Independence Day

A short story about female felon trying to get her life back – published in 2017 in the anthology Last Resort.

It was the 4th of July, the country’s Independence Day. It was Ava’s, too. Although, unlike the nation, Ava was still unsure of what it meant to be free. On the vanity she set the lipstick, “Crimson Dynamo”, and the Colt automatic. Ava hadn’t handled either of these for the five years she’d been jailed at Tehachapi State Prison, but she hadn’t lost her touch with the only things a girl like her really needed.