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He is not moved by my plea. “Maybe needing to walk everywhere for a while will help jog your memory or inspire you to be honest with me.”
I feel like screaming until he gets it through his thick head that he’s wasting his time with us, but Jason’s hand on my back grounds me. It slides around to my waist, and he pulls me against his side, the two of us united in front of the man trying so hard to make my life miserable.
Officer Liu approaches Bert’s window and says something, then the tow truck slowly veers onto the road.
Jason and I watch it travel down the dark street, pulling the car I know means so much to Jason along with it.
“Stay out of trouble for the rest of the night,” Officer Liu says, going back to his own car.
It takes me a moment to realize he’snotarresting us, and the relief that washes through me is short-lived when it hits me that he’s deserting us.
“You’re just going to leave us here? At practically midnight in the middle of nowhere?” I call to his retreating back. Jason pulls me tighter against him, like he’s prepared to step in if I throw myself at Officer Liu and get arrested. “What if something happens to us?”Like whathappened to Lilyis what I don’t say, but it still hangs in the air between us. “You’d be responsible.”
Officer Liu considers my statement for a moment, his nostrils flaring as he looks at us.
“You got a cell phone?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“It have signal?”
Confused, I look at my phone, which has full bars.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re fine.”
And with that, he turns around and strides back to his car.
Eleven
The flashing blue and red lights switch off once Officer Liu is inside his car, and he drives past us without sparing us even a glance.
We stand there, in the middle of the road, and watch the cruiser disappear, taking the remaining light and noise with it.
I have the overwhelming urge to flip off the retreating car, but I don’t in case he’s looking in the rearview mirror and decides to change his mind about not arresting us. I’d rather be outside and free in the middle of nowhere with Jason than locked up and panicking in a cell alone.
Jason drops his hold on me and steps away, running an angry hand through his hair.
Guilt forms in the pit of my stomach. “I’m so sorry, Jason.”
This is all because of me. Jason is being harassed and just had his cartowedbecause ofme. Jason has been nothing but kind and helpful to me, and I’ve repaid him by making him a target of Officer Liu’s stupid vendetta. I’m dragging him down. All I’veeverdone is drag Jason down.
In the short time he’s known me, he’s been suspended, he broke into the school and had to run from the cops, he is constantly being pulled over, he’s gotten arrestedtwice, and he literally took the fall when Brandon almost died, all because ofme.
Why is he still hanging around me? How can he even look at me and see anything but a nuisance and someone who’s more trouble than they’re worth?
The guilt claws at my throat and squeezes, making it hard for me to breathe.
I know Jason’s beyond pissed. I know he’s thinking of all the different ways he can slowly and torturously kill Officer Liu as he stares at his retreating car with clenched fists. I know every bone in his body is screaming with rage. But even so, he’s keeping it together. His tense muscles give him away, but other than that he’s being almost scarily calm and collected, and by the way his eyes keep flicking to me and he forces himself to take a deep breath, I know it’s only because of me.
He must know how close I am to losing it again, how I already feel like everything is spinning out of my control, and he’s the one who reassures me, who keeps me grounded, like he did earlier in the car. But because I know that he’s only keeping it together because that’s whatIneed him to do, it makes me feel ten times worse.
“I told you, none of this is your fault, Siena,” he says, looking at the paper Officer Liu gave him with information on his towed car.
“I’m sorry I stopped you from pressing charges the first time we were arrested,” I say, looking down at my feet to stop myself from tearing up. “I didn’t want to deal with everything that came with it. But maybe that would’ve put a stop to all of this. Maybe we could’ve avoided it all.”
I feel his hand on my arm. “You don’t know that.
