I prepared myself for what his lips would feel like against mine. I felt safer in his arms than I had in years. There was no such thing as peace and safety in prison. And since I had gotten out, everything had been topsy-turvy, one crisis after another.

Kissing him and giving him that part of me was another way to show him a side of me I had shared with very few. And I had never felt this close to Carey, despite our status in the past. I told Andre things I had only said to ...