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“Miss Davis,and where is it that you think you’re going, exactly? You do realize that you’re now considered a witness to a crime. You can’t walk away from the scene of a crime without talking to the police. There are serious repercussions that come from attempting to evade them and walking away now would be nothing but trouble for you young lady. You of all people should know better” She glares.
To be perfectly honest, that’sexactlywhat I thought. I’d just walk away and disappear into the crowd like I always do. I’ve done it hundreds of times before, and if she hadn’t seen me, I’d be long gone already.
“Well, considering this had absolutely nothing to do with me, I figured my time would be better spent elsewhere, ya know? Like, inclass. What do they even need me for? I just got here. You know just as well as I do, that even if I knew anything, I wouldn’t talk. I’m not fucking snitch.”
If looks could kill, we’d be looking at a second murder attempt at school for the day. I know I shouldn't be so sarcastic, but then again, she’s one of those people that just has no sense of humor and I don’t really know how to not be a smartass. That and her face is stuck in perpetual resting bitch mode so I probably shouldn’t hold it against her.
“How about I escort you to the library instead? We’ll let the cops decide who stays and who goes. No sense in causing any more trouble for yourself than you already have, although running that smart mouth might do the trick anyway.” She gives me a smug look as she leaves me at the library doors.
The police immediately start pulling students aside to collect witness statements and evidence. Somehow, Iget swept up in the group going to the police station, despite my insistence that all I saw was the aftermath. I guess I just have a look about me that says “trouble”. I take a deep breath to calm my erratic nerves. I mean, I wasn’t even here. What could possibly happen to me?
Chapter Two
Quinn
“Hello, I’m detective Hannah Lowe. This here is my partner detective Justin Concord. We have a few things we need to discuss with you, but how about we start with your name?” The detective narrows her eyes slightly, looking for any signs of deception as I respond.
I’m sure they run into kids not wanting to give their real information over all the time. And immediately, my defenses go up. That’s just instinct when you gotta deal with cops on the regular, I guess. They clearly have me pegged for the kind of girl that they need to be cautious of. Whatever, I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut and let them do most of the talking.
“Hey, I’m Quinn. Look, I honestly don’t know anything about what happened. I only showed up, like a second before the CPD busted into the school. So... since I don’t have any info, can I leave?” I go to stand, but the detective’s next words stop me.
“Oh, um, Quinn Davis?” He looks at me nervously and then down at the ground, shifting on his feet. He’s clearly uncomfortable.
“Yeah, Quinn Davis, that’s me. What’s going on?” I ask, anxious from the blatant discomfort being displayed by the detective.
“You were actually on the list of students that had unavailable parents. I’m sure it’s no shock to you that we need a parent or legal guardian present in order to question a minor.” He tells me, still unable to look me directly in the eye.
“The problem, however, is that we sent an officer to your house to find a parent. Nobody answered and when he knocked on the door, and well, it wasn’t latched all the way so the door swung open. There was what appeared to be an unconscious woman lying on the floor. The officer that found her immediately dispatched for a medical unit, but it appears that she suffered from an overdose an hour or so prior to his finding her.” His voice is shaking as he tells me this news, it’s like he’s uncomfortable speaking the words out loud. Maybe because I’m a minor and he knows this means I’ll likely go into the system or maybe he just thinks I’ll be devastated at the loss of my mom. Hell, maybe he’s just new to the job and hasn’t learned how to deal with people receiving bad news yet.
“We have yet to determine if this is your mother and I’m sorry to give you this news after such a tragic event at school but we may need you to identify the body if there are no other friends or family to do so. Do you have anyone we can call?”
I don’t even have a response to give the detective, so I just stare at him. What am I supposed to say? She wasn’t exactly winning any parent of the year awards. With her constant need for a needle and a man, she’d already long ago given up on the whole mother-daughter relationship. I can’t actually remember a time when she had a real motherly instinct, actually. The detective and his partner are looking at me like I’m gonna bolt, but I’m too numb to move - my brain is trying to quickly process everything that’s likely to happen next.
