Page 7 of Belong With Me
“I don’t have a broken headli—”
In a quick second, Officer Liu whips his baton off his belt, steps to the front of the car, and raises his arm to swing.
“Stop!” I shout, and Officer Liu pauses with his arm raised in the air, poised to strike.
“Keep your hands on the steering wheel!” he demands, pointing the baton at Jason through the windshield even though he made no indication of movement.
“We don’tknowanything!” I cry out, and Officer Liu approaches Jason’s window again. “I didn’tdoanything!
You should be looking at Brandon Scott. He was obsessed with Lily! He—”
“Oh, yes, your gripe with Brandon Scott,” he interrupts. “You’ve already been through this with Detective Dubois, and it didn’t work in your favor.” He leans closer, pinning me with his bloodshot eyes. “No one is going to believe the straight-A student and star quarterback with multiple college offers has anything to do with my daughter’s disappearance, especially when all signs point toyou.”
I’m so frustrated with his stubborn preconceptions about me that I feel like screaming, threat of arrest be damned. Just as I open my mouth to say something that’ll probably get me in more trouble, Jason interrupts.
“Just give me my damn ticket and let us go already,” he forces out, his fingers so tight on the steering wheel his knuckles are white. He turns to Officer Liu, and I notice how tense the muscles in his back and neck are.
It occurs to me just how hard Jason’s been focusing on staying calm instead of lashing out and making things worse like I’ve been doing, especially since I can feel how powerful the anger radiating off him is. Knowing that Jason’s this pissed on my behalf snuffs out some of my own frustration, and I place a subtle hand on his thigh as reassurance that we’re in this together.
Officer Liu’s eyes narrow. “Stay right there.”
He disappears back to his own car, and Jason and I both release a breath, and with it the tension in our shoulders.
“I’m sorry he’s giving you a ticket for no reason, Jason,” I say, then amend, “Well, I guess he has a reason, just not the proper one.”
“I don’t give a shit about the ticket,” Jason admits.
“He’s clearly going to keep harassing us as long as he’s got it in his delusional brain that you’re somehow involved with what happened to his daughter.”
“I’m sorry, Jason. It’s my fault you’re always mixed up with him.” Hell, he wasarrestedbecause of me. “I can’t believe he was really going to bash in your headlight.” He was going to do it too; he wasn’t bluffing.
Jason takes my hand from his thigh and intertwines our fingers. “Stop apologizing. I’m not worried about Officer Dickwad just like I’m not worried about Brandon.
We’re going to figure it out together, and we’re going to figure out what happened to Lily. Then we can stand back and watch everyone eat shit when they realize how wrong they were about you.”
My heart squeezes the same way it does every time he says something that makes me want to throw myself at him and never let go.
Approaching footsteps stop me from replying, and then Officer Liu is back at the window. He hands Jason back his documents, along with an undeserved ticket.
“You better hope there’s some progress with Lily’s case, or I’ll be seeing you two real soon.” It’s a thinly veiled threat, one that neither Jason nor I miss but can’t say anything about, and then Officer Liu is retreating to his car, and I’m left wondering just how far he’ll go in the name of his personal vendetta.
Three
The week that passes is thankfully yet annoyingly un-eventful. Dario’s away on a weeklong trip for work, so there hasn’t been any more talk about shipping me off like he suggested after my suspension. Maybe sending me to live with his cousin in New York was just a threat to keep me in line, or maybe he meant it, but I’m relieved he’s not following up on separating me from my sister.
Zia Stella is staying over to “watch us,” and she’s much more chill and ten times nicer than he is, so the hours I’m home between work and school aren’t the worst. I eat lunch with Nyah or sometimes outside when it’s nice enough, joke in class with Warren, spend my spare time with Jason, even get an A on my English pop quiz, and it’s almost weird how normal everything seems.
Gia’s on track as well. This week she joined the debate team and signed up for volleyball tryouts, seemingly having cooled it with the parties and drinking after everything that happened at the motel and our talk about being in a good place here in King City. She seemshappy, and it’s for that reason I haven’t told her about Brandon and his threats. I don’t want to worry her unnecessarily, especially not when we’re getting along and she’s actually getting her act together. Besides, I’m handling it, like I handle everything else, which is why the week has been annoying: there’s been no progress with unlocking Brandon’s phone.
I’ve tried combinations of all the numbers important to Brandon like his birthday, jersey number, home address, even his cat’s birthday, which I casually asked his younger sister, Brianna, about when she was over hanging out with Gia. I’ve become so desperate, Jason even got the cheerleader in charge of all the football player locker decorations for spirit day to tell him Brandon’s locker combination, and I still had no luck. It is sofrustrating.
Every time Brandon’s phone is in my hand, I just want to smash it on my desk over and over again, screaming obscenities until it shatters into a million pieces. But then the calming voice of reason in my head that sounds suspiciously like Jason reminds me that destroying the phone won’t help us find out what Brandon’s done to Lily, and I practice Anusha’s calming breathing techniques to quell the rage.
But other than that, everything’s going so well it’s almost too good to be true. This is everything I wanted when I came to King City: a stable house, a good relationship with my sister, a future in which college is actually possible, friends, and even the bonus of Jason, who’s incredible in every way. But I can’t help feeling like trouble is breathing down my neck, and I’m always wondering when the other shoe will drop.
I find out on Monday, exactly a week from Brandon’s threat, as he promised.
Despite the fact that I share two classes and a lunch period with him, Brandon’s easy enough to avoid. He’s the biggest person in any crowd, so I always know where he is and run in the opposite direction. And in class, he’s surrounded by friends, so I can easily slip out before he tries to talk to me. It helps that he doesn’t try to talk to me, only glares like he’s trying to make my head explode, but I can work with that.