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It’s not true. It’s not true.
And that same small voice screaming inside of me Stop! Stop! Stop!
“I was fourteen.” My voice is weepy despite trying to make it cold and defensive. “Y-you—you took advantage—”
He laughs and the sound makes my nausea worse.
“All right, Paloma. You were fourteen, sure. Fourteen and begging a man more than twice your age to save you, to take you away, right?” He laughs. “Playing the victim since day one, are we? Tell him if you want, but don’t go around telling him a lie.”
He’s right. I hate how easily he paints the picture of it all—because I did beg him to take me with him, called his number and cried for him to carry me away from it all. But I was scared and—
You asked for it.
Shame settles sharply between my ribs; my heart aches with the pressure.
Tears pour down my cheeks, my body giving up, losing the fight against it. I go slack, hand grasping the sink counter like it will hold me up.
“I know you best. And Bennett is my stepson.” Every word is a strike to my heart, a kick to my already beaten body. “And you, Polly,” he coos, “are not who you’re pretending to be.”
“Okay,” I acquiesce.
It feels like I’m thirteen again, staring at an older, handsome cop who’s offering me his coat because it’s the middle of winter with a foot of snow outside and there’s no heat in our trailer. My hands are over my ears while my mom screams and begs them not to arrest her current deadbeat boyfriend—
“Do you have somewhere to go for the night?” he asks.
“Sometimes I sleep at the school,” I admit, then feel ridiculously stupid because I just admitted to something illegal to a cop. “Please don’t tell.”
He chuckles and swipes some melting snow from his ashy blond hair. “I won’t. But I really don’t think you should stay here tonight.”
“Oh.” I nod, swallowing hard. “Okay. Yeah. I, um, can maybe ask our neighbor?”
The officer grimaces. “No. I don’t—” He huffs a long breath and then looks around at the other officers, one of whom is trying to calm my mother down while the others shove the strung-out addict into the back of a cop car.
“What’s your name?” he asks, the question so abrupt I gape for a second, like I can’t remember.
“Um, Paloma.”
He smiles. “That’s a really pretty name, Paloma. I’m Officer Marks, but you can call me Ethan if you want.”
“Okay.” I nod, but choose not to, huddling tighter into the thick coat. “Thanks, for this.”
He shakes his head. “Sure.” Glancing around again, Officer Marks squats into the snow so I’m no longer staring up at him. He’s handsome, much more than the guys that hang around our trailer or the men my mom dates—probably because they’re all gaunt and drugged up. He looks clean, safe. Like a real adult.
“Listen, I shouldn’t offer, because it’s inappropriate, but I really don’t think you should stay here. Especially with your mom this upset.”
I peek over at her again. Everyone says we look alike, blond bouncy curls and dark brown eyes, a golden undertone to our complexions and apricot lips—even with her reckless lifestyle, everyone says she’s beautiful.
And I’m her twin—a fact that gives me more anxiety than it does any complimentary feelings.
“Yeah.”
“So, if you can hang here for a bit, I’ll come back and get you. I have an extra guest room you can sleep in just for tonight, okay?”
Hesitancy has me biting down on my lip. Men have offered this before, or something similar—to take me from my mom, to go on a little trip with them while she’s high. But it always leads to them trying to take something I don’t want to give. An exchange I didn’t agree to.
I curl in tighter at the thought. He looks safe, but assumptions have gotten me nowhere good.
It must be written all over my face, because he raises his hands in surrender. “Just a warm place to sleep—safe, I promise. I won’t touch you, okay? I just want to make sure you’re safe.”
