17. SIENNA
SIENNA
The chair is what has my focus.
Not the cold, not the silence, not the fact that I am alone in this room. The chair. Metal with a slight give at the back that makes it uncomfortable to settle into.
If I shift my weight it scrapes against the concrete floor. The sound goes through me wrong. I shift again before I can stop myself and the sound happens again and I make myself go still.
My feet are cold. They took the laces from my boots when they brought me in.
Standard procedure, the officer said. His voice flat with the routine of it.
Now I've been sitting long enough that the tops of my boots are loose, the leather flopping slightly when I move, and it makes me feel small in a way I can't seem to snap out of.
I wrap my arms around myself. The AC is running hard. Without my hoodie I'm down to a thin t-shirt and the cold has moved past discomfort into the kind that occupies your chest and stays.
I breathe through it.
There was another room like this once. Different police station but the same fluorescent light that gives you migraines if you stay under it for too long. I was sixteen. The chair was similar to the one I’m sitting now.
Underneath my left sleeve was a bruise from three days before, yellow-green at the edges, along my ribs there were newer ones from that night, still sharp when I tried to breathe normally.
I sat in that chair and I did not cry. Crying would lead to questions I didn’t know how to answer.
I remember being cold that night too. I remember counting the tiles to have something to focus on.
I stop that. I press my thumb into my index finger and hold the pressure until that's the only thing I feel.
I'm not sixteen anymore.
The door opens.
The officer who arrested me fills the frame. "Your lawyer's here," he says and I can feel the disdain in his voice.
Relief moves through me fast and I push it down before it can reach my face. Adrian is here.
I get to my feet. My legs want to shake. I don't let them.
The police officer takes my arm above the elbow and walks me through the hallway. His grip is harder than it needs to be. Not enough to bruise, but deliberate. I'm not walking through this building, I'm being walked through it.
The processing room is bright and smells like old coffee. Counter with papers on it, a woman behind it, a door ahead with wired glass in the frame.
Through the glass, Adrian.
I lose the thread of what the officer is telling me. Court date. Conditions of release. I nod at the intervals that seem to require it. Adrian is standing in the lobby at full height.
His jaw is set. His eyes are fixed on the glass and when they find me through it they don't move. I can't read his face from here. I'm not sure the distance is what's making that difficult.
I sign where I'm told to sign. My belongings come back in a bag: phone, wallet, keys,hoodie.
When I push through the door Adrian is right there. I open my mouth to thank him, but he raises his hand to stop me from talking before I have a chance to say anything.
"Not here," he says.
His hand comes to the small of my back, light but clear about its direction, and I go where it points me.
As we pass the front desk he gives a short nod to the uniformed officer behind the counter. An acknowledgement.
And I understand what it means. He called in a favor to get me out. I feel the weight of that settle onto everything else I'm already carrying.
Then we're outside.
The night air hits me and my body starts to make decisions on its own. My legs go unreliable. The shaking starts in my hands, moves up through my shoulders. I press my arms to my sides and it doesn't stop. It's not the cold. It's the adrenaline finally finding somewhere to go.
Adrian steps in front of me. His hands close around my upper arms and the warmth of them is immediate and specific.
He looks at me. "You're freezing."
"They took my hoodie." I can hear my voice shaking. "The strings. You can't have strings in holding."
"Fuck." One word, quiet, more exhale than anything. His hands are still on my arms. I can feel his anger radiating from him.
He lets go. I reach into the bag, pull out the hoodie and get it over my head.
"Thank you," I say. "For coming. For getting me out."
He's already walking toward the car.
"I can call an Uber from here," I say, following. "You've already done enough, you don't have to—"
"Get in," he says.
"Adrian. Seriously. I don't want to keep taking up your—"
He stops. Looks back at me once. "Get in the car, Sienna."
I get in the car.
The interior smells like leather and something clean underneath it. My clothes smell like dirt and the holding room.
I'm aware of my jeans the moment I sit down. The knees dark with soil from the garden, a smear of mud across my t-shirt that the light in here makes obvious. I shift slightly to limit the contact with the seat and then stop because I'm making it worse.
"Sorry about the upholstery."
"No need. Where to?" Adrian says. He reaches across and adjusts the heating. Warm air starts moving from the vents and I turn my face toward the nearest one and stay there.
I give him the address to Boyle Heights, where I live and settle back waiting for the question. Waiting for him to ask me what happened.
It doesn't come.
He merges onto the freeway. His hands sit easy on the wheel. His eyes hold the road. And he doesn't ask.
He doesn’t care.
The warmth coming from the vents doesn't touch the cold I feel in my chest. He came because I called and he'll drive me home because he said he would. That's what this is.
I look at the city going past the window. Freeway lights. Billboards. I watch the skyline against the dark and I press my thumb into my index finger.
A sign comes up for the Highland Park exit. I try to gather courage to say something. But what?
“Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“ I’m not what you are thinking of me .”
By the time we turn onto my street I know that whatever was beginning between us is now over.
I see the party before we're halfway down the block.
Every light is on in the apartment. Music thumping through the walls from here. People on the front steps with drinks, someone sitting on the porch railing, the gate standing open.
I'd completely forgotten. Emma, my roommate, mentioned it last week. Something about her cousin, a birthday…but last week now seems like a different life time.
I wanted a hot shower, a dark room and enough quiet to let my hands stop shaking without an audience. I look at the lights, the noise, the people, and I let go of that. There is no version of tonight where I get what I wanted.
Adrian pulls to the curb and cuts the engine.
I turn to him. He's not looking at me. He's looking at the apartment, his gaze moving across the lit windows, the people coming and going with drinks, the music now faintly audible even through the closed windows of the car. I can see the muscle in his jaw ticking.
I decide to make it easier for him.
"Thank you," I say. "For all of it. I mean it."
He turns and looks at me. He has an intense expression on his face I can’t decipher. He holds my gaze for a beat.
Then he faces forward, puts the car in gear, and presses his foot down on the gas.
"Fuck it," he says, and I don't know if I should feel relieved or terrified.