Going Too Far(34)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Through the metal grate, in the glow from the dashboard and Officer Leroy’s headlights, John scribbled across forms on his clipboard. T watched the rearview mirror, waiting for the inevitable shock when our eyes met. And I tried to control my shaking so he wouldn’t hear my movements against the vinyl seat in the warm car.

But he didn’t meet my eyes in the rearview mirror. He turned all the way around to give me the look full-force through the metal grate.

Not outraged. Just hurt.

Which got me worse than anything else could have. Because it meant we could have salvaged 6:01 a.m. Thursday, and I had thrown it away.

Just to rub it in, a whiff of the cologne he’d worn for me tickled my nose.

"You know I check down here a lot." He’d never let me hear this tone from him before: hurt, accusatory, nineteen. "You wanted me to find you here, doing Eric."

"I wasn’t doing Eric. I was standing outside the car when you got here, so that would be kind of a stretch."

"You intended to, though."

I wanted to turn away from the look, but his eyes held mine. My brain scrambled for a weapon to fight back with. "You followed me."

It worked. He actually sat back a little behind the grate, and went on the defensive. "I didn’t follow you. I was headed into work a few minutes early to write my weekly report. I generally do it during my shift, but my shift’s been more interesting than usual this week." He paused to watch my reaction.

My pulse quickened with that idiotic feeling again—he liked me! he liked me!—but I was very careful to show no reaction whatsoever.

He went on, "And then I recognized Eric’s car, and I saw you turn in here."

I waited for him to hear himself. But of course he didn’t. John was selectively daft. Finally I pointed out, "And then you followed me!"

He closed his eyes. "I—"

"I’m embarrassed enough already. Why’d you have to bring Leroy out here? You wanted me to feel as embarrassed as possible, right? You get off on making other people feel vulnerable and captured, because it makes you feel stronger and more in control."

"This is what you want, right? This is exactly how you want me."

"No!" he shouted. His chest rose and fell rapidly. He put one hand up to grip the metal grate between us. His knuckles showed white. "If I had pulled Eric out of the car myself, I’m afraid of what I would have done to him."

He turned around in his seat and picked up his clipboard again. His hand shook on the pen.

I asked quietly, "Why are you pretending to write, when I already know you’re just doing that to intimidate me?"

"Don’t try to make me any angrier than I already am." He kept making notes and Xs and flipping through forms as he growled, "You’re trying to get back at me for last night. You think I don’t feel that, just because I’m wearing a uniform?"

I meant to keep acting sullen. But he was too mad. He demanded and maybe even deserved a real answer.

"You told me in the diner one night that I was feeling around for soft spots to stab you," I said. "What do you think you did to me last night? You’ve seen me faint before. You knew what would happen."

John shook his head. "I wasn’t handcuffing you or locking you up. I had no idea you’d pass out. I just wanted to show you this accident to scare you, because I don’t want you to get hurt." He turned around in his seat and pulled himself close to the metal grate between us, as if he would pull himself through it. "I care about you, Meg."

His sleepy dark eyes melted me. Almost. I wasn’t falling for it. I glared at him. "You care about that dead girl."

"No, I care about you."

"Yeah, I understood that last night at the wreck. Nothing says I love you like a dead body."

He sighed through his nose. "You don’t want to be tied down or held prisoner. Death is the ultimate prison, and you’re headed there. That’s what I’m trying to tell you."

"But you can’t live your life worried about dying all the time. If you do, you’re dead already. Like you."

He had completely forgotten to be big tough cop guy. He bit his lip gently and ran his fingers back through his short hair at the same time.

But we were tied. I’d crossed my arms on my chest.

"Even if you were mad at me," he said, "even if you thought I’d wronged you, I can’t believe you would come here with Eric. It seems like the past week would have meant more to you."

"I didn’t do him," I repeated.

"You were going to, though," he repeated.

Both these things seemed true, but didn’t add up. "I wasn’t going to," I said. "Maybe I thought I was, but I wasn’t."

He watched me carefully. "Because of me?" I sighed. "Because of you."

He gave me that dark, loving look. "Now is when I should hug you, and we would both feel so much better. But I can’t in front of them." He nodded to Officer Leroy patting Eric down in the swirling blue light outside the car. Then he turned back to me and opened his hands in front of the metal grate. "Consider yourself hugged. Virtual hug."

I felt the virtual hug, warm and snug. "All right," I said. "But from now on, every time you show me a dead body, I’m having sex with Eric." "God, Meg!"

"That’s as far as I can go for you right now."

We stared at each other through the grate for a few moments. Though his stern expression didn’t change, he did c**k his head, as if looking at me from a new angle might help.

Finally he turned around in his seat and faced the steering wheel. Like nothing had happened—no induced fainting, no near-sex with pot-smoking boyfriend, no virtual hug—he said, "Come up in the front seat where you belong, and let’s get out of here. We have work to do."

*

We drove to the interstate and downtown and the bridge and McDonald’s and Martini’s and Eggstra! Eggstra! and the bridge and the bad side of town and the Birmingham Junction and the bridge. Then Lois radioed to us about an attempted break-in at one of the smaller stores near Target in the town’s main shopping center, which some of our more unsophisticated citizens, including my mom, referred to as a mall.

Lois said the suspects were driving an old Aztek. We cruised all the way around the shopping center parking lot and behind the buildings. No Aztek. As usual, the crime was over by the time John got there.

He parked the cop car, and we walked under the shopping center awning. He checked the doors of all the stores and shone his flashlight through the windows to make sure. Speakers under the awning played the Birmingham radio station as if it were daytime shopping hours, not 4 a.m.