I was stunned out of my thoughts when the PA system for the bus blared, the driver’s voice announcing that we had arrived at Roanoke Regional Prison. As usual, I got the chills when I looked at the tall, castlelike structure of the prison. This place gave me the creeps. Thank God Derrick only had six months to go.

It took almost an hour before I finally reached the visiting room. By then I was dying to see him. I smiled, eagerly telling the captain I was signing in to visit Derrick Winter. A brief look of jealousy came across his face but disappeared just as quickly. I bet he was wondering why a five-foot-eight-inch-tall, caramel-colored Tyra Banks look-alike would be visiting a convicted drug dealer. Well, it was none of his fucking business. I hated black correction officers more than any law enforcement officers, mostly because of the stories of abuse Derrick had told me. They always seemed to be harder on the black inmates because they needed to prove to the white officers that they weren’t cut from the same cloth. I wanted them all to know that someone like me was out of their class.

The captain flipped through his book, managing to keep one eye on my chest at all times before he found Derrick’s sign-in page. He smirked as he handed me a pen. I almost cursed out loud right then and there when I looked down at the sheet. There on the sign-in sheet for the previous day was Wendy Wood’s name. She was Derrick’s baby’s momma, and I couldn’t stand that bitch. She’d been trying to take Derrick away from me ever since we started goin’ together. I sighed heavily, tempted to turn around and not visit him at all, though I quickly changed my mind. I had traveled three hours to see him, so I was going to stick around to have the satisfaction of cursing his ass out. I stalked into the visiting room and found Derrick sitting at a table, waiting for me.