Saving Ever After (Ever After #4) (25 page)

Shit. He
must have radioed in for assistance.

I could hear
chubby panting behind me, trying to keep up, and even thought there was nothing
funny about my situation, I couldn’t help but giggle.

I took
another turn on  the path that I was pretty sure would take me toward my dorm,
but it didn’t and I tried to circle back and ran right smack dab in to the
chest of another cop who stepped out in front of me. I bounced off him and
landed flat on my ass in the grass, which I guess was better than the cement
pathway. He stared down at me with amusement in his eyes. At least someone was
getting entertainment out of my life falling apart. Then he looked up at my
pursuer.

“You okay
there Gerry? Why don’t you go take a rest before you have a damn heart attack.
We’ll take the bad guy from here.”

He reached
down and picked me up by my arm. His partner came up beside him and they
started asking me questions. I think I answered them, but really the only thing
running through my mind was,
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

Chubby chimed
in between breaths when he had something to add and then the next thing I knew
they were leading me toward the back of their cop car. I became so panicked
that the nausea overtook me and I hunched over and hurled right on the grass
outside the car. They jumped back to avoid the splatter and then opened the
door, ducking my head down as they shoved me in the back.

At least
they didn’t cuff me.

But holy
shit, I was being arrested. I was going to jail. Tears started pouring down my
face and pretty soon I was sobbing in the back of a police car on my way to
jail. They were wretched, ugly cries. Cries of anger, shame, frustration and
every other emotion in me that I couldn’t even name. Over and over I kept
asking myself how I got here. The unfairness of life and the poor decisions I’d
slumped on top of it were too overwhelming. I couldn’t calm down, no matter how
much the officers tried to get me to.

When they
walked me inside the station, I caught my reflection in one of the windows and
couldn’t believe that the girl I was seeing was me. It was safe to say that
this was the lowest I’d ever been.

The only
good news was that they weren’t actually arresting me or charging me with
anything. After my ugly crying jag, I think they felt a little sorry for me.
They took me to a bathroom to clean myself up and pull myself together. Then
they informed me that they were going to dump me in a cell while they wrote up
the paperwork, and then I could call someone to come get me. The bad news was
that I was going to be getting a major fine, the report would be filed with the
school as well, and I didn’t know who to call. Sadie and Ace were still in
Connecticut. I didn’t have anyone else.

Well there
was one person, but I really didn’t want to have to call him.

Chris

“Katrina, just go home
and we’ll talk in the morning,” I told her, trying not to let my irritation
seep into my words, but I was more than a little surprised to answer the
midnight knock on the door and find her standing there. She’d come home from
Mexico to try to change my mind again, but it was late and I wasn’t in the mood
to deal with this.

“Can’t we just talk
now?” she begged. “Just let me in and listen to what I have to say.”

“Katrina, I’m tired and
–” My phone ringing in my pocket interrupted me. I didn’t know who would be
calling this late unless it was important, so I slid it out of my pocket only
to see an unfamiliar local number on the screen. “I need to answer this,” I
told Katrina and then accepted the call. “Hello.”

“Chris?” The quiet voice
trembled, but I still knew right away who it was, and immediately fear set in.

“Mia?” What had she
gotten herself into this time? “Where are you? Are you okay?”

There was nothing but
silence and I thought I’d lost the call, but when I looked at my phone, it
showed that we were still connected. “Mia, are you there?”

“Yeah,” I heard her
swallow. “I need you to come get me.”

“Where are you?” I asked
slightly panicked, not knowing what kind of trouble she was in.

“The campus police
department,” came her soft reply.

Shit, had she been
hurt, or attacked?

“Just tell me you’re
okay Mia, and then I’m on my way.”

“I’m okay, but –” I hung
up before I heard what she’d been about to say.

“Katrina I have to go,
right now. I’ll call you tomorrow,” I told her, running back inside to grab my
keys. She was still standing outside the door when I came back out.

“What’s going on Chris?
I heard you say it was Mia. Why do you have to go to her?”

“I don’t have time to do
this right now,” I told her and hurried to my car. The entire drive to the
station I was worrying over possible scenarios, even considering that she might
have gotten herself into trouble by being at a party that got busted, but I had
no idea just how much trouble she was in.

I was shocked when I
burst inside the doors of the station, looking around for her, and then was
informed by the officer who asked me who I was looking for, that he would go
get her from her cell.

Her cell.

Fucking shit.

That was so much more
than just getting busted at a party or picked up for being drunk.

