Going Too Far(2)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Eric put both arms around me and massaged my boobs, too hard. "You’re just stoned," he whispered so Brian and Tiffany couldn’t hear. Even in their inebriated state, they would have been truly horrified at a mention of marijuana.

That buzz had worn off an hour ago, or so I’d thought. But Eric must be right. I was paranoid from the pot, and now I was drunk, too.

None of that explained the low hum in my ears.

The clearing at the end of the bridge exploded with the blue lights of the police.

Chapter 2

Move off the bridge, toward my voice," came the command, tinny through a megaphone.

I felt Eric tense behind me. We both looked away from the cop car to the opposite end of the bridge. Eric and I were a lot alike, unfortunately for both of us. I’m sure we were considering the same scenario. If we bolted away from the cops, we wouldn’t have a car. We’d follow the railroad tracks to the next town, or hike miles through the forest to the next bridge over the river. We’d have to come back home anyway, and the police would catch us eventually. Brian and Tiffany would rat us out to save their GPAs. Worst of all, my dad would tell me I’d made it even harder on my mom by letting her think I’d been kidnapped, not just arrested.

Besides, I needed to stay with Tiffany. I hadn’t exactly gotten her into this mess. She’d come to me, requesting a mess. But she wouldn’t be in the mess now if it weren’t for me. And Brian definitely wasn’t staying with her. He was already following the cop’s order, stepping from railroad tie to railroad tie, leaving Tiffany frozen against the cold metal wall. He probably hoped to get time off for good behavior. I never would have expected Eric to be strong for me, but for Tiffany’s sake, I’d expected more out of Brian.

I took the beer cup from Tiffany’s shaking hand and set down her cup and mine. The cop must have suspected we’d been drinking, but it seemed stupid to carry the beer off the bridge and present it to him. I put my arm around her. "Come on."

"Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God." As we walked behind Eric, she fished her cell phone out of her pocket and pressed a button.

"Who are you calling? Your lawyer?" I thought a little humor might cheer her up.

Apparently this was not the time. "Oh my God!" she screamed at me. "Mom?" she squealed into the phone. "I’m okay, everyone’s okay, but I’m in trouble. You have to come to the police station and get me."

"Tiffany, turn the phone off," said the tinny megaphone voice.

She pressed another button to hang up the phone, like someone used to following orders. "Oh my God," she shrieked at me, "he knows who I am!"

This was kind of weird, but not impossible. It was a small town. We probably went to school with the cop’s daughter. "He would have found out who you were when he looked at your driver’s license, anyway," I said. "What does it matter?"

"He’s going to tell my parents!"

It almost made sense. I was about to point out to her that she’d just called her parents herself, when Brian reached the end of the bridge.

The muscular cop with a military haircut stepped out of the shadows, into the moonlight and swirling blue light from his car. The sneaky shit must have driven all the way down here from the main road with his headlights off.

He said something quietly. Brian cowered before authority. He bent his head, gave the cop one wrist to handcuff to the railing at the end of the bridge, and spread his legs. Then he let the cop pat his hands over him, searching him. Hell, he would have submitted to a strip search if the cop had snapped his fingers.

Now Eric reached the end of the bridge. The cop didn’t look quite so enormous next to Eric, who was six foot three. But Eric was skinny, and the cop was built like Matt Damon.

Eric let the cop handcuff him to the railing and search him, too. Unlike Brian, Eric gave the cop shit the whole time, almost like they knew each other. Which was likely, considering what Eric had been up to lately. Anyway, everybody in town knew Eric because his daddy was a hotshot lawyer.

I helped Tiffany sit down on a railroad tie at the end of the bridge so we could put our shoes on. The cop had his back turned, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying. But I could hear Eric lying. "I’m not high. You think anybody in town would sell to me? Lord knows I’ve tried." Then, "It was my girlfriend’s idea to come up here in the first place."

"Thanks, ass**le," I called, giving him the thumbs-up. "Chivalry isn’t dead."

"It was your idea," Tiffany reminded Eric. She squinted at me. "Wasn’t it?"

"Don’t say anything else to each other." The cop still spoke as he had through the megaphone, calm and cool with a threat underneath. He curled one finger at Tiffany. "Your turn."

"Oh my God." She stood and walked toward the cop. I watched her, ready to catch her if she collapsed. At least, I would try. I wasn’t too sure about my own balance.

I also watched to make sure the cop wasn’t a perv, but he didn’t pat her down and handcuff her to the railing. He handcuffed both her wrists behind her back while she mouthed, "Oh my God oh my God." Then he guided her by the elbow into the backseat of the cop car, strapped the seat belt around her, and closed the door.

He motioned to me. My turn.

The low hum started again. Or maybe it had never stopped.

Eric and Brian both made a noise. "She has a little problem with being restrained," Eric told the cop. "I’ve tried that, too."

"Sounds like a good reason not to drink underage and trespass on city property." The cop walked over to me.

"She does have a real problem," Brian said. "Sir. I haven’t tried it, but there was this incident in the ninth grade."

I wondered whether Brian meant the time I couldn’t get my ankle untied from Julie Meadows’s ankle after the three-legged race in PE, or the time Todd Pemberton trapped me between floors in the handicapped elevator.

"Stand up," the cop told me.

"Look," Eric called, "when she resists arrest, I don’t want to get in more trouble for that. Remember I told you."

The cop did not care. I stood slowly, shaking worse than Tiffany. Something bad was about to happen. He was going to handcuff me. Or I was going to break down and plead with him not to.

"Turn around," he said.

Heart pounding, I faced the cop car.

Behind me, the cop grabbed my wrist. "You need to find out what this feels like," he said, warm breath on the back of my neck.

"I already know what it feels like," I whispered.

"I don’t think you do." Handcuffs opened with a ping of metal.