Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,73
my shirt.
They didn’t let him in the room with me, but I heard him bellowing outside, probably loud enough for me to hear him on purpose.
“I want that kid charged!” he screamed.
They’d already explained to us that running away was not a crime, after Tiffany had started to panic about going to juvy.
Still. It made me nervous to hear that. I thought of all the e-mails I had that would show she went willingly. Anyway, she met me at the bus station. I didn’t drag her out of her house.
The cops’ voices were lower, so I didn’t hear them. But he screamed again. “I will take out a restraining order against this little pervert! He better not contact my daughter ever again, or I’ll make him regret it!”
“Dad!” Tiffany’s voice was panicked and squeaky.
“That’s enough! I made a mistake trusting you even this far, haven’t I? And to think I could have lost you like we did your mother . . .”
At this his voice broke.
All I heard after that was Tiffany sobbing her way down the hall.
And by then I figured she was probably right and I would never hear from her again.
I’d never felt so lonely in my entire life and I decided to sleep. While I was drifting off, I kept thinking about what her dad had said, about “lost you like we did your mother.” Tiffany didn’t talk much about her mother, but she didn’t mention not having one, either.
Geez. With that kind of history, she doesn’t stand a chance.
Chapter 33
Michael
I’ve been awake so long, it feels like I’ve got sand in my eyes, but I’m at least some semblance of alert. My dad has refused to relinquish the wheel, so the unspent fury building inside me at being treated like a helpless child has brewed strong enough to jolt me to life.
The rest of the drive has been spent in hours of prickly silence. Eventually Dad switched on the stereo to classical music. I was grateful that it seemed to be all the thundery, angry classical tonight, not the sleepy-weepy stuff. Must be lots of Wagner.
Now my father’s GPS interrupts Wagner to tell him to get off the highway, turn left, turn right. My dad has selected a British woman’s voice for his GPS. It sounds like Kate Winslet. Maybe it is. Maybe if you can afford a luxury SUV, you get Kate Winslet telling you where to go.
The snow has faded to a few wispy flakes, now, and the plows and salt trucks are carving furrows into the slushy gray of the roads. The only other cars out seem to be police cars, tow trucks, and semi trucks, who don’t stop for anything or they don’t get paid.
If Dylan had climbed into a trucker’s cab, he could have made it to New York by now.
We get out of the SUV and I embrace the cold as opposed to the close, oppressive interior. I’d even started to resent the seat warmer.
The lights inside the police station burn my eyes. It’s quiet in the lobby, but the cops behind the counter look busy as ever.
We tell them why we’re here, and the officer, placid and calm, picks up a phone to dial somebody.
My throat feels thick with held-back emotion. It’s clear why they call it “choked up.” Haven’t felt like this since Jewel was born.
He comes around the corner led by an officer, his eyes on the floor.
“Dylan!” I run and grab him, and I don’t care if he doesn’t want me to. For a second I’m surprised how tall he is; with him away from me, I’d regressed him to a smaller, younger child. He has to push back twice before I let go of him.
His skin looks sickly in the hot fluorescent glare. He’s got a little peach fuzz sprouting on his lip. His eyes are red, and it might be from crying, but it might be from sleeplessness, too.
My father claps Dylan on his far shoulder, then pulls him in for an awkward, sideways, one-armed hug.
I apologize to the officers for the interruption, and thank them profusely for watching him. When they leave the lobby, giving us relative privacy, I weigh what to say to Dylan. I want to shake him by his shoulders and scream at him what he did to us, and demand to know why he did it. I also want to hold him in my arms like he’s a toddler because it was so much easier to protect him