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21
Libby
Jack Dawson
One hour left on shift.
Sixty. Long. Minutes.
The phones remain quiet but for Drake’s incessant nagging. Tiffany remains at her desk, and at shift change, the new guys come in and barely notice that I walk out again without a single word. The family I claim at this station are at a wedding getting hammered right now. But the opposite shift guys; we barely even know each other. Eleven years, and I’ve hardly taken the time to get to know them.
I know Alex, because he’s the one I so desperately crave approval from. And I know Oz, because we’re together far too often not to be family. I knew Cruz, but he was a Bishop rat – the good kind – and now he’s a Bishop employee.
That’s as far as my family stretches, and all of them are at a wedding across town while I drive home all alone in my beater car.
Maybe Gunneriswaiting for me to come to him. But what about me? Why must I be that person? Why can’t I have my knight come save me for once? Why must I always be the strong one?
Sighing, I pull into my parking space out front of my apartment building and kill the engine. I’ve spent so much of my life being the tomboy, the girl who needs no one to take care of her. But I want him to want me so much that he can’t stay away.
Of course I’m aware of the hypocrisy. I see it as clear as if our story were on a daytime TV show. I understand it, and if it was someone else’s relationship, I’d roll my eyes. But that doesn’t make it easier on my heart.
I want him to be so impossibly in love with me that he can’t stay away. I want that kind of passion, or I want nothing at all.
Tugging my keys from the ignition, I slide out of the car and slam the door closed. The people loitering at the end of the block have cop radars of some sort pinging in their brains, because the second my boots hit the tar road, their heads come up, their eyes lock onto my uniform, and then their feet pivot and drag them out of sight to finish up their dealings.
I should go to them. I should search their pockets, and when I inevitably find drugs, toss them into lockup for a couple nights.
But that’s not what I do.
I walk along the concrete pathway and through the glass front doors of my building. I stop briefly at the mailboxes, check mine – bills, bills, and a wine coupon ‘Buy a hundred dollars’ worth, get fifty dollars off!’
Terrible target marketing, considering I don’t drink.
I toss the coupon in the trash on the way past, then head up the stairs and pass noisy apartment doors while everyone watches the evening news. If I listen extra hard, I can catch sound clips, and Theo’s name being tossed around.
Griffin Industries is making national headlines tonight; perfect for my sour mood, I suppose.
I should have stopped at Dixie’s and bought ice cream.
I clear the first floor with sluggish steps. Then the second. I stomp up the stairs to third, and shake my head when my neighbors close their doors as they catch sight of me at the top.
These people hate cops, but they seem to enjoy having me here. They mind their own business if I mind mine. And since most of them work and are simply trying to make ends meet, I leave them be, and keep the dealers off our front step.
I approach my front door with a heavy heart and a pathetic pout. Maybe I should stop being so stubborn. Go to him, and we’ll work the rest out later.
Pushing the keys in and releasing the locks, I feel a heaviness in the air as I slowly push the door open. A part of me wonders if he might be sitting on my couch, holding the ratty sweater, and waiting with the crooked grin an eleven-year-old boy used to flash without remorse.
And another part of me wonders if the Bishops have set spring-loaded explosives to detonate when I push the door open.
It’s ridiculous, of course, but that heaviness in the air makes me think crazy things.
I push the door open with slow movements, and when it doesn’t explode,andmy couch remains Bishop-free, I sigh and close it again. My wild imagination made me panic at the thought of explosives. I don’t want to go down that way, but my empty couch seems to hurt so much more. Suddenly, a fast, painless death seems almost cheery.
I’m such a mess.
I toss my keys and phone onto the island counter as I pass, and then just like my father always used to do, I unclip my belt and grunt when the weight of all my shit drags my arm down. My pants started today with a perfectly ironed pleat, but that’s gone now, and in its place are wrinkles from sitting at a desk. My shirt was starched, stiff, and comforting in symbolism only. But now it flops, and when I run my hand over my stomach, I find one of the buttons undone.
Perfect.
