Going Too Far(17)
Author: Jennifer Echols

It had crossed his.

And he was wearing cologne.

"How did I end up with you?" I asked.

He turned to me, wide-eyed. "What?" The car lunged over a rock, and he put his eyes back on the road.

"Why am I riding in your police car instead of the ambulance or the fire truck? Did y’all draw straws, and you were the lucky winner? I’ll bet everyone was hoping for Tiffany, but alas."

I half expected him to look all shiny and new at the mention of Tiffany. Or to protest too much, giving himself away.

He didn’t answer.

"John?"

"I picked you," he said quietly.

I swallowed. It probably didn’t mean anything. At least, not what I wanted it to.

"Why’d you pick me? So you could get me alone on Hot Date 911? I’m telling Angie."

"No, I’m not coming on to you at all," he said, voice rising. "I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. No."

"Right!" I snapped. I didn’t want to snap. I never really thought he liked me for real. It was just that he made the idea sound loathsome. "How could I suggest something so ridiculous? You wouldn’t be attracted to a loudmouthed blue-haired girl. Of course, Eric is. Of course, Eric is charged with multiple felonies."

"I’m not sure I’d call that an attraction," he said. "From the way you talk about him, he’s not much of a boyfriend. He’s more of a John."

I counted to ten silently. I had enough self-control to keep from punching the police. By eight, I could hear the jealousy in his voice.

He was jealous.

That was no excuse. I swiped my notebook out of the floorboard and wrote he’s not much of a boyfriend—he’s more of a John.

"Meg."

"You called me a prostitute."

"I realize now I shouldn’t have put it—"

"Thanks, Officer After."

"It’s just because your relationship with him seems to be nothing but sex—" "So why can’t—"

"—if you think he wouldn’t even save you from an oncoming train."

"So why can’t I be the John?" I asked. "You can be the John."

"Why can’t he be the prostitute, and I can be the John?"

"You can be the John. God!" He stopped the car in the clearing with a jerk. The headlights shone across the gravel but didn’t quite touch the end of the bridge.

He turned to me with his arms crossed on his chest. Which of course he should not have done, because I knew exactly what that meant. He felt vulnerable.

"Look," he said, "I didn’t mean to get into all this. Let’s not even joke about the idea that I picked a suspect to hook up with. I mean, here we are, driving around all night alone in the dark, and I have a gun and handcuffs."

What he was trying to get across is how threatening this situation should have been for me. But I didn’t see it that way. I got chills in the darkness at the thought of him coming on to me. Granted, I was allergic to handcuffs, and I didn’t want to be threatened with a gun. But the whole scenario smacked of some X-rated leather-heavy adult movie, and suddenly I very much wanted to be an adult. With Johnafter.

I couldn’t see his eyes clearly in the darkness, only the lower half of his face. He bit his bottom lip gently. Vulnerable.

"Why did you pick me?" I asked.

"You remind me of someone."

"With blue hair?" I laughed. "Who?"

"No. You know that story you asked me about the first night? Those kids getting killed on the bridge?"

I nodded at the freight train I knew was about to hit me.

"Kids think it’s a ghost story," he said, "but adults still remember it as a tragedy.’

"How do you remember it?"

"Both ways." He sighed through his nose, this time a long, slow sigh. "You remind me of that girl who died. She was a lot older than me, but she lived in my neighborhood. You have the same eyes."

I blinked. My eyes were blue. Probably they were accentuated by my blue hair. I hadn’t checked. I knew green hair hadn’t done much for them.

I felt a low rumble in the floorboard of the car, stronger than the car’s engine. Automatically now, I turned to the tracks and saw the white circle of headlight. The train had traveled through town and reached the bridge.

John continued. "Both of you have the same idea that you need some bad boy to show you life. You know he’ll get you in trouble, and you don’t care. You’d follow him anywhere." He shouted above the train’s horn, which was excruciatingly loud through my open window. "And the worst part is, you won’t admit that to yourself. A boy will be your downfall."

"Oh." I tried the door handle. "Let me out." I slapped the door with the flat of my hand. "Let me out, John, I swear to God!" I started to climb through the window at the same time I tried the handle again. The door swung open over the gravel, and I fell on my ass on the sharp rocks.

I thought I heard John call to me over the noise filling the clearing, but I just ran, away from him, toward the train.

The captain of the state championship high school track team caught me by the arm in two seconds. "Meg, come on. We’re supposed to be looking for that Kia. We don’t have time for this."

I pulled my arm away. "We don’t have time for me to be completely creeped out that I’m riding around with you because I remind you of a dead girl. But we have time to drive down a dirt road and make sure the bridge is still here." I whirled around and gestured into the dark where I assumed the bridge was. "Well, I’ll be damned. It’s still here. It hasn’t lifted up its girders and waded downstream."

"Meg—"

"You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. You see me once, trespassing, stoned, which I might add is somewhat out of character for me no matter what you choose to think, and you decide you have me all figured out? Graduating from the police academy does not qualify you as a psychiatrist."

"Was it your idea to go up on that bridge?"

"No."

"It wasn’t that other girl’s idea, either."

The train passed, but this time I didn’t turn to watch its taillights disappear into the trees. I was locked in a stubborn stare with Johnafter’s dark eyes.

The racket of wheels clacking on the rails lifted, leaving only the low hum of the police car underneath. This deep in the forest, tree frogs should have been screaming in the trees, but it was only March. They hadn’t woken up yet.

"If I could—" he started, then realized how loud his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and said quietly, "If I could save just one person, just you, all this would be worth it."