I’d wasted all that
worry and panic that she might have been hurt or scared, speeding to get here,
to find out that she was here because she threw a damn bottle at a cop and then
ran from him. I was pissed. In fact, I was way more than pissed.

For two days now I’d
been thinking about her, wanting to see her, but not knowing if it was right,
since things with Katrina were still so fresh. I’d signed into League the past
two evenings in a row just waiting for her to pop up online, and then she
finally did, but only briefly before she disappeared from the game. After she
said her computer had gone offline, I’d wanted to keep texting her. I’d wanted
to call her, to really talk to her. I’d almost hit send ten different times.

Now, I was having a hard
time even looking at her as they went through the process of releasing her and
she followed me out to my car with her head down. I was fuming, and she could
tell because she looked like she was trying to shrink into her seat when we got
in. She wouldn’t even glance in my direction, her eyes and head remained
downcast on her lap.

It wasn’t until we were
almost back to the house that I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What the fuck
were you thinking, Mia? It’s bad enough that you were walking around campus
drunk at night with an open bottle of liquor, but throwing it at a cop and then
running from him. How could you be so damn stupid?”

“I know,” she whispered.

“You know? You fucking
know? Obviously you don’t or you wouldn’t have done it. You’re lucky they’re
not charging you, Mia. What the hell were you doing out there anyway?”

“Walking home.”

“From where?”  She was
silent. “From where, Mia?”

“A party. That’s what
college kids do on weekends in case you’ve forgotten.”

I blew out an angry
breath. “Dammit, Mia. Don’t give me that shit. You know you don’t belong at
those parties. I thought you learned last time, but obviously not. Why do you
do it?”

“I’m sorry. I know it
was stupid, but don’t act like you’re my father, lecturing me. If he doesn’t
give a shit, then you shouldn’t either,” she yelled back. “I was just trying to
get home. I didn’t want to be there. Leland and Derek, they wouldn’t leave me
alone,” her voice broke, “and I was just trying to get away. I know I shouldn’t
have been there, but I just had such shitty day, I just needed it to stop being
so shitty. I panicked when that cop found me. I know it was wrong, but I wasn’t
thinking clearly.”

“You never think clearly
Mia. You should have never put yourself in a situation where you needed to get
away from those guys, and even then, you could have called someone. You didn’t
have to try walking home by yourself. Getting arrested is not the worst that
could have happened to you, Mia!” I yelled right back.

“Who the hell was I
supposed to call? I have no one,” she cried. “Sadie is still in Connecticut and
I have no one else.” Her insistence that she had no one, that she obviously
didn’t think of me as someone she could turn to, unless she had no other choice,
only made me more furious.

“You could have called
me!” I shouted as I turned onto Ace’s street.

“So you could make me
feel worse than I already did? So I could listen to you lecture me again about
how stupid my choices are? No thanks.”

I pulled the car into
the driveway and threw the brake on. “Fine, then you won’t have to fucking
listen to it anymore, not that you did anyway. I’m done, Mia. Go inside and
sleep it off, but I won’t be here to clean up your vomit this time. I don’t
need this shit, Mia.”

She quickly shoved her
door open and bolted from the car. It was only then that I realized Katrina’s
car was still in the driveway and she was climbing out of it. I got out too,
just long enough to tell her I would meet her back at her place so we could
talk.

There was no way I could
go inside with Mia and not strangle her and scream at her some more. I knew my
words were harsh, and some of them I even regretted, but I just couldn’t get
through to her, and I couldn’t keep watching her do this to herself. It was
tearing me to pieces as much as it was her, and I didn’t understand how she
could do it. I didn’t understand how this girl and the one she’d been in
Australia, the one who had fucking wormed her way inside me, were the same
person.

I followed Katrina to
her condo, pulling in right behind her, but the whole drive over, I’d begun to
feel more uneasy and guilty for the things I’d said to Mia, and leaving her
there on her own in that state. I sat in my car, debating turning around and
going back to try and talk to her. I sat there too long, because Katrina came
over and knocked on the window. I rolled it down.

“Aren’t you coming in?”

“I don’t think this was
a good idea, Katrina. I’m sorry. I was upset and needed to get out of that
situation, but I shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not? Why shouldn’t
you be here Chris? You said we could talk. We
need
to talk. I have so
much I want to tell you.”

I sighed, “I know you
do, and that’s the problem. I don’t have anything to say. I know you still
think we can fix this, and that whatever you say will change my mind, but it’s
not going to. Me leaving Mexico was still the right thing to do. We shouldn’t
be together. More importantly, I don’t want to be,” I tried to say it gently,
but there really was no easy way to break it to her, and she started crying.

