How to Stay Out of Prison: A Modern-Day Woman's Guide

Chapter 1

Lyrical – (Twenty Years Later)~

I laid in bed, looking up at the ceiling, trying to recall where on the list of Commandments did murder rank.

Was it the first Commandment?

I mean, if it was first on the list, then I could see that'd be a super no-no, but if it wasn't first...

However, my thoughts were interrupted again by another opening of the door where laughter, music, and partying snuck through, rattling my walls.

Screw this.

I reached over towards my nightstand, then grabbed my phone. The traitorous screen screamed that it was 1:14 am, but I pretended not to see it as I tapped on the search bar. Then, as if I had all the time in the world, my fingers flew across the screen, typing in The Ten Commandments, and Thall Shall Not Kill was number six on the list.

It was number six.

It didn't even rank in the top five.

So, surely, it wasn't that bad of an offense, right? I mean, if I was lucky enough to make it to The Pearly Gates, then I could easily explain how it'd been totally reasonable to kill my neighbor. He was rude as hell with no thoughts of anyone but himself, and if I stayed true to the other nine Commandments, then that should even out the scales, shouldn't it?

I'd been living in my building for over five years already, and I'd never had one complaint to mutter about. The building was a high-rise of spaciously rent-controlled apartments that I'd been lucky enough to land a space in. The building's structure had always been sturdy, clean, and well maintained, and the rooms were bigger than a shoebox, which was a treasure all its own. So, I knew how lucky I was to live in this building.

I did.

Especially, when I didn't make a whole lot as a pet store manager. Still, it was just me, so I got along fine. At least, I had been getting along fine until Bruce Higgins moved in across the hallway about a month ago, and it wasn't that he'd just moved in.

No.

He moved in because he was fortunate enough to be banging the building manager, Randall Smyth. I'd found that little tidbit out the first night that Bruce had thrown a party (on a Tuesday), and I had calmly knocked on his door to ask him to keep it down. Some fuckface partier had opened the door, and when I had politely asked him if they could keep it down, he had laughed in my face, then had told me to take it up with the apartment manager right before he had slammed the door in my face.

Now, stop!

Here's the part where you'd probably want to push him aside, step into the apartment, then scream out a lecture at the top of your lungs on basic consideration, but you don't.

You don't because you don't know the people in attendance, and it takes only one person to come at you all crazy, inciting you to pop them one in the face. In turn, that leads to a night-or two-sitting in a jail cell, possible bail, and an assault and battery charge. So, as that one day in March (when I'd been fourteen) had taught me, that wasn't how I'd wanted to spend my Tuesday night.

So, instead, I had marched over to Mr. Smyth's office first thing the next morning to log an official complaint. Like an asshole, he'd been quick to accuse me of being homophobic and resenting a party attended by mostly gay people. I'd been offended at his offendedness but had kept my mouth shut because I hadn't wanted to get kicked out of my apartment. It hadn't been until a couple of days later, when I'd seen Bruce and Randall kissing through the opened crack of Bruce's door, that I'd realized that I was screwed.