“Declan is not my boyfriend,” she said. “And that’s not what this is about, you moron. Something’s off about him. If anyone can tell, I can.” She didn’t sound angry, just really worried, and I couldn’t tell if she was pulling my leg—somehow making fun of me.
“I’ll make my own decisions,” I said. And she looked shocked. “I’m my own person, Syd. You and I are not the same in any way. And we never will be. And besides, I’m older than you.”
Syd may be smart but she is still immature. She’s overly emotional. Sometimes you have to just tell her how things are. “You and I are not unified on this at all. And I’m not going to fight with you. We are not coming together on this.”
She glared at me.
“No,” she said. “You don’t know how to fight. You just leave it up to me.”
Well, it was terrible, but his dad was some bigwig up at BAE Systems. That place that makes drones for the war—surveillance drones I guess, some big technology firm. There were folks here who wanted him tried as an adult. He was lawyered up before he even left the hospital—he had a fractured collarbone, a cracked rib, some cuts and bruises. Split lip. He was practically untouched considering. Lawyered up and a juvenile, so his name never appeared in the papers. No one ever knew. The DA was fuming. Other parents were horrified. I mean, we had a real situation. And what could I do? I knew my place in that town like everyone else. Knew where the money was coming from. We didn’t even call him into the station. We went by his house in an unmarked car as a courtesy.
But we already knew we didn’t need to be sensitive with him. They had some hotshot psychologist come in and say that the reason he did what he did was because he was in shock. That he was trying to cope. They said what else did we expect from someone raised in a society with reality TV and Facebook and everybody being the star of their own little show? There was a lot of talk about ADHD and prescription pills and whether or not people are responsible for their actions under that kind of medication. What else did we expect from a society that rewards young men for speed and recklessness? There was a lot of talk about computer games and Second Life and the effects of too much soda drinking and everything else under the sun. What else did we expect? they kept asking. Not that.
When he couldn’t be tried as an adult, we wanted him to have at least two years in juvenile detention. No dice there either. He got probation and mandatory counseling, and that, at least, the parents took seriously. Actually, I can’t say they didn’t take the whole thing seriously, really. I mean, who wants to know their kid did something like that? They had the best psychologists and psychiatrists and they made sure he got on different medication.
I learned something during that case. Something I’d been denying since I joined the force. I learned that when you’re rich and white and your dad works for the biggest company in the region, you don’t go to jail. Even when the whole town is calling for you to be locked up or worse; even when the whole town is shocked; even when you post your own video of the crime on YouTube—if you’re that kid, you do not go to jail.
You get a new car and a new life in one of the prettiest little towns in the northeast. I have to uphold the law. But I don’t have to keep my mouth shut. And when I found out they moved to Rockland, I just sent a friendly note to my buddies on the force there. Thought they should maybe know who might be driving fast down their streets, who might be picking up passengers and taking them for a ride.
It rained in the morning so I didn’t ride my vintage blue Schwinn to school. But it had cleared up by the time school was over. The sun was shining through the leaves just starting to turn and the air smelled like pine and a subtle brackish breeze from the water. The streets were still wet and everything felt lush and alive. I turned onto Euclid Avenue where the sidewalk ended and stepped out onto the winding road that led up into our beautiful tree-lined neighborhood. The Austin Healey cruised up beside me and Graham leaned over the passenger-side seat and unlocked the door. His hair fell in his eyes and he brushed it back, smiled shyly. He threw his backpack into the tiny backseat. And leaned his head out the window. His hair fluttered in the light wind and I could see the square cut of his jaw and his nice straight teeth.
“You want a ride?” he asked.
I smiled. I did want a ride. I wanted to sit beside him and drive up around the crest of the hillside and look at the ocean with him. I wanted to feel the autumn wind in my hair too and see his profile as he drove and put the radio on and put my feet up on the dashboard. I wanted to do all those things.
“Were you at school today?” I asked. “I didn’t see you.”
“I took a personal day,” he said. “Finally got the Austin moving again and my dad let me go to the DMV and get all the paperwork taken care of. Wanna get in?”
When he asked me just like that, it made my stomach flip-flop. He was so shy and the shyness was still visible in his eyes, but he was also relaxed and happy. I could see it. He looked excited and his eyes were shining, gleaming. He wanted to share this new thing with me. His new accomplishment. I knew it was a big deal for him to be driving again. I’d seen him working on the car for so long and so this was a monumental day really. The fact that he was driving at all and was excited to be out on the road and that he would ask me to be with him on such a special day made me feel light-headed. Made me catch my breath.
The only thing that made me hesitate was thinking about Syd. Even though she tried to deny it, Syd had this crush on him. I wanted that to matter—to make a difference to me—but right in those moments it didn’t matter. I wanted to ride beside him and wear his jean jacket and help him adjust to life in Maine and go to the beach and watch the surf and hear the cracking of smooth round stones washing up onto the land with him. I wanted to lie beneath the pines where our backyards connected and look up through the branches at the stars.
And I wanted to kiss him. Not the boring kind of endless making out I always had to see when Syd had Declan over but a real kiss. A proper sweet kiss from this beautiful boy who had told me secrets and survived sadness and trouble and had eaten the blueberry muffins I baked and had rebuilt his own car. The boy whose eyes shone with excitement and a kind of expectation when he saw me. I wanted all those things.
“I would love a ride,” I said, opening the car and slipping my backpack onto the floor. I got in and buckled my seatbelt and he smiled at me, and I was so happy. I was so happy right then all I could do was laugh.
I was starting to feel sorry for the way I’d treated Ally these past few years. I knew I owed her more and I was trying to figure out some way to change things. I started thinking about when we were little. How cool she was when we were little kids. My best memory of her, my favorite memory of her, is when we built our giant Lego castle together. It took all day. I don’t know where our parents were. I was sad and crying for Mom and looking for her all over the house. And Allyson got out the big tub of Legos and dumped them on the floor. I think I was four and she was six.
And she said, “Don’t cry, silly. I’m your big sister so I can take care of you. Daddy is just working on the boat. He’ll come back. Mommy will come back.” And we played all afternoon together. We built the biggest most beautiful castle you’d ever seen.
And everything I wanted to do she said yes to. Maybe that’s why I like that memory so much. Because later she said no to just about everything. But then I remember I asked if we could stand on a chair and get the ice cream out of the freezer and eat the whole thing and she said yes. She said, We can do whatever we want if we stay in the house and don’t get hurt.