights went off inside his head and he stumbled toward the bunk bed.

“Stop it, man!” Rico yelled. “You’re freaking me out!” He stood and tried to grab David, but David jerked away and this time threw his entire body into the wall. The impact jarred something in his arm; he felt it crack. A loud howl erupted in the cell. Who was that?

“Guard!” Rico hollered. “Dude’s goin’ crazy in here, dog! He’s screaming! You need to get him, now!”

There’s a crazy dog? Where? In the cell? Or is it chasing Eden? He needed to protect them. Or maybe he needed to figure out how to put them out of their misery. He had to come up with a way to bring this giant nightmare to an end.