Page 61 of Brazen Criminals

Officer Reed sighs, and I hear him mutter, “That’s the problem,” to himself as Officer Morgan comes back with the paperwork and a notary. We go through the motions of making the document official, my shitty judgment now part of the public record, and I debate running again. It’s only Officer Reed watching me that forces me to sign the thing. I shake as I sign, quickly tucking my good hand between my legs as soon as I’m done, worried that everyone will interpret this anxiety spike as guilt.

“Thank you,” I say to Officer Morgan as I grab my backpack and head to the front of the building.

“Of course,” she says.

Officer Reed catches up to me at the door to the lobby. “Clara, you know you can come to me about anything. If you’re scared, if someone is threatening you, if something just doesn’t feel right, I will gladly be there for you. Take my card, in case anything comes up.” He holds the card out to me, one hand on the door that leads to freedom. I snatch it, wanting to get out of there.

“I’ll answer whenever,” he says.

I barely keep from rolling my eyes before I’m out the door into the lobby, gasping for breath as I stumble through another set of doors, the air suddenly oxygenless and terrifying. My eyes water, unfounded terror spiking.

“Clara, Clara, wait up,” I hear from behind me. Jansen comes sprinting out the door, carefully pulling me into his arms. I push him away. There isn’t enough air tucked in close to him. He gently grabs my good hand, letting me know he’s still there as I try to remember what it feels like to have oxygen, to inhale and exhale in that order.

When I finally gasp out a breath and pull a new one in, the stupid stupid stupid tears come again, but I know this time I’m crying for myself. For the foolish doormat I was, for the hopeful romantic who believed that if I could just be better, then everything would come up daisies.

But daisies are a child’s flowers, only a step up from dandelions. They both get mowed over. And I’m not going to be chopped down again. Fool me once, I’m a naïve ingenue. Fool me twice and I’ll fucking chop you down. I’m going to become a fucking scythe, so I don’t ever have to feel like this again.

Jansen squats in front of me, holding my hand and waiting, his eyes wide. When my breath evens out, he squeezes my hand, and I squeeze his back. He stands up, wipes some tears from my cheek and leads me to his car, opening the door so I can get in. Then he tosses my backpack in the back and gets into the driver’s seat. He doesn’t turn on the engine. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“Besides being a blind idiot for two years, yeah, I’m peachy,” I croak.

He turns to me, one hand on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry you had to do that alone.”

I shake my head. “It was better alone. I don’t know that I could have said all that with an audience.”

Jansen looks out the front windshield. “What else do you have going on today?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” I ask, wiping my cheeks with the backs of my hands. I’m a mess.

“Like, do you have any other classes? Or work?”

“I have work at three.”

“Do you have to change, or can you work in that?” I look down at the comfy cotton skirt and T-shirt I pulled on this morning. “I can go in this.”

Jansen flashes me a grin, turns on the car, and pulls into traffic. Instead of heading back to Dinkytown, he gets on the freeway. “Where are we going?” I ask.

“Someplace that will hopefully make you feel a little better. Crap days need to be balanced, you know?”

I sputter out a laugh. “I seem to be making a habit of having crap days in your car.”

He laughs too. “I’m calling it luck, because then I get to make you happy again.”

I glance over at him, his grin wide, his green eyes sparkling, and I don’t have any option but to grin. “You’re pretty good at it,” I whisper.

“That’s exactly what I want to be good at, Clara,” he says. “I want to be the reason you smile.”

His hand comes off the steering wheel, reaching like he wants to hold my hand, but my good side is all the way on the other side of the car. Instead, his fingers nestle on the back of my neck, sliding through my hair, warm and comforting. He pulls off the interstate and twists through a few neighborhood streets, finally pulling up at a sign that says, “Prospect Park.” He stops the car and reaches across the steering wheel to put it in park, never moving his hand from my neck. “Hey,” he says, his fingers urging me to look at him.

When I do, there’s a flash of joy as he tugs my head to his until our foreheads and noses touch, our breaths mingling. My heart stutters—is he going to kiss me?

His hand slides around my head to cradle my cheek. “Do you want to tell me what made you so upset?”

“Not particularly.”

He nuzzles his nose to mine. “I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me what’s going on in your head.”

“What kind of secret?”

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