Chapter 8 #2
And we do. It’s the best day either one of us have had in a very long time.
We get cotton candy and we watch it melt in the water like confused raccoons, and we go on rides, and we buy ponchos that don’t do fuck all to stop us from getting wet and for a few hours I forget about all the bad things going on in the world, and to me specifically.
“I am so glad I got kicked out of school!”
“Don’t be,” I say. “You know we’re both… massively screwed.”
Jake laughs. “I don’t care anymore,” he says. “I was starting to feel like nothing good would ever happen, and then you broke the principal’s nose, and we went here to Slippy’s and I know there’re still good things that can happen in the world.”
That’s about the saddest thing I have ever heard.
What makes it a bit worse is the fact that I know what he means because I feel the same way.
I’ve been having an intense time lately, but calling it good would be a stretch even I can’t make.
Today is the first day in ages everything has gone my way, in the sense that I did whatever the hell I wanted and got whatever I wanted.
My phone rings just as a cloud passes over the sun and a cool breeze picks up. It’s been a brilliant day, but it’s coming to an end, and I have to accept that.
“Mom?”
“Where is Jake, and why are the police here?”
Fuck.
“Jake’s with me, Mom. He’s safe. I took him with me. Didn’t want to leave him unattended.”
“Bracken bit one of the officers,” she says. “Can you get back here as soon as possible?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I will.”
“Time to go home, buddy,” I say once Mom has hung up.
“Do we have to go?”
I wish we didn’t. We could buy a shitty car and go on a road trip around the country for years. But that’s kidnapping, and eventually Jake will probably notice.
We get on the bus and we go home. Just like Mom said, there’s a squad car waiting. Jake doesn’t notice, because he’s more worried about what Mom is going to say to him.
“Go on in,” I tell him. “I’ve got to go off to work.”
The cops are nice enough to let me send him on inside before approaching me.
I’m just a girl on foot with no vehicle.
It’s not like I’m a viable flight risk. They sent two very large officers after me, both big, burly men.
One has a mustache. One doesn’t. They’re both middle aged with that kind of dad strength look.
The sort of look that triggers a girl whose dad walked out on her.
“Laura?”
“That’s me.”
“We’re arresting you for assault.”
“Is there any evidence I did that?” Hey, I have to at least give not being arrested a chance.
“Yes. The security cameras in the principal’s office were relatively high definition.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Turn around, please.”
He reads me my rights while he cuffs me. I wonder if Mom is going to come out and help, but she stays indoors. She’s got the other kids to worry about, and I’d put money on her keeping them away from the windows so they don’t have to watch me being arrested.
The police put me in their car, take my stuff, drive me to the station, and I get processed. The whole thing feels like a bad dream. I can’t believe this is happening to me. The principal could at least have sucked it up and not decided to press charges on a girl who hit him.
I’ve made things so much worse for Jake, I bet. Now there’s evidence we’re a violent family. I don’t know how Mom is going to find another school for him.
“Smile.”
The cop behind the camera surprises me by saying that just as he takes my mugshot. I end up smiling just out of reflex.
“Why did you say that?”
“None of this is that serious,” he says. He’s got a cheerful expression and a kindly demeanor that doesn’t really mesh with the whole being a police officer currently putting me behind bars.
“Can I go?”
“No. You’ll have to go before a judge tomorrow.”
“So I’m spending a night in jail.”
“Yes,” he says. “You are.”
Then they go through my stuff. It’s fine until they pull a wad of cash out of it.
My precious wad. I kind of wish I’d left some of it back at home, because right now they have the whole lot.
I’d say easy come, easy go, but I could have done so many good things with that cash, and I just know I am never going to see it again.
Right now, he’s putting it into a plastic bag.
“That’s a lot of cash,” the officer says. “How did you come by it?”
“Sold a car,” I say.
“Your car?”
“Yes. You can talk to the dealership, and I have a receipt in my apartment. It’s legit money.”
“Mhm. We’ll look into that.”
They give me a set of jail clothes to wear.
Orange is kind of my color, but this isn’t the way I want to wear it.
It’s absolutely dehumanizing having everything taken from me.
