20. Emma
Running can only be easy for tall people or the devil. Literally. I spend hours, every single week, running around the gym at the criminal justice academy, and I hate it just as much after three weeks as I do on the first day.
“Come on, Hayes,” one of the other recruits, Lilah Dailey, calls out loudly as she passes me like she was born with roller skates as feet. “You got this.”
“I’m gonna murder you,” I grunt loudly as I cross the finish line on my last lap. “Murder, I tell you. As soon as I can breathe again.”
“Ha. Ha.” Lilah sits down next to me and lifts her hands over her head in a stretch. “You’d think that after a month you’d be able to maintain the run for longer.” But Lilah’s at least five-seven, and running seems to come like breathing to her.
“Hey.” I slap her weakly from my position on the ground, still wheezing. “I ran four miles. That’s a lot of miles for someone my height who wants to eat tacos instead.”
“Don’t say tacos.” She groans. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had carbs?”
“Yeah, almost a week. Just like me.”
During the week, we don’t eat like absolute shit. But on the weekend, when we get to go home, I stop for a pizza and tacos. Then, without fail, I lock myself in my house and don’t emerge until Sunday afternoon when I have to head back to the academy.
“My husband told me that he thinks I should quit,” Lilah says quietly. “He doesn’t think I should be a cop. Not with all the negative press and everything going on. He said that he’s worried for my safety.” She rolls her eyes so hard I feel it from my spot on the ground. “He doesn’t get it.”
I purse my lips together, trying to bite my tongue. It isn’t my business. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
“What about you, Hayes?” Lilah likes to call me by my last name since her little sister’s name is Emma too. “What does the man in your life have to say about you being a cop?”
I snort. We haven’t talked about my love life, or lack thereof, since the first day at the academy when I told her it’s complicated. And I have zero desire to bring it up.
“Didn’t you know?” I laugh it off. “I’m related to cops. My dad is the fire chief in our town. And if I had a boyfriend, he’d most likely be some sort of a first responder.” There. Nice and hedged response. Technically, when I did have a boyfriend for a whopping week, he was a cop.
“I wish my husband was that supportive.” She sighs. “So what are you up to this weekend?”
“Oh, the same thing as every weekend. I’m going to eat tacos and plot to take over the world.” I sit up and nudge her in the shoulder. “Wanna run away and be the Pinky to my Brain?”
Lilah shakes her head. “I wish. I promised the husband that we could go on a mini vacation.” She gets up and offers me a hand. “Next weekend?”
“You’re on,” I tell her. “But be warned, there’s a rule in my house. Only pajama pants and no talk about work. It’s a zero-cop zone. At least until we graduate.”
“Deal.” She laughs. “I’m bringing my laundry, though. If I left that for my husband to wash, he’d just ruin it all.”
We walk back to our barracks room, enjoying the peace and quiet that the later night workout offers.
Cadre Mays steps out of his office as we pass. “Hayes.” His stark brown eyes flash as he says my name, an order without actually issuing an order.
I freeze, and Lilah looks at me with a face that looks like the cringing emoji that we send back and forth in texts over the weekend when we notice something bonkers.
I nod her off slightly and turn my full attention to our policing law instructor. “Yes, Cadre Mays.”
He studies us both for a second before running a hand through his short brown hair. “Come with me, Hayes.” Holding the door open with one arm, I can see the black ink of his tattoos peeking out from under the sleeve of his shirt, wrapping around his forearm and resting above his wrist.
I follow him into his office, making sure to hold my hands behind my back and to stand with my feet shoulder-width apart.
When Cadre Mays sees that I’m locked at attention, he waves me off with one hand. “You can relax, Hayes. This isn’t an official summons.”
No way in hell am I going to relax in the cadre’s office. Not when my future relies on passing every single test they give me, no matter how small. Cadre Mays is the strictest and hardest to read of all our instructors. I don’t feel like failing out of the academy at all, let alone with him, so I keep my feet planted exactly where they are and hope that he isn’t about to ding me for having sweat stains. Can he ding me for sweat stains? I run through the uniform code and honestly can’t come up with a response, so I start to panic.
“Sir.”
He stares at me for a second and then sighs. I watch him cross the room and pick up a photo from his desk, holding it out for me to take. Reluctantly, I reach for it and almost drop the frame on the ground.
It is a familiar photo. Or similar at least.
My brothers, both of them, stand smiling at the camera. There is a photo almost exactly like it hanging on my parents’ wall in Birch Harbor. Except, the picture we have only features Danny and Linc. In the photo I hold in my hand, they are joined by the rest of their unit. I see Remy, Dom, Ian Keller, the Malone brothers, and Cadre Mays.
“I didn’t know that you knew Danny and Linc.”
