Page 7 of The Sweetest Thing

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The week drags on like I’m walking in tar. Everything feels bleak and too hard to manage, and the reality is that I’m distracted. Too distracted. Distracted enough to make too many mistakes on my paperwork and fuck up two cases. I’m already on thin ice and this hasn’t helped, but the truth of it is, I can’t stop thinking about Amy. Thoughts of her feel like a heavy weight on my chest. It’s barely a week since I’ve seen her and yet it feels like an eternity, like time stifles in this place, the hours and seconds stick to my skin and pierce it.

I tell myself it’s concern, as I check my phone again, just in case. She looked so small and frightened - fragile. I grit my teeth and stare at the black screen on my phone catching a glimpse of myself. Fucking pathetic. Her silence is for the best. Eventually, I’ll forget how soft her skin felt and how vulnerable she looked, and I’ll stop fucking my hand thinking about her tight ass. I shake my head, asking myself what the hell is wrong with me. I’ve seen dozens of pretty girls in my life. But somehow Amy transcends being pretty. She is in her own stratosphere of stunning. But that isn’t it either. There’s something impeccably wild and dirty about her – provocative, something that calls to the primitive animalistic instinct inside me that wants to bend her over every surface and fuck her till she cries. Somehow, she has hijacked my subconscious and filled me with lascivious desires I have no control over. I just want to help. Thinking of her fills me with a seething rage, a base hatred for men like Derek. All I can see is my father’s fists and my mother’s smashed face. She triggers all my base emotions.

I stare at the pile of paperwork, the black typed letters on too-white pages until my eyes become unfocused and the writing starts to move about the surface like busy little ants. My mind gets dragged away from my thoughts when my phone rings. I grab for it and stare at the number, my heart stutters when I don’t recognise it.

“Rossi.”

“Hello? Joe?” I can hear the tremor in her voice as she snivels and pulls in a shuddering breath. My heart trips at the sound of it.

“Amy? Are you okay?” I look around the room feeling too many eyes on me. I step past a row of desks and into the deserted corridor.

“I’m fine.” She sniffs and sucks in another shaky breath.

“What happened?”

“Derek came to see me again.”

“Are you hurt?”

She doesn’t answer. Her whimpers stab at me through the phone.

“Amy, are you hurt?”

“Not really,” she whispers through her tears.

I need her to focus, I need her to be clearer, but I remember nights like this with my mum. All she could see was the fear. Trying to get answers was too hard, so the questions had to be short, precise.

“Is he still there?”

“No.”

Relief hits me like a wild storm. “Where are you?”

“I’m home now.” She snivels again and my jaw grinds. I make a mental note to ask her where she was before.

“Are you safe?”

“Yes?” Her uncertainty slithers under my skin like a cold shard of ice.

“Lock your doors and stay inside. Text me your address. I’m on my way. Do you understand me, Amy?”

“Yes.” It’s barely a sound.

“Say it.”

“Lock my doors, stay inside, wait for you.”

“Good, I’m going to hang up now and get in my car. Text me your address.” I end the call, shove the phone in my pocket and make to leave when Sergeant Williams walks into the corridor, blocking my exit.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” His little piggy eyes narrow and he licks his oily lips. They glisten with saliva as if they were the lips of a fish or a toad. I want to get away from him.

“I just have to head out for an hour or so.”

“Where?” He doesn’t relent. I know what he is doing, but if I want to get out of here, I need to tell him something.

“Annie just called. Some kid hurt Libby at school.”

His face changes. He’s never married. In fact, I’m not sure he’s ever touched a woman unless he’s paid for it, but he’s always been a big boy and he’s always been bullied for that. I think it’s why he became a cop, so he can be the one with the power. Not that it ever stops them from calling him names. It’s probably why he is as bitter as he is. Being given authority changed nothing. If anything, it made it worse – it gave him power while making him totally powerless. This job is a contradiction, a pathetic one at that.

“Is she alright?”

“I don’t know, I was going to slip out quickly and find out…” In my pocket my phone vibrates with a text message.

“Go, I’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks.”

He nods and takes a step back. I brush by him and rush to the car. He can put my urgency down to my story.

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