Chapter 6: Jumpsuit Justice

7:00 a.m.

Pop.

Your hand lands on something solid. Unyielding. Warm.

You look up—slowly, like a person defusing a bomb strapped to their own dignity.

“The fuck is this?”

She is tall. Easily six foot. Muscular like someone who had beef with gym equipment and won. Her orange jumpsuit reads “TEXAS CORRECTIONAL—” before stopping at a neck like a coiled cable—thick, unflinching, and one wrong move from snapping something important.

She turns her head. Her eyes lock on yours. Your hand is stuck to her right shoulder.

Her expression does not suggest a willingness to talk things out.

“Boy,” she says slowly, “you better explain why my ass woke up in a stranger’s bed with your hand glued to me like a goddamn sticker on a soup can.”

You squeak. Actually squeak. Like a dog toy full of shame.

7:03 a.m. – Rapid Disassembly of Dignity

“I—it’s—okay, long story, but I made a wish—”

“You what.”

“—and a genie twisted it around and now you’re stuck to me for twenty-four hours and I swear to God I didn’t mean for this to happen, ma’am.”

She stares at you like she is running through a list of charges she wants to file.

Then she tries to rip herself away. It doesn’t work.

Then she looks down at your hand.

Then she looks at the wall.

Then she headbutts the wall.

“Okay,” she says calmly, cracking her neck, “I’m gonna kill you in your sleep. Not now. Later. So you have time to reflect.”

“No killing!” you squeak. “Magically enforced! No consequences! Please don’t test it!”

She smirks. A slow, awful smirk.

“Oh. I ain’t gonna kill you.”

She leans in.

“I’m gonna educate you.”

8:12 a.m. – Breakfast and Psychological Warfare

Her name is Regina. She’s been in and out of prison since she was sixteen. “Mostly bullshit charges,” she explains while crushing eggshells with one hand and making you cook them with the other.

She also explains, in no uncertain terms, that if you ever touch her butt—even accidentally—she will “twist your spine into a modern art sculpture.”

“Got it,” you say, nodding so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash.

She pauses.

“Also… you got any syrup?”

9:45 a.m. – Walking to Work, Hiding from God

You get looks.

You always get looks. But today?

Today you get clear the sidewalk energy.

It isn’t just the bright orange jumpsuit or the ankle tattoo or the way Regina keeps cracking her knuckles like she is warming up to beat a confession out of the pavement.

It is the way you walk beside her—hand glued to her boulder of a shoulder—like a small, shame-soaked barnacle clinging to a freight train.

“You work in an office?” she asks, disbelieving.

“I do. Data entry.”

She makes a noise like she wants to fight that answer.

10:07 a.m. – Office Fear Spiral

You walk in. Complete silence.

Regina looks around, unimpressed.

“Y’all got free coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’re buying me one.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Linda from HR makes a noise like a dying bird. Bryce asks if Regina is “in costume.” Regina asks if Bryce likes his teeth “in a specific order.” Bryce excuses himself and never comes back.

At your desk, she sits on the edge, crosses her arms, and stares directly into the souls of everyone who walks past. One guy drops his bagel. Another says “nope” and walks into a filing cabinet.

Regina says nothing.

She doesn’t have to.

2:40 p.m. – Heart-to-Heartbeat

You sit in the stairwell.

“I know you didn’t choose me,” she says, arms crossed, eyes scanning the hallway like a panther looking for something to pounce on. “But don’t think for a second I’m gonna make this easy for you.”

You nod.

She looks at you sideways.

“You a bad dude?”

“I’m a dumb dude.”

“Same thing.”

Fair.

7:23 p.m. – Home Again, Home Again

Dinner is microwaved chicken tikka and absolute silence. You offer her your bed, planning to sleep on the couch.

She laughs.

A big, echoing laugh that makes you feel like a wet napkin in a prison yard.

“You sleep on the floor,” she says.

You nod and thank her.

11:58 p.m. – The Softening

You wake up to her snoring lightly on the bed, one hand behind her head, the other still glued to yours. Her chest rises and falls in deep, steady rhythm.

She mutters something in her sleep.

“Mmf. Sorry.”

Then she rolls over.

Your hand follows.

You lay on the carpet, stiff, sore, and filled with existential regret.

**7:00 a.m. – Pop. **

She is gone.

In her place: a note, scribbled in pencil, resting where her head had been.

“You owe me breakfast.

P.S. You’re not the worst man I’ve been stuck with.

P.P.S. But it’s close.”

You exhale.

Then you make yourself coffee. With syrup.

Because Regina had made some points.