He stands in front of the door while the woman moves closer, slipping into what I assume is her “comforting cop” role. He must be the muscle in case they find me to be a problem. I can only imagine what they think of me in my too tight, somewhat dirty, holey outfit. I’m sure my lack of response to them telling me my mom probably died this morning isn’t helping matters.
“Look, I understand that this news may be a bit shocking, but I promise things will go a lot smoother if you can just talk to us. A little cooperation goes a long way in circumstances like this.”
I can’t even help it; I start laughing at Lowe’s statement. Not just a small laugh either. Like a full blown belly laugh and I have to fight back tears at the thought of any of this being “shocking”. That’s when their own collective shock sets in. Their aghast looks morph quickly into suspicion. They both look at me like now I’m somehow the cause of this happening to Ma instead of a lifetime of consistent drug abuse.
Never mind the fucked up ways she prostituted herself out to afford another hit, and the few times she threatened to sellmybody, too — as if I were a possession instead of a human fucking being, a child at that. She’s actually pretty damn lucky she didn’t kick the bucket a lot sooner. Hell, she’s lucky I never fucking strangled her to death.
I gather myself and my voice is thin as I spew her ‘secrets’ without emotion.
“Do you want me to be surprised? Shocked? Devastated maybe? ‘Cause I’m not... The woman always needed some form of drugs in her system. Heroine was her favorite but she couldn’t really afford to be picky. Half the time she just used her body to pay for her latest fix. I don’t have any other family though so I can identify the body if I have to, but I imagine you have a fat enough file on her that you could easily do it yourself. She’s no stranger to you. She’s been picked up a time or two for some shit or another. I assume after that, it’s the system for me, yeah?”
Their wariness at my laughter quickly turns to pity. Ugh. Ihatepity. It’s useless. What they fail to realize is that I’ve been taking care of myself for as long as I can remember. I’ve basically been an adult since I was eleven, maybe younger. I’m not stupid and I’mnotweak. This is just one more obstacle in a long path of destruction that my mother has subjected me to, but I won’t be stuck in this darkness forever. These shadows have made me a home, but I won’t hide in them forever. And once I find a way out, I’ll never look back. It’s up to me to create that life and I’m so damn close. Bring it the fuck on.
* * *
It’s been days.Sixteen,long ass days to be exact since I sat in the police station and listened to the police tell me that ma died. It’s been fifteen days since they confirmed it was the body of good ol’ Mommie Dearest. Fourteen days since I met my social worker, Mrs. Doris Ward. A lackluster middle-aged woman that doesn’t enjoy smiling. She smells like cheap perfume and menthols, and she low-key reminds me of the shape of an eggplant. Thirteen shitty days since I’ve been placed in an all-girls group home while I wait on information from her about what's going to happen next, or when I can go back to school. The only good thing to happen to me, is that I was allowed to go home to collect a few personal items. I didn’t take much. There wasn’t much worth taking, except a baby blanket I can’t seem to let go of and an old picture of me as a baby, held by my now-deceased aunt.
She was beautiful, elegant even, and I was wearing possibly the nicest dress I’ve ever owned. I couldn’t have been more than two or three in the picture, but she had an air of sophistication about her that always made me wonder where her and ma came from and why we ended up the way we did. She passed away when I was still little and whenever I asked about her, ma shut down and seemed to dive further into her addiction.
Ma would sometimes be so out of her mind angry that she’d go on rambling tangents about how I got my looks from my aunt. She’d say no man would ever want such an ugly thing.
Eventually I just stopped asking about my aunt, ma never even told me her name. I always kind of thought that they’d had a massive fight or falling out before my aunt died and ma never could get past it, but who knows, really. I imagined that ma’s grief is what drove her to drugs and that her residual anger combined with my resemblance to my aunt festered into what became the hatred of her own daughter.
When I was still young, it was the only justification I could give her that allowed me to forgive the woman that I desperately wanted to love me. I can’t even remember when I finally gave up hope for that to ever actually happen. Probably around the time puberty kicked in and she saw dollar signs for her pills and powder.