“The Hayes Hurricanes?” He laughs quietly. “Yeah. I knew ’em. Loved ’em. Came home and became a law professor, and then Remy convinced me that I should teach at the academy, too. Here I am. Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment.”
“Sir.” I hand him back the picture, smiling at my brothers’ faces one last time. “Thank you for that.”
“Don’t thank me,” he says somberly. “It’s been years, but I’m sorry for your family’s loss, Hayes.”
“Thank you, sir.” The familiar statement rolls off my tongue like the funeral had only just happened. “He died doing what he loved.” Easy response, terrible emotions. But if he served with Danny, then he suffered the loss just as much as we did.
Cadre Mays snorts. “Not likely. But you get bonus points for the effort.” He pauses, setting the photo back down in its place on his desk. “I wanted to see if you’ve heard from Dom.”
I freeze, completely taken aback by the question. I’ve avoided any mention of him since I left him standing with his mother the day he deployed, which hasn’t been an easy task.
I’ve been dodging calls from my brother, his sisters and mother, and even my best friends. Everyone wants to know what happened and if I’ve forgiven him for not telling me what happened.
I haven’t.
There is a very real possibility that I will never forgive him. And I have no plans on ever giving him another chance, either.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice… shame on me.
“No.” I keep my reply short and to the point.
“That’s a shame,” Cadre Mays says while shaking his head. “Ortiz was the best counter-sniper we had in the unit. No one was surprised when he decided to stay in at the end of our tour. But the whole point of him staying Reserves was to avoid deploying. We’re all hoping he makes it home safe.” He studies my face. “You must be at the front of that line, though.”
I don’t give him a single emotion, using the mask I’ve perfected to keep my personal life just that… personal.
“You’re good,” he says with a smirk. “Go. Get some rest. There’s a long road ahead of you, and you already know I’m not taking it easy on you because of who your brothers are.”
He sure as shit isn’t. If anything, I think he pushes me harder than anyone else. More laps around the track. More sparring matches than anyone else. I was the first one to take the taser.
“But if you hear from Dom or find out how he is, I’d appreciate the heads-up.” He clears his throat. “I’m worried about him being over there with an entirely new unit who don’t know to have his back the way he needs. And he hasn’t answered anyone’s calls.”
Well, that sends a shard of dread through my heart and straight into my soul, but I keep the indifferent look on my face as well as I can.
“Please.”
I nod, unable to do anything else. I know what it’s like to worry. When it’s clear he isn’t going to say anything else, I take a hesitant step and walk the few feet to the office door where I find myself pausing with my hand resting on the handle.
“Sir,” I say quietly and wait for him to acknowledge me. His eyes seek mine, and I see the hope there. Hope that I can give him something, anything, about his friend. “He writes me. I know he’s okay because he sends the letters. I don’t read them, but he has to be okay because the letters keep coming.” It’s my turn to clear my throat, and I hide behind my fist while I cough, trying to get rid of the embarrassment of telling a complete stranger about Dom’s letters.
The letters I haven’t said anything about to anyone.
Cadre Mays stares at me for a long second, still studying the mask I wear like a shield, and finally nods, apparently satisfied with whatever he sees there. “Dismissed.”
I make it all the way back to my barracks room without falling apart.
Even with my chest heaving and the panic coursing through my veins, I don’t fall apart.
Not until I’m in the steaming hot water of the shower, curled into a ball on the tile, pretending that everything will be okay.
That I hadn’t let Dom leave without telling him that I’m in love with him.
I sit in the shower and cry, like I do every single night.
I cry where no one can hear me, and I pray that he will come home.
Even if I’ll never forgive him for lying to me, I don’t want him to die.
I want him to be home.
Where I can hate him and curse him and make sure that he’s safe.
Curled in that ball, with the scalding hot water streaming down on my body, I can almost forget that my heart is overseas. I can almost erase the image of letters that arrived in the last week, the first of which was postmarked the day after he left.
When the water runs cold, like it always does, I crawl out and dry off, making sure to braid my hair so that it won’t break regulations if there is a midnight wake-up call again. Almost like clockwork, every week we have a midnight run and quiz. The purpose? To make sure that we’ll be awake and alert, prepared for the midnight callouts that come with being a police officer. That doesn’t mean I have to like them, though.
Taking the time to make sure that everything is perfect, even if my heart isn’t in it, at least I can be proud of everything I’m accomplishing.
All the years of my work coming together to make my dreams come true. At least, that’s what I tell myself to keep the darker thoughts at bay.
But when I close my eyes under the blankets of my bunk, where my face is swollen and red and miserable, I see everything.
I see the letters, with my name scrawled in his writing.
I see the way he stared at me on his parents’ lawn.
I see the future we could have had.
I see everything, and I watch it melt away into the very real nightmare of what I have left behind.