To prove it, I used the table to get to my feet.
I looked at Keme. His eyes were blank, like he wasn’t seeing me. Or like he’d never seen me before.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He stared at me.
“Step out here,” the sheriff said.
I moved backward, unable to take my gaze off Keme until I reached the hallway and the sheriff shut the door.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I nodded, rubbing my arm. (Better than rubbing my butt.) “I shouldn’t have—he doesn’t like—” Tears welled up, and I blinked desperately to keep them from falling. The tide of embarrassment at my reaction only made things worse, though, and despite my best efforts, my voice thinned as I tried to say, “I should have known.”
“It’s okay,” the sheriff said. “As long as you’re okay.”
I shook my head, but I didn’t know at what. “I’m going to get him a lawyer.” My face was hot. I was starting to shake. “I should get him a lawyer. I’ll call Lyda.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” the sheriff said. “Dash, why don’t you sit down for a moment?”
I shook my head again, and I managed to firm up my voice a little. “Can you—can you wait? To arrest him, I mean. It’ll be on his record, you know, if you arrest him. So, if you could wait. Like, a day.” She looked back at me with unhappy eyes. “I know you have to do it eventually, but just a day. Please.”
Slowly, the sheriff said, “I have to charge him by the end of the day tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“I really think you need to sit down. Let me find you somewhere private—”
Waving off the words, I turned and stumbled toward the closest exit.
Chapter 7
I made it to the Pilot and got behind the wheel before I started to cry. At first, they were tight, furious tears. Tight because I was trying so hard to hold them back. And furious because—well, because I was furious. At myself, most of all. For being so stupid. And for crying, because it was so embarrassing. Then the dam cracked, and I cried harder, and some of it was for Keme, and some of it was for myself.
The door clicked open. I blinked stinging eyes at Bobby. His face was grim and drawn, but it softened when he pulled me into his arms.
He let me cry, and he rubbed my back and made soft, comforting noises. And after a while, I was better. Or I stopped crying, at least. My eyes were hot and itchy. My nose was clogged. My cheeks felt sticky with salt tracks.
Bobby found tissues in the pocket of the door (I told you it was a mom car), and as I pressed a wad of them to my eyes, fighting an aftershock of fresh tears, I said, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Bobby said. He was rubbing my shoulder, and he paused now to squeeze for emphasis. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Well, I did. Obviously. But I mean for crying. I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”
It took Bobby a second before he said, “Why would you need to apologize for crying?”
And, since he was Bobby, it was a real question.
I didn’t answer right away. The late October day was thinning around us, and the gloom made the distances grow. A Schwan’s truck rolled slowly past, the rumble of its engineswallowing up smaller sounds, and it felt like it was miles away instead of a few yards. Even farther off, the last of the light came through the branches of a crimson-tipped strawberry tree. It set the little red berries aglow, and the peeling, cinnamon-colored bark looked like paper about to burn. Then the Schwan’s truck moved on, and the rumble fell away into the gathering shadows.
I rubbed my chest without really thinking about it. Keme hadn’t shoved me hard enough to hurt, but when I tried to take a deep breath, it felt like I couldn’t. Like the muscles were too stiff—bruised. But, of course, they weren’t. That was only in my imagination.
“Do you want me to drive you to Dr. Xu?” Bobby asked.
“What? Oh. No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
His hand slid from my shoulder to the back of my neck. With his other hand, he brushed my hair away from my forehead. It wasn’t anything you couldn’t do in public, but it also felt intensely intimate, like I was naked in the sheriff’s station’s gravel lot. I caught myself glancing around to check if anyone else could see us, but we were alone. A little, squirming part of me told me to shift, fidget, move in some way that would make him drop his hands.
