Lucy #2
Once inside, I lead us to the reception area, where we’re directed to take a seat in the waiting room until they can get all the files together for us. The station is busy, with officers rushing back to their offices and the sound of urgent chatter floating through the room.
“You’d think they were trying to solve a murder or something,” Olivia whispers, and I reel my head back in surprise and try to stifle a laugh. “It’s okay,” she says. “If I can joke, so can you.”
I relent and crack a smile. “Morbid.”
Olivia’s gaze moves above my head, and a shadow from the window darkens half her face, which seems to tense.
“What?” I ask, and spin around. But when I see what she’s looking at, what’s framed on the wall, I clench my jaw. “Oh,” I say. “I had no idea that was here.”
We’re both staring at a photo of the two of us when we were fifteen, our arms intertwined, as we hold up a trophy from that year’s annual Club Tennis Tournament, which the PIPD sponsors.
We’d won girls’ doubles in our age group, and our smiles take up most of our faces, our hair slicked with sweat.
I peer closer at the photo, remembering how comfortable it felt as her arm snaked around my shoulders.
We look so young, still growing into our features, our bodies.
There’s an awkwardness about us, the way we lean into each other, but an ease, too, like if we were made to pose for a photo by some professional photographer, we were glad we could do it together.
“Your serve was monster,” I say.
Olivia shrugs. “Still wasn’t good enough.”
“What do you mean?”
Olivia’s quiet for a moment, and when she speaks, her voice is low. “I thought I’d get a scholarship to play.”
“Is that why you’re taking a gap year?” I ask.
“Yep,” Olivia says. “I got into some schools but without tennis, so I’m not exactly sure where I want to go. I was so single-minded that I didn’t really think about the schools themselves. Just the teams.”
“What are you gonna do instead?”
“I was going to stay here,” she says, letting out a huff of air.
“But not anymore?”
“What about you?” she asks, changing the subject. “You’re going to Cornell, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” I clench my hands in front of my stomach. “Where are those files? We should probably be getting back.”
“You don’t sound too excited.”
“I like work, actually.”
“I mean about Cornell.” Olivia narrows her eyes. She knows I’m avoiding the question. “Your parents went there, right?”
“Yeah. Ethan’s, too. That’s where they all met.”
“So was it a choice? Or did you feel like you had to go there?”
Heat creeps into my chest, spreading to my collarbones, and I push myself to stand. “You really think I’m the type of person who would pick a college just because everyone wants me to go there?”
“Maybe I don’t know what kind of person you are.
” She crosses one leg over the other and starts tapping her toe, impatient, as if I’m not going to say anything interesting or useful at all.
Something in the way she turns away from me makes me want to tell her the truth, to prove to her that I’m not actually following some boy to school, that I’ve made up my own mind about my future.
But telling her before telling Ethan would be the ultimate betrayal.
He has to know first. I have to tell him soon. I—
“Actually, I’m going to Penn.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to wrap my arms around them and yank them back, like they never existed at all.
“It’s a secret.” My earlobes are on fire, a wild sensation but one that makes sense when I realize it’s not just my earlobes but my whole face.
“Only my parents know. And Erica.” I turn away from her, making a tally mark on the legal pad.
“I don’t know why I told you that. Please don’t say anything. ”
Olivia stops tapping her foot. Her whole body stills, and when she speaks, her voice is hushed. “Ethan doesn’t know.”
“I haven’t told him yet.”
“How come?”
Don’t say anything, I will myself. You don’t trust her.
You barely know her anymore. She’s looking at me with such intensity I feel like my heart is going to stop beating.
But then, as if a trance has been lifted, Olivia blinks, like she’s surprised with herself.
“Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.” Her cheeks redden.
“My mom says I try to make people feel bad when I’m on the defense. ”
There’s a weight on my chest as heavy as an elephant’s foot. “You don’t have to be defensive with me.”
Olivia opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but just then, there’s a loud banging coming from the back of the police station, the sounds of doors slamming, and shouting.
I spring to my feet, craning my neck to see, and three officers appear, rushing back to where the commotion’s coming from.
“What’s going on?” I ask the guard behind the desk.
He glances at us, then back toward the hallway, where the sounds of metal scraping against the floor and officers’ yelling get louder and louder.
“You can’t keep me here!” someone calls. “You have no proof. You have nothing!”
A calm female voice rises above the rest, and when she speaks, it sounds like she’s getting closer. “We need to take a DNA sample. It’s standard procedure. It’s—ouch! Jesus Christ! He bit me! Arrest him for assaulting a police officer!”
A moment later, Detective Hampton rushes forward clutching her hand, her eyes wide and her hair out of place. She doesn’t register us as she dips her head down to the reception. “Don’t let him leave,” she says. “Not until I’m back.”
“Where are you going?” the guard asks.
“To process this.” She holds up her hand. “At least he left DNA on me.” I gasp, and that’s when she turns and sees Olivia and me. “You shouldn’t be here,” she says, and dashes off into the street before we can explain why were sent to the station in the first place.
But none of that matters, because as I tiptoe to the hallway, I see that deep in the bowels of the police department, there are three officers escorting Justin Vreeland into a conference room. And it sure doesn’t look like he’s leaving anytime soon.