14. Ben #2
“Not quite yet. I’m sorry, Benjamin, but you need to go through this process, the same way I did.
A boy is dead because of you, son. We know it was justified, but you need to explain everything that happened.
The truth will win out, as long as the local assholes aren’t the ones in charge.
You have nothing to hide, so just be honest with Detective Budd and let the chips fall where they may. ”
Let the chips fall where they may? What is happening right now?
The whole reason I wasn’t worried—the whole reason I knew that I’d be okay, no matter what I did last night—was because I’m Ben Carrera.
I don’t have to let the chips fall where they may; I just have to stand back and let the chips fall where my father puts them.
The knot that has been slowly forming in my stomach intensifies. I try to focus on the green tape on the floor. To stay in the moment. It’s not working.
In less than five minutes, the presence of Sloane Budd has torn apart every single thing I thought I knew about my father.
I thought we were the same, me and my dad, even though he might think we’re different.
Last night proved that we were the same.
That I could be as much of a man as he was and do what needed to be done.
But I was wrong. Everything I thought I knew about Donovan Carrera was a lie.
What am I supposed to do now?
“You don’t need to look so frightened, Mr. Carrera,” Detective Budd says as my dad leaves the room, giving me a smile that is meant to be sympathetic but just makes my blood boil.
“I’m not frightened,” I reply, aware of how angry I sound. But honestly, I am angry. So why should I try to hide it?
“All right, then. Well, whatever you’re feeling, it’s normal. Rage, anger, sadness, horror… any and all those feelings are okay.”
“If I wanted to talk about my feelings, I would talk to a goddamn therapist.”
“Take a deep breath, Mr. Carrera. I am not trying to be combative with you, and my hope is that you won’t try to be combative with me, either. This situation is awful enough as it is. I’m just trying to understand your side of the story.”
My side of the story. Sure. Isn’t that what the last couple guys who were in here said they were trying to do? Am I stuck in a time loop?
“Mr. Carrera.” She’s trying to be gentle with me, and I hate when women do that.
Talk to you like you’re a child who somehow can’t comprehend what they’re saying or like you’re one step away from a complete meltdown.
Sadie used to talk to me like that sometimes.
She used to do a lot of things that were infuriating.
As it turns out, I didn’t know about the worst of them until a week ago.
That’s when I found out Sadie was cheating on me.
That’s when I found out that even though she made such a big deal about her virginity—saying she wanted to wait until after graduation and all that other bullshit—she’d already given it away to some other guy.
She was ready to do it; she just hadn’t wanted to do it with me.
Bitch.
She never would have even told me herself.
In fact, she never did tell me herself. I heard about it from someone else.
From the person closer to her than anyone in the world.
The person who knew exactly how much it would hurt me after I spent so much time trying to make up for what I did with Liz that night.
The person who thought I deserved to know and also thought that I deserved to decide what I wanted to do about it.
The thing is, what happened between me and Liz didn’t mean anything.
When your girlfriend flat-out refuses to sleep with you, and then her best friend starts texting you, and saying how hot you are, and then practically throws herself at you at a party when your girlfriend isn’t around…
what’s a guy supposed to do? I’m not made of stone.
Liz was begging me to screw her that night.
She didn’t have to say it out loud for me to know.
We’d been texting back and forth since spring break, and it was obvious she wanted me.
It’s not like I was even her first or anything.
At the party that night… Well, like I said, I’m not made of stone.
It would have been our little secret, mine and Liz’s, if she’d even remembered it at all.
But it was just my luck that Jayne happened to be there with her friend Evan.
She’s the one who walked in on us, and I knew she wasn’t going to keep it to herself.
She’s the kind of girl who knows exactly how to use the information she has to get what she wants.
If my father is to be believed, she gets that from Steven Cooper, who has more than a few skeletons in his closet.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, you know?
“Mr. Carrera.” Detective Budd’s voice is no longer sweet. Now she just sounds annoyed. “Do we need to get your father back in here to get you to start talking again? I’d prefer to keep whatever you have to say between us, and I imagine you do too. But if this can’t happen without him—”
“Of course it can happen without him,” I reply sharply. “I’m not a child.”
Satisfied that she’s at least gotten some kind of answer out of me, Detective Budd seems to relax.
“Okay, then,” she says. “Now that we’ve got the lines of communication open again, why don’t you tell me what happened last night, starting with what brought you out to the barn where you discovered Sadie and Mason Vreeland. ”
“Sure.” I rub my hands through my hair, very aware of the fact that I never got that shower I was so desperately hoping for.
“I was kind of on high alert last night,” I start off.
“Why was that?”
“Honestly, it didn’t start out that way. Me and Sadie met up at Trevor’s, and we were having a great time. I was pouring her drinks, and Liz might have been too. Liz was just kind of around, you know? Flirting with some other guys there, doing her thing.”
“Did it bother you at all to see Liz flirting with other guys?”
“What? No. What kind of a stupid question is that?”
“I’m aware that the two of you still text now and then. I’m just wondering if there was anything else going on last night that would have made you feel upset.”
“No.” My voice is getting louder. “Absolutely not. That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“And yet you seem pretty upset right now just by me bringing it up.”
“I’m upset because I was passed off from local detectives who actually understand this town and this case to some bitch from the state who doesn’t seem to know back from front.”
As soon as I say it, I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake. This is not the woman to mess with, and I basically just verbally punched her in the face.
“Well, Mr. Carrera,” she says after a moment of silence.
Her voice is calm. “You may think I’m just…
what was it? Some bitch from the state? And that may be true; I’ve been called worse in my day.
But I am the bitch who is now in charge of this case, and you can be in some very serious trouble if you don’t cooperate right now.
Frankly, you can be in serious trouble even if you do cooperate right now.
But losing your temper with me, regardless of how stressful the current circumstances are, is not going to help your case.
If anything, it will just make things worse for you, a fact that I’m sure you can understand.
Now, can you be civil with me and answer my questions, or do we need to handcuff you and try this again in a jail cell?
And before you answer, I’d like you to remember that only one of those options would be acceptable to your father. ”
She’s right. I know she’s right. But the thing that really gets me is the idea that my father had the power to walk in here and stop this, and instead, he threw me to the wolves.
I wonder if I ought to demand that he come back in here—this bitch was being a lot nicer to him than she is to me—but I dismiss the idea as quickly as it comes to me.
All that would prove is that I don’t know how to handle myself.
That I don’t know how to lead, and I still need my father to come in here and get me out of the mess I made. Not that I made it all by myself…
I got this. I just have to get this back on track.
“I apologize,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it at least a little bit.
“I’m very sorry, Detective Budd. That wasn’t appropriate.
Obviously, I mean no disrespect to you. Especially knowing how highly my father thinks of you and everything you did for him after what happened to Uncle Chris.
I’m just so upset about last night. It’s really hard to get my head on straight, and my nerves are fried.
I’m not reacting rationally. Please accept my apology. ”
Thank God, she seems to buy it. Or, at the very least, she seems willing to let it go.
“Thank you,” she says. “Let’s continue, shall we? And if you feel your temper starting to get the better of you again, just say ‘Red light,’ and we can stop and give you a few minutes to collect yourself. How does that sound?”
How does that sound? It sounds like some infantilizing bullshit for kindergartners.
“Sounds good,” I say, pasting on my best smile, the one that women always swoon over.
“So,” I continue, in an attempt to redeem myself. “Um, you asked about what happened leading up to me finding Sadie and Mason?”
“I did.”