Markum rose, coming around the table. “Easy now. Just breathe. Nice and slow. Follow me.”
He took a long, slow breath, raising his hand with his inhale and lowering it with his exhale. I tried to follow him, but it took several tries before I could. After a few minutes, the tingling in my hands started to retreat. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
He patted my shoulder. “No need to apologize. We’re going to figure this out. We just have to take it one step at a time.”
“Test me.” I straightened at the genius of the thought. “You guys can do that, right? I can pee in a cup or give you some of my hair.”
“We’ll do that. And if it’s negative—”
“It will be.”
“Then that will be in your favor.” Markum pulled out a little notepad and pen from his pocket. “But right now, I need you to tell me about Derek. Did you know he was involved in drugs?”
I stared down at the table as if it held all the answers in the world.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.”
I looked up at the detective. “Pot and some pills. I don’t know what they were. Usually, just at parties…at least, that’s what I thought.” But apparently there were all sorts of things I didn’t know about my boyfriend.
“How long have you been together?”
“Since I was fourteen, and he was sixteen.” A lifetime in teenage years. Longer than any of our friends. We were simply waiting for my eighteenth birthday so I could move in with him. So that I could be free. I had the two-and-a-half-year countdown on my calendar at home.
Markum jotted down something on his notepad. “And when did he start using?”
“I think he always smoked pot. I mean, he started before I met him.” He’d hidden it from me for a while, and then one night at a get-together with some friends, he’d taken the joint someone offered him. He hadn’t even asked me if I wanted it. He knew better. But that was how everything had gone. A slow evolution. Before I knew it, the parties were more frequent, and there was pressure for me to join him on the ride.
“Have you ever seen him dealing?”
“Never. I—” My words cut off as I thought about all of the times he’d had to drop something off at friends’ houses when we were out and about. Friends that I didn’t know or recognize. Times when he kissed me and told me he’d be right back. “Oh, God. I’m such an idiot.”
I could hear my father’s voice in my head. “I don’t know how you’re my daughter. Insolent and stupid. Why can’t you be more like Chelsea?” My sister broke her back to make sure she never displeased our dad. She rarely found herself on the receiving end of his fists. But his cruelty only made me want to rebel more.
Markum bent to meet my gaze. “You’re not an idiot. You put your trust in someone you shouldn’t have.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“That’s what we’re going to figure out. I’m going to talk to the district attorney and your parents. If you cooperate like you are now, I’m hoping the charges will be minimal.”
Charges. That meant court. Maybe jail. Some sort of juvenile facility? My breaths started coming quicker again.
A knock sounded on the door, and a female officer poked her head in. “You’ve got a call, Markum.”
He looked at me. “I’ll be right back. Officer Stapleton will wait with you.”
Thankfully, she didn’t try to make conversation. I closed my eyes and pictured the way Detective Markum had breathed. I counted to five as I inhaled and then out to five with the exhale. Any time I saw Derek’s face in my mind, felt the way his arms had always made me feel so safe, I shoved it out. Any time I began to panic about judges and jails, I counted my breaths.
The door squeaked as it swung into the room, and my eyes flew open. Markum had a pretty good poker face, but I could still see the lines of concern. I dug my fingers into my thighs. “What is it?”
“I spoke with your father.”
My nails bit into the denim. “What did he say?”
“He and your mother declined to come down to the station or to get you a lawyer.”
My eyes shut again for the briefest of moments. I had expected a silently seething father and a mother with disappointment in her eyes. But still, parents with a lawyer in tow. “They’re not coming?”
“No.”
“So, what happens to me now?”
Markum shifted on his feet. “I can call a court-appointed lawyer for you, but unless you have someone who can post bail, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay in holding for tonight, at least.”
Derek. He was the person I would’ve called. The one I could always count on. Yet he was sitting a few rooms over, betraying me to anyone who would listen. Selling our love in hopes of getting off scot-free.
“Is there someone else I can call? A grandparent or aunt?”
I stared down at my hands, saw the red marks from the handcuffs, my peeling purple nail polish, the fraying tear in the knee of my jeans. “No, there’s no one you can call.” Because I was completely and totally alone.
1
Anna
PRESENT
“Are you wearing your mesh glove, Kenz? I don’t want you to lose a finger.”
Kennedy let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m not going to chop off a finger.”
I set my knife down on the cutting board and turned to face my friend. “Do you not remember that hot man of yours gluing your finger closed after you sliced it open?”
“That was one time. I swear, neither of you will let me live it down.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of me. “You’re lucky we let you back here after all the near disasters you’ve had.” But I had to admit it was nice to have her here again. Being the head honcho of the Community Center meant she was in charge of all the big-picture stuff and had less time to be in the trenches with me. So, when we got afternoons like this one where we cooked for the shelter’s thirty or so residents, I soaked them up.
“Traitors,” she grumbled under her breath.
“Traitors who care about keeping all of your fingers and toes firmly attached.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re just lucky I love you both.”
“Good thing because you’re stuck with me for life.”
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I quickly wiped my hands on a towel and pulled it out. Being permanently attached to my phone was just one of the requirements of being head of Hope House. The shelter could have any number of emergencies pop up at any time, and I had to be ready to put out the fires.
The corners of my mouth tipped up as I saw my sister’s name on the screen.
Chelsea: How are the hooligans? Making you pull out your hair yet?
Me: I bribed them with beer and cigarettes. That seemed to do the trick.
There was a pause for at least thirty seconds, and I started to question if we were ready for those kinds of jokes. It had taken us a long time to get back to a place where we could be in each other’s lives, where Chelsea believed my truth about what had really happened all of those years ago. The fact that she was moving to Sutter Lake and trusting me with her kids while she wrapped up her life in Portland was a huge step.