“But I love you!”

I grabbed the door
handle, and she backed up so that I could climb out. I wrapped my arms around
her and pulled her into my chest. “I’m so sorry that this is hurting you, but
when it stops hurting, you’ll see that I was right, and that there’s someone
better for you out there, but it’s not me. I’m sorry I couldn’t admit that
sooner and that you’re hurting because I was selfish. I really wanted it to
work Katrina, but you deserve more than I can offer you.”

“But I only want you,”
she sobbed into my shirt and I rubbed my hand up and down her back trying to
soothe her.

“I’m sorry, Katrina, but
this is what’s best for both of us.”

I held her for a few
more minutes until she pulled herself together enough to realize we were
standing in the middle of the parking strip outside her condo. Then she quickly
pulled away, wiping at her eyes, insisting that she would be fine before hurrying
inside. That was twice tonight I felt like a complete asshole.

I got back in my car and
drove home, hoping Mia would talk to me. I needed to apologize and find a way
to help her without yelling at her. Any idiot could see how deeply that girl
was hurting. She needed someone to listen and understand. Instead of giving her
that, I’d reacted poorly. All I wanted was to make things alright for her. All
I wanted was to strip away the hurt and protect her.

When I got back to the
house and stepped inside, Ivy was there at my feet, whimpering and crying and
running around agitatedly. My stomach filled with dread. I had this awful sense
that something was wrong.

“What is it girl?”

She took off toward the
kitchen, still whining, and I followed after her. Most of the lights were still
off so it took me second to realize that the dark form on the kitchen floor was
Mia slumped over, face to the tile. I quickly flipped on the light and dropped
down to my knees beside her. She was bent on her side like she’d been sitting
with her back to the cupboard and then passed out. There was an empty bottle of
Jack Daniels spilled out beside her and a puddle of vomit in front of her face.
I knew that bottle had been mostly full, and there wasn’t enough on the floor
to account for it being empty now. I grabbed her shoulders and tried shaking
her. Her skin felt cool and clammy to the touch and I got no response. I
listened for her breathing, but it was so shallow and slow that I could barely
feel the irregular puffs of air escaping her mouth on my ear.

“Mia, come on, please
wake up!” I shook her some more, even slapped her cheek gently, but still she
was unresponsive. Panicking, I clumsily pulled my phone out of my pocket and
managed to dial my dad, pleading with him to answer. A small amount of relief
washed over me when he did.

“Hey Chris, it’s pretty
late, is everything –” I didn’t let him finish asking if everything was okay,
because it wasn’t.

“Mia drank too much.
She’s passed out. I can’t wake her up. I think she has alcohol poisoning.”

My dad immediately
slipped into doctor mode. “Is she breathing?”

“Yeah, but it’s slow,
and her skin is a little pale and cold.”

“Okay, then it sounds
like she definitely has alcohol poisoning. How long has she been out?”

“I don’t know. I just
found her, couldn’t have been more than half an hour though.”

“Okay, where are you
guys?”

“At home, I mean my
place, at Ace’s.”

“She needs to get to a
hospital. It would take too long for me to meet you guys at my office, so
you’re just going to have to call 9-1-1 or drive her to the hospital yourself.”

“I can get her there in
ten minutes. I’ll drive her myself.”

“I’ll call ahead and
tell them you’re coming.”

I hung up, shoving my
phone in my pocket and then quickly scooped Mia off the floor, hurrying out the
door. Somehow I managed to get the back door of my Cheyenne open and Mia inside
without dropping her. I laid her across the back seat on her side and buckled
her in the best I could and then jumped into the driver’s seat.

I drove as quickly as I
could without breaking too many traffic laws. I’d overestimated myself though,
and it took fifteen minutes to get her to the hospital. I thought at one point
that I heard Mia come to and groan while I was driving, but when I pulled her
out of the back seat, she was completely out again. Hospital staff was waiting
to meet us inside the emergency room and immediately carted her off.

The panic that had been
making my heart race and blood pump in my ears started to abate, but the sick
feeling in my gut remained. It was out of my hands though. There was nothing
left I could do for her and after the things I’d said to her, I doubted she
would even want anything from me. I should have seen how fragile she was when I
picked her up, how she was barely hanging on by a thread. Instead of trying to
understand though, I yelled and berated her. As mad as I was at Mia for doing
this to herself, I was just as mad at myself for not trying harder to reach
her.

The only things left for
me to do were call Sadie, which I dreaded, and then get out of here. I knew Mia
wouldn’t want to see me when she woke up.