I slowly take my phone out of my pocket and dial my mom. She’s not going to know who this is since she doesn’t have my new number.
“Hello?” my mother suddenly answers, and I freeze.
I’m speechless, so I give my phone to the cop.
He gazes between me and my phone, shakes his head, and grabs the phone out of my hand. He walks away, which I’m thankful for because I don’t want to hear what my mom or he has to say.
He comes back and hands me my phone. “Okay, call your boyfriend.”
“I told you.”
“Don’t give me your attitude. You’re lucky I’m letting you go with your boyfriend. My shift ended an hour ago, and I’m sick of dealing with you kids,” he says.
With each ring, dread washes over me. I don’t know what Kai is going to say; I hope he’s not mad.
“Hello,” Kai says in a groggy voice.
“Kai, it’s me.” I hear shuffling in the background.
“Blakely. Are you okay? What’s going on? It’s three in the morning.”
I tell him what happened.
“Are you fucking serious? You went out? After always yelling at me.”
“Can we talk when I get home?”
The sound of him hanging up on me pings in my ear.
My hands grow clammy, and my heartrate raises as I text him the address. Every passing moment makes me anxious as I wait to hear what Kai has to say. Nausea churns in my stomach as I think about all the times I got mad at Kai for going out.
How am I any better than him?
“What the fuck, Blakely? You’re always on my ass about going out and then you go out, get drunk, and get caught by the cops,” Kai says, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
Kevin got home just in time for Kai to come pick me up without having to drag Amari out of bed.
“Compared to all the times you’ve gone out, this one time shouldn’t be such a big deal.”
“You got caught by the cops. At least I don’t get caught.”
“You think what you’re doing is fine just because you haven’t been caught? You think it’s totally fine to go out, leave your family at home, roll back in at four in the morning drunk, and then sleep off your hangover the whole next day, only to do it again the following day. I did this once, Kai. Once. Unlike you, you’ve done it a million times. You wouldn’t be able to handle it if I went out like you do. So don’t yell at me for this one time,” I say, raising my voice. Who does he think he is yelling at me over this? He has gone out more times than I can count. I feel shitty enough, but I didn’t think I was going to get a lecture from him, given what he’s done.
We’re both jolted upward and then lifted from our seats before settling back down with a thud. “What the fuck was that?”
“I didn’t see it,” he says.
“Bullshit. Since when do you drive right through speed bumps without even slowing down?” I put my head in my hands as if the throbbing is going to stop that way. My drunkenness is wearing off, and the hangover is settling in now. “Did you do that on purpose?”
He snorts out a laugh. “No.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Do you know what’s not funny? You giving me so much shit for what you just did tonight. I took Amari so you could have a girls’ night with Paige. What happened to that?”
“We decided to go out.”
“What made you guys decide to go out?”
