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“Yes!” Stella shrieks immediately, shifting me in her arms so that I’m plastered to her side and the front of my body is newly exposed. The missing buttons from my blouse and the rip in my skirt and the fact that I’m not currently wearing underwear make me feel a little like my whole hoo-hah is blowing in the breeze. “I went to peek in on her in the middle of the night last night after Sal and I…well, after your father and I…” She pauses and swallows. “I went to check on her because I accidentally set off the smoke detectors and I didn’t want her to panic, and she wasn’t there!”
“You called the cops on me?”
“Smoke detectors?” Ryan questions at the same time. “Were you smoking pot in the house again?” His outrage is palpable, but unlike the first time, it’s also humor-filled. At this point, I don’t think any of us can even believe we’re living in reality anymore, and to take it too seriously would be a crime in and of itself.
“Marijuana?” Sgt. James queries, turning to my mom with a different kind of renewed energy. “Ma’am, do you have a medical card authorizing your use of marijuana?”
My eyes widen, and my hair whips as I turn to look at Ryan pointedly. Ex-nay on the ot-pay, bro. We’re gonna get our parents arrested or, at the very least, fined!
He obviously realizes his mistake because he backtracks to another line of questioning pretty quickly. “Where’s my dad? Inside or at home?”
“He’s inside. He had to take a poop, and not even the news of finding Carly can rush a man’s bowels,” my mom answers, hip to Ryan’s redirection with the cops. Stella Page has never managed subtle before in her life, but somehow, right now, she’s pulling it off. Well, sort of.
Reminded of my apparently remarkable return, she pulls me in for a hug again and smashes my head into her boobs.
“Okay, yeah,” Ryan says through a shake of his head. “That’s more than enough information.”
“Mom, I wasn’t missing!” I breathe, trying to make my words audible through the sizable bulk of her breasts. “I was just…out.”
Finally, my mom releases my head to look at me more closely. “What are you talking about, Carly?”
Sgt. James rolls his eyes and shakes his head, butting into the ridiculous fray. “Ma’am, is this Carly Page, your daughter whom you presumed missing?”
“Yes,” my mom says with a fervent nod and then pulls me into another hug for good measure. “My baby is home. Thank God, my baby is home.”
She squeezes me tight and shakes me side to side, and then she pushes me away from her body and grabs me by the meat of my arms. “Let me look at you, baby,” she continues, laying it on thick with a blubbering cry.
Unfortunately, it’s at the opportunity of this long inspection of my body that she notices the state of my clothes for the first time. And immediately, her sense of real and true panic returns.
“Carly, baby,” she starts, her voice shaking. “What happened to your clothes?”
My eyes widen, and my heart jumps into a gallop as the officers around us come back on alert.
I swallow thickly, and my mind races, trying to come up with a viable excuse for the absolutely tattered state of my being that will both rule out foul play and avoid entirely the fact that sweet, beautiful, type A Ryan Miller is a certified animal in the bedroom.
“It’s nothing,” is apparently the best I can come up with.
Gah, I wish I’d done some sort of formal espionage training in school. I could use that right now a lot more than I can use my ability to identify a parallelogram.
“Ma’am, maybe we should chat for a little while,” the first officer offers, giving me a look at his name tag for the first time by presenting it. “I’m Officer Brian Higgins. I’ve got a wife and three daughters, and I promise you’re safe with me.”
Oh my God! You’re safe with me? They think I’ve been sexually assaulted. Like, against my will. This is so, so, so bad.
“I really appreciate that so much, Officer Higgins,” I say as respectfully as I can manage, trying not to look directly at Ryan for fear that I’ll be speared with a memory of his sexual savagery and spontaneously combust. “But really, truly, that’s not necessary. I’m fine. More than fine. I’m good.”
“You can take all the time you need,” Brian replies with a kind, soft smile. “I know this might be difficult, but we’re all here to help you. There’s no judgment. No—”
Shiiiit! Oh my God, this is bad.
“Really,” I interrupt. “I, um, I…I did this to my own clothes,” I bumble before ending in a ridiculous laugh. “Just trying to fit in with Gen Z, you know? They’re saying this is the new fashion and my mom is TikTok famous and I had an idea for a video…”
