Walk down this way.
Stay to the left.
Sit down there.
I knew from even that brief experience that I would definitely not be cut out for jail, because I had a million questions, though not the bravery to ask them.
They sat me down in one of a row of chairs a few feet away from along desk was like the reception desk in a hospital. The officer who had escorted me went up to the desk to speak to another officer—one of four—who was sitting behind the reception-like area.
That was when I looked around a little more.
And that was when I saw him. The guy with the blue-gray eyes.
He was sitting three seats over from me. I guess he was waiting too, for the next step of the process, whatever that was.
As soon as I turned and noticed him, one corner of his mouth lifted in a bemused smile, and his eyebrows lifted as well.
“You,” he said.
And I smiled back because the exact same word was running through my mind.
“Yeah,” I said.
He gave a little laugh. “Yo,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s just …” He shook his head and was about to say something more when his officer came back and stood him up and led him to the desk and shortly after that, mine did the same.
The entire thing turned out to be much less dramatic than the way I was picked up led me to believe it would be. They basically confirmed my identity, took my picture and fingerprints, and then I signed some papers, was handed another piece of paper and then taken to another elevator and told I was free to go.
It all seemed so anticlimactic.
I was standing in the lobby of a building that I only then realized I had no idea where it was let alone what, when the guy came down in another elevator. His cop had accompanied him on the ride down. He was a young white guy who looked almost too young to be walking around carrying a gun and telling other people what to do.
“You’re lucky this time,” he told Blue-Gray eyes. “But if we pick you up again tonight, you won’t be going home.”
Once he was gone, Blue-Gray eyes turned and stopped short when he saw me, but otherwise didn’t look surprised to see me again.
“Didn’t that sound almost like a threat?” he asked. “Like what’re they gonna do? Put me in the dungeon under the jail?”
I said nothing, because what does one say to that? And also, his eyes were hypnotic.
“I’m Kai,” he said, coming a few steps toward me.
“Lila,” I say.
“So that’s what it’s like, huh Lila?” He grinned. “Getting arrested?”
“I don’t think that’s what it’s usually like,” I said, shaking my head.
Kai seemed to think about that for a moment then he nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “They barely even patted us down.”
“I think it’s because they need as many cops as possible back out on the streets. Maybe they don’t have time for all the stuff they usually do?”
Kai’s brow furrowed. He looked almost disappointed.
“But it still counts,” I said, holding up the paper I was given. “I mean, we have to go to court and stuff.”
And it felt silly, because basically I was consoling him that our arrests were bonafide.
Kai looked me over for a while. His eyes look a little inflamed, pink-rimmed, the whites red around the blue-gray. He took a couple of careful steps forward, like he thought I might run.
“Are you … were you okay?” he asked. “They didn’t like, hurt you or anything, right?”
I shook my head and he nodded, his shoulders heaving and releasing slightly.
“That was intense though,” he said.
“Yeah. And you?” I asked. “Are you okay? Because …” I motioned around the area of my eyes.
“Oh. Yeah. They got me pretty good out there with that tear gas. Stings like a mother …”
We stared at each other for a few beats and Kai ran a hand over his head. I noticed that it shook a little, but I pretended not to see since I didn’t think he would want me to see. Still, I didn’t think he was shaking with fear. It was probably just from the adrenaline.
I felt it myself, the buzz like the one you get when you’ve been in a club with loud music and strobes and then go outside and the quiet feels like an assault to the senses so it takes you a while to come down.
“What’re you ‘bout to do now?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Call my dad, I guess.”
That seemed to spur him to action.
“You wanna get … You hungry, or …?”
I was about to say ‘no’ because I wasn’t hungry. And if I was, I had been given my backpack back, and there were still snacks inside. But I realized he wasn’t really asking that. He was asking me not to go.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“So, you wanna go get something to eat?”
I nod again. “Sure.” My voice sounded tiny, and to my ears, tinny.
Kai is tall. Maybe six-two? He looks like he used to play a sport, probably basketball because he has that slightly hunched posture around his shoulders, like he’s making room for other people.
Up close, I saw how good-looking he is, but he’s the kind of good-looking that is just short of being awkward. One day, when he is about thirty-two, he will graduate to being sexy. Now, he is college-boy handsome. The handsome before you fully realize that’s what you are.
He had about two days’ worth of growth on his chin and jaw, but no other facial hair. The absence of a mustache makes him look innocent and unassuming. Maybe that was part of what made me feel I could go off with him, some strange guy I met in a city lockup. That, and the still prevailing sense that we had quite possibly—though I didn’t recall it—met before.
“What d’you feel like?” he asked, like he had
