“Mhm. We’ll look into that.”
They give me a set of jail clothes to wear. Orange is kind of my color, but this isn’t the way I want to wear it. It’s absolutely dehumanizing having everything taken from me. I don’t feel like I did anything to warrant it, if I’m to be honest. If they’d watched the tapes, they would have heard him proposition me, but I guess hitting on a woman half his age isn’t a crime, whereas punching his stupid face is. Life is not fair. Laws are not fair.
Part of me is still expecting my mom to show up, but what would she even do? She can’t bail me out. I don’t have bail set, and I won’t do until tomorrow, after I’ve gone up before a judge.
They put me in a cell that’s mercifully empty. It’s so weird to find myself locked up. I was just captive the other week and now here I am again. At least tomorrow I should be able to get out of here. They’re not going to give me a real long sentence, I tell myself. Assault, how long can that possibly be?
I have a vague memory of a friend of Dave’s spending four months in jail after a bar fight. Four months would fuck up my schooling. I’d lose my apartment. I’d be fired.
At some point, the lights go out, and I get to just sit in a locked room with a toilet I really don’t want to use and reflect on the way I am going to pay for one decision unless I can talk the judge into just letting me go. I hope she’s nice. I hope she’s sympathetic. I hope it’s not a guy who has no time for my shit.
I sit up against the wall, wearing clothes that aren’t mine, and don’t feel right, and frankly don’t really smell right, and I close my eyes. Sleep isn’t going to happen.
At some point, the light flicks on. I open my eyes, surprised. It really didn’t feel like I was here all night long. A few hours, maybe.
The door to my cell opens. I stand up, then I sit back down as I see who it is.
Professor Rollins. Or whoever the fuck he really is. He leans against the door frame with a broad smile on his face.
“You are a naughty girl, aren’t you, Laura,” he drawls. That fucking accent of his comes and goes and shifts and changes the way a chameleon’s colors do.
“I’m not,” I say. “Why are you here?”
“I pulled some strings to get you out,” he says. “I didn’t think you wanted to go up before a judge and explain why you broke a pillar of the community’s nose.”
“He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did.” He snaps his fingers at me like I’m a dog. “Come on, girl. Let’s get out of here.”
“No.”
“No?” He raises a brow at me.
“I’d rather take my chances with a judge than with you. Sorry.”
“Oh, you are in a mood,” he says. “Incarceration really doesn’t suit you.”
“Fuck off.”
I’m actually more protected here than I’ve ever been. He can’t touch me here. He can’t do anything to me in a building full of cops. This is probably the safest I have been since…
He steps into my cell and closes the door behind him.
“What?” He smirks as he crosses the room to me, noting my horrified expression. “Did you think you were untouchable here? You think I haven’t already paid for the cameras in this cell to malfunction?”
He places his hands on the wall above my head and looks down at me, effectively boxing me in.
“You were impulsive,” he says. “You were violent. Neither of those things are like you.”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve been watching you for quite some time, Laura,” he says. “I know what you’re like. I know that you value stability above all. You’ve tried so hard to build a life for yourself, to better yourself, and help your family. You take on responsibilities that are beyond your years and often your abilities in an effort to save those you love. You have incredible expectations of yourself that exceed any reasonable levels. You work hard, constantly. So no, you are not often impulsive, and you are almost never violent. This is not like you.”
Oh, no. He sees me. All the hair on the back of my neck is standing up as he speaks. It’s like being described down to the cellular level. I forget how smart he is. He’s a psychological genius, a calculated beast who is using these natural given advantages in order to control me.
“So what if it isn’t? Maybe I’m changing? Maybe I’ve worked out that there’s no point being good when only bad things happen to me. Maybe that fucking principal deserved to be punched in the face after what he said to me.”
“What did he say to you?”
