“Did you two have a fight?” my dad asked.
I sobbed harder, unable to speak. I felt the mattress sag as my father sat down on the other side of me, putting his strong arms around me, too. “It’s okay, baby,” he said, and I could hear the tears in his own voice. “We’ve got you. Everything’s going to be fine.”
They held me like that for I don’t know how long, until my eyes were swollen shut and my body felt like it had been drained of all my blood. I was so spent, I could barely move; I could barely draw a breath.
“Tell us,” my mother said, her voice trembling. “Please.”
And then, finally, I lifted my head and looked at my parents, and somehow found the strength to speak the truth.
Tyler
What the hell just happened? I thought as I let the Bryants’ front door slam behind me, making my way to the street, where I’d parked my truck. I jumped inside, gripping the steering wheel and gunning the engine, picturing the wide-eyed, undeniable look of fear that had taken over Amber’s face when I walked into her room. She was scared of me. Totally terrified. The tires squealed as I pulled out of my parking spot and pointed my truck toward home, running through three almost-red lights and scaring the hell out of a pedestrian on the way to the freeway.
“Watch it, jerkwad!” the man yelled at me as he jumped back on the curb to avoid getting plowed into by my truck. I flipped him off, then zipped past three cars, cutting them all off so I could merge onto the freeway before them.
Something was seriously wrong. When I’d woken up in the bed without Amber there, I’d called her, but her phone must have been off because it went straight to voice mail. I decided I’d better head over to her house to make sure she had gotten home okay and, also, to find out why she had left. With all the tequila I’d had, I still wasn’t thinking clearly, and the entire night was a sort of fuzzy, amorphous blob in my mind. I remembered the way she and I had danced, how she’d been the one to kiss me. How she’d led me upstairs to the bedroom, how she tore off my clothes, writhing against me and pulling me down on the bed. I remembered how amazing it felt to be inside her. After that, everything sort of went dark, the specifics of the sex we’d had flashing in and out of my head in fractured, disjointed pieces. Why was she afraid of me? Why would she scream at me like that? Had I gotten too rough with her? Had I done something to her in my sleep?
The thought that I’d possibly hurt Amber caused me to reflexively press my foot down on the gas pedal, accelerating to sixty, sixty-five, seventy, then eighty. My blood pressure pounded in my eardrums, the rush of adrenaline filling my veins made my limbs feel heavy, aching with the need for release. What is wrong with me? Just calm the fuck down! Out of sheer frustration, I pounded the heel of my right palm hard enough against the top of the steering wheel that the front of my truck jerked into the next lane. The brakes on the car beside mine screeched, and the driver slammed on his horn.
“Shit!” I said, rushing to right my vehicle. But it was too late. Red and blue lights flashed behind me and the whoop-whoop of the siren sounded. My pulse jittered through my body as I slowed down, using my indicator to signal as I moved over to the side of the road. I turned off the engine and turned on the hazard lights, reaching for my license in my wallet and the truck’s registration from the glove box.
When the officer approached, I didn’t even bother to speak; I just held the documents out the window, wanting to get home, desperate to figure out why Amber had freaked when she saw me.
“Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?” The officer’s blond hair was tucked up into a bun at the base of her neck, and her lips were so thin and pale, it almost looked as though she didn’t have a mouth at all.
“I was speeding,” I said, flatly. Please don’t have me do a Breathalyzer, I thought. I might still be hovering near the limit of legally drunk.
“And you almost drove that Lexus off the road,” the officer said. “Were you on your cell?” She looked to the passenger seat, where my cell phone lay along with my jacket.
“No, I was not.” I reached over and offered the phone to her. “Feel free to check the text or call history for a time stamp of when I last used it.”
She waved it away, then made a note on the clipboard she carried. “You in a hurry to get somewhere this morning?”
I held the tops of my thighs in a tight grip. “No, ma’am. Just wasn’t paying attention. I apologize.”
“You seem agitated. Everything all right?”
I had to restrain myself from unleashing the truth. That everything was far from all right. And just then, as I stared at the officer standing next to my truck, the sound of Amber’s voice pleading with me last night went off like loud bell inside my head—Tyler, wait! she’d said as I was lying on top of her, and a sinking sense of horror crept through me. Did she think that I forced her to have sex? Did she think I raped her? Oh god. Oh fuck. I have to talk to her. She has to let me. I have to make her understand she has it all wrong. I would never do something like that!
I clenched my jaws, feeling the muscles working beneath my skin, before I answered. “Can you just give me the fucking ticket so I can get on my way?”
The officer paused, looking at me with cool brown eyes. “There’s no need for that kind of language, sir.”
I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. Really.” Getting arrested was all I needed right now; I needed to tone it down. “The thing is, I’m a paramedic and I guess I’m used to being able to push the limit, you know? Sometimes it happens off-shift without me even realizing.” I didn’t mention that Mason drove our rig the majority of the time.
“What district are you with?”
“City of Bellingham, under Captain Duncan.” I held my breath, hoping that this thin alliance between my job and hers might encourage her to let me off with a warning.
The officer looked as though she were contemplating a decision to do just that, and then she spoke. “You might want to avoid driving when you’re this upset,” the officer said as she finished writing out the ticket and handed it to me. “I’m dinging you for the speeding, not reckless endangerment, but I’d better not catch you out here pulling that crap again.”