“Viper? It’s Kacie. What the hell is going on?”
“Dude. I don’t know.” He sounded out of breath. “He played like complete shit tonight, so I figured he’d want to go straight home and sleep it off, right? Well after the game, he tells me he wants to go blow off some steam at the bar. Fine. We’re sitting there having a drink; everything is great. I go to the bathroom, come back, and he’s in some fucking barroom brawl with like four guys. Next thing I know, the cops were there and he got cuffed.”
“Oh my God.”
“You have to come, Kacie. He’s fucking spiraling. I don’t know how to get through to him.”
“Text me the address of the station. I’m on my way.”
I threw a hoodie over my head, put my flip-flops on, and wrote my mom a quick note in case I wasn’t back in time to put the girls on the bus.
An hour and a half later, my hands were shaking as I circled the same city block for the eighth time, trying to find a parking space.
I finally found one and parallel parked like a pro for the first time in my entire life. I grabbed my phone from my purse and texted Viper.
I’M HERE. WHERE ARE YOU?
A loud knock on my driver’s side window nearly made me scream out loud.
“Jesus!” I yelled, glaring at Viper’s grinning face, which was pressed up against the glass. “You scared the shit out of me.”
He laughed. “I was sitting on the stairs. I watched you circle the block a million times, thought maybe Stevie Wonder was driving the car.”
“Not funny.” I rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh at him.
The crisp autumn air slapped me in the face as I hopped out of the Jeep. It was a little surreal that two hours before I was sound asleep in my bed at home, and now I was in a city police station to help bail my boyfriend out of jail.
“Okay.” I slammed my car door. “I’ve never bailed anyone out before. How does this work?”
“I already went in and talked to them. He’s in a holding cell in the basement.” He fell in step beside me as we made our way to the building. “We go in, pay the bail, and sign him out. Then I hold him down while you slap some sense into him.”
“I have an idea.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Think any of those cops are hockey fans?”
After Viper turned on the athletic charm and promised to hang around signing autographs for awhile, a fresh-faced, nice officer led me downstairs to the holding area. There were two cells. The one on the right held a few passed-out frat boys who’d clearly had too much to drink, evidenced by the putrid smell of vomit that assaulted my nose as I walked by.
To my left was the other cell and in it, sitting on a cement bench, was Brody. He was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his head in his hands. I stood for a second, staring at the loose curls on top of his head. I was overcome with love for him and guilt for the part I’d played in his internal torment.
I took a deep breath and mustered up every ounce of courage I had. “Hey,” I said softly.
His head snapped up at the sound of my voice and his eyes widened when he saw me. Standing up quickly, he wiped his hands on his jeans and took a couple steps closer. “Kacie? What are you doing here? How did you know?”
A sympathetic smile tugged at my lips. “Viper texted me and I got here as fast as I could.”
“You didn’t have to drive all this way.” He shook his head back and forth slowly. “Viper could’ve gotten me out.”
“I know that, but this actually worked out better.” I crossed my arms across my chest.
He raised his eyebrows and looked around the cell. “It did?”
“Yep.” I took a step forward and wrapped my hands around the bars. “He’s upstairs entertaining the officers with strict instructions not to pay the bail until he gets the ‘all clear’ text from me.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t run from me in there. You can’t ignore my texts. You have no choice but to hear me out.”
A smile threatened to tug at his mouth. “Resourceful little thing, aren’t you?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Brody, I love you. I love you so much. You walked into my life almost five months ago and have completely changed it. You’ve changed me for the better. You’ve made me relax—a little—and taught me to live life less timidly. Every once in awhile, though, the scared, over-analyzing girl in me still rears her ugly head and stands at the edge of that damn catastrophe cliff.”
He frowned at me, scratching his cheek. “The what?”
“Never mind.” I shook my head quickly. “It’s something Lauren talked about; it’s not important. My point is when I went to the hospital for the first time a few weeks ago, I never in a million years expected to see Zach there. I never expected to see him again in my whole life.”