AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She watches Craig pick up his phone and disappear to the back where we can’t see him anymore. She lets out a loud sarcastic cackle as she gets up from her seat.
“Yeah actually. They’ll help.” She grabs her pack of cigarettes again but this time her hands are shaking as she pulls out a cigarette and puts it in her mouth. She throws the empty pack on the seat. “No need for bail, no trial. The whole thing will just disappear,” she continues as she grabs her lighter. “Poof, like that.” She waves her hands in the air to imitate something disappearing by magic and a second later she’s out again, this time slamming the door hard enough to make me jump in my seat.
I can’t figure out if she was being sarcastic or not. Surely that’s impossible. To make it all go away? Yet, I can’t help but hope it’s true.
When she comes back in, the anger seems to have passed. She’s resigned but has a somber look on her face.
“How long ago did he make that call?” she asks me.
I check my watch for the millionth time tonight and look back up.
“About twenty minutes.”
“You should go.” I’m not quite sure I heard her right because surely, she can’t be telling me to leave.
“What?” I have to ask.
She can’t be serious. Does she not realize that I would wait a whole week if that’s what it took to see Jake? I’d stop eating and drinking, I’d sleep on the floor of this station. I’d throw myself in this interrogation room if it meant he would be out.
“Jake will be fine. But you should really go, Jamie.”
“I’m not going anywhere. If-when he gets out, I want to be here.”
She thinks for a second and seems to think it’s not worth the fight. “Whatever,” she mutters as she sits back down, her spine straighter this time.
She’s not even glancing at Craig anymore. She’s just looking at her hands, pressing them together on her knees as if trying to stop them from trembling.
Every now and then she takes deep shaky breaths and the anxiety pouring out of her is telling me nothing good is about to come.
“How long now?” she asks in a quiet, quivering voice that’s making everything in me tighten in fear.
“Fo-forty minutes or so,” I stutter. I’m scared, I’m genuinely scared of what’s about to happen because there is nothing but fright coming from her behavior.
“Right,” she swallows thickly. “Right. Okay.” She lets out a long breath as if trying to control her fear but it’s not working. None of what she’s doing is working. “You got a…um…a hair tie or something?” she asks, struggling to focus on her words.
I frown but quickly give her the hair tie around my wrist.
This is strange. Not the strangest thing that’s happened tonight but I couldn’t even count the times Rose and I fought on the field because she wouldn’t tie her hair up when she played or trained. ‘I fucking hate ponytails, don’t make me punch you, Goody.’, ‘If my hair is up my fan club will lose their shit’. I can’t count the excuses.
I have never seen her with her hair up. Even after all the times I’ve stayed over at her house.
Rose White.
She doesn’t try to, but she’s always perfect. Snap any moment of her day and it could be the cover of a magazine, and her hair is part of that. Her long, thick, and curvy inky hair are part of who she is.
“Th-thanks,” she mumbles as she grabs the hair tie from me. She scratches her throat, almost like she’s embarrassed that I caught her stuttering on a word.
“Rose?” I make an attempt to check on her even if it might backfire. “Are you okay?”
She chuckles quietly and smiles at me. “‘Course. I’m fine.”
Her smile almost seems real, but I know it isn’t. It isn’t because she and Jake could be the same person. They have the same dimples on their cheeks. When they both show, in the middle of their cheeks, their smile is genuine. When there’s only one, low, at the corner of their mouths, it’s the fake bullshit they put on for everyone who doesn’t know them.
Do I insist? Do I leave it? She doesn’t owe me any explanations. She starts pulling all her hair up and ties it in a high ponytail. It’s long and thick, like mine. She looks the same…but different. Everything right now about her is different. I see Rose and hear Rose but it’s like another girl is moving her body and saying her words.
“Rose, you’re being…weird?” Why am I asking her as if she would reply ‘Yes Jamie, dead on. I am not acting like myself at all.’
I don’t have time to think of it anymore. The door to the station opens and two men in black suits come in. They look like some sort of celebrity bodyguard, with their black ties and serious faces.