I don’t feel like I did anything to warrant it, if I’m to be honest. If they’d watched the tapes, they would have heard him proposition me, but I guess hitting on a woman half his age isn’t a crime, whereas punching his stupid face is. Life is not fair. Laws are not fair.
Part of me is still expecting my mom to show up, but what would she even do? She can’t bail me out. I don’t have bail set, and I won’t do until tomorrow, after I’ve gone up before a judge.
They put me in a cell that’s mercifully empty.
It’s so weird to find myself locked up. I was just captive the other week and now here I am again.
At least tomorrow I should be able to get out of here.
They’re not going to give me a real long sentence, I tell myself. Assault, how long can that possibly be?
I have a vague memory of a friend of Dave’s spending four months in jail after a bar fight. Four months would fuck up my schooling. I’d lose my apartment. I’d be fired.
At some point, the lights go out, and I get to just sit in a locked room with a toilet I really don’t want to use and reflect on the way I am going to pay for one decision unless I can talk the judge into just letting me go.
I hope she’s nice. I hope she’s sympathetic.
I hope it’s not a guy who has no time for my shit.
I sit up against the wall, wearing clothes that aren’t mine, and don’t feel right, and frankly don’t really smell right, and I close my eyes. Sleep isn’t going to happen.
At some point, the light flicks on. I open my eyes, surprised. It really didn’t feel like I was here all night long. A few hours, maybe.
The door to my cell opens. I stand up, then I sit back down as I see who it is.
Professor Rollins. Or whoever the fuck he really is. He leans against the door frame with a broad smile on his face.
“You are a naughty girl, aren’t you, Laura,” he drawls. That fucking accent of his comes and goes and shifts and changes the way a chameleon’s colors do.
“I’m not,” I say. “Why are you here?”
“I pulled some strings to get you out,” he says. “I didn’t think you wanted to go up before a judge and explain why you broke a pillar of the community’s nose.”
“He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did.” He snaps his fingers at me like I’m a dog. “Come on, girl. Let’s get out of here.”
“No.”
“No?” He raises a brow at me.
“I’d rather take my chances with a judge than with you. Sorry.”
“Oh, you are in a mood,” he says. “Incarceration really doesn’t suit you.”
“Fuck off.”
I’m actually more protected here than I’ve ever been. He can’t touch me here. He can’t do anything to me in a building full of cops. This is probably the safest I have been since…
He steps into my cell and closes the door behind him.
“What?” He smirks as he crosses the room to me, noting my horrified expression. “Did you think you were untouchable here? You think I haven’t already paid for the cameras in this cell to malfunction?”
He places his hands on the wall above my head and looks down at me, effectively boxing me in.
“You were impulsive,” he says. “You were violent. Neither of those things are like you.”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve been watching you for quite some time, Laura,” he says.
“I know what you’re like. I know that you value stability above all.
You’ve tried so hard to build a life for yourself, to better yourself, and help your family.
You take on responsibilities that are beyond your years and often your abilities in an effort to save those you love.
You have incredible expectations of yourself that exceed any reasonable levels.
You work hard, constantly. So no, you are not often impulsive, and you are almost never violent. This is not like you.”
Oh, no. He sees me. All the hair on the back of my neck is standing up as he speaks. It’s like being described down to the cellular level. I forget how smart he is. He’s a psychological genius, a calculated beast who is using these natural given advantages in order to control me.
“So what if it isn’t? Maybe I’m changing? Maybe I’ve worked out that there’s no point being good when only bad things happen to me. Maybe that fucking principal deserved to be punched in the face after what he said to me.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He offered to fuck me to let my brother stay in school.”
I see his eyes flash black for a moment. It is so quick I almost think I imagined it, except for the fact that my body reacts with pure fear to seeing it, and I can still feel that chemical reaction cascading through my body.
“That is inappropriate,” he says.
“Yeah, it is.”
He stands back. “Come, Laura. You don’t deserve to be here, and while you can choose to stay if you like, if you come with me now, the charges will never have been filed.”
I get up, because I know he’s not really offering me a choice. He’s offering me an illusion of a choice, and if I don’t take it then the illusion will collapse, and something bad will happen.
I follow him out of the cell. There’s a car waiting out the back. My stuff is in there, including the plastic bag with the cash in it. He didn’t take it from me, and he didn’t let them take it from me either.