Law Of Intuition
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“Hey, you’re the one who made a joke about my mom.” He said. “You think she’s hot?”
I was surprised by how quickly I’d gone from angry to laughing. “Oh, yeah, totally.” My voice was shaking as I laughed again.
He grinned and leaned back into his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles. “Good for you. She’s great.” His face was so serious; he looked like such a grown-up. And handsome too, although that had never been more than an abstract concept before.
Now it was real and I could feel myself falling for him. But not now. It would be bad timing. I had enough on my plate without adding this complication right now. There might be no other time in my life when we wouldn’t get along but then we were going our separate ways tomorrow anyway.
We were both just getting started in this world, and maybe that meant we weren’t destined to have anything else lasting between us.
But he still wanted me to come with him, which means I was wrong about all that stuff I was thinking about earlier.
So if it is a mistake, well, it will just give me something to do tomorrow morning besides try not to cry. And I’ve had a lot of practice crying lately. “Okay.” I stood up and walked over to the window. He was right, it was a beautiful view outside. And there was nothing out here to distract me from what lay ahead.
We sat together at the table while they brought in our food. We didn’t talk much, mostly we ate in silence until they came back around after dinner for the dessert menu.
The night air had changed once it grew dark; it got colder and the sky took on a strange blue-gray hue.
A storm was coming. The wind picked up and began tossing the waves against the rocky cliffs. Clouds rolled over the mountains and thunder rumbled overhead. Lightning lit the whole valley below us like someone had dropped a nuclear bomb somewhere down south.
“Let’s go inside,” I said.
When we arrived at the front desk and gave them our room keys, I saw my mother sitting alone in the lobby. She must have gotten off work early, or she’d already come home since last night because her car wasn’t parked out front anymore.
Her head snapped up when she spotted me coming toward her, and she ran over to intercept me before I went inside the inn. “Is everything okay?”
She was looking down at the ground, trying hard to appear concerned as she put her hands on my shoulders, but I felt uncomfortable having her touch me and pulled away from her.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “Don’t worry.”
I could feel myself starting to shake as I stared at the floor. I was scared and nervous but it felt like more than that. “Look, can we wait until later to discuss this? Maybe I should just call you.”
My mom frowned as I turned to walk towards the stairs.
I could see her eyes searching mine, trying to find something reassuring. But I couldn’t offer any words, and I knew she would only understand if I tried to explain myself.
I stopped at the door, turning back to her to catch the look of disappointment that flashed across her features as I opened it and stepped out into the cool evening air.
She seemed so sad, almost like she was disappointed in me. As though I shouldn’t even have considered going to the concert today. It hurt me deeply because she had always encouraged me to follow my dreams, and for some reason, she’d suddenly become convinced that I needed to quit doing exactly what I’d worked so hard to achieve these past couple of years.
She’d been against everything from day one, but now she seemed to want me to stop living entirely.
As soon as she realized I wasn’t going to talk, she let go of my shoulder and left me standing on my own.
I waited for the elevator as it slowly descended to bring me down to the parking level.
When I got outside, I saw a police cruiser parked next to my van and three big men dressed in black suits got out, two carrying rifles as they approached me from behind. “Hands out where we can see them!” One barked, pulling a gun from under his jacket.
They pushed me backward onto my knees, forcing me to lift my hands up over my head. Then one of them grabbed my shirt and pulled me to my feet, yanking me forward as he cuffed my wrists behind my back and shoved my face into the dirt.
They all surrounded me, blocking off my view as they searched my pockets and patted down my body. At least five others joined in, pushing their way through the crowd of gawkers waiting for their chance to take photos of the band as it emerged from the inn.
Some people were yelling things like “Freebird!” and “Welcome home!” Others were shouting questions like “What happened?” or “Why did you leave?” There was such a commotion as I was dragged between them, it sounded like a hundred thousand people screaming for help, calling for freedom.
One man held me by the arm and kept telling me to walk, to be careful, and don’t fall. But when we finally reached the van and they shoved me inside, they weren’t letting me get out again without making sure I’d learned my lesson.
Two of them jumped into the front seat and forced me down to my knees with one handcuff locked tight around each wrist. Another officer climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, then slammed the doors shut and hit the ignition.
I could hear the sirens of more squad cars coming toward us. He revved the motor and threw the van into gear, spinning his tires and sending us skidding sideways toward the edge of the cliff. I closed my eyes as I struggled to hang on to whatever sanity remained inside me, knowing I was about to die.
***
I woke up in my bed, feeling confused and disoriented. My heart was pounding as I listened to the steady rhythm of my breathing and blinked my eyes open to see the clock on my wall. Three o’clock.
I hadn’t been asleep that long. It was still too dark to tell what time it actually was. I heard a faint ringing sound in my ears and rubbed my forehead, trying not to think about how badly I wanted water.
There was a knock on my door, and I called out, “Just a minute.” I looked at my watch and realized that, once again, it had somehow stopped working. The numbers glowed red at me, flashing as though it was trying desperately to give me some sign of their internal condition. All I could make out was that the last few minutes or hours were missing.
“Hey, are you okay?” A familiar voice asked through the wood paneling.
“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine.” It took me a moment to realize that there were other voices talking too, all of which seemed far too loud and too close together. “It’s just too damn noisy, you know?” I muttered, sitting up. “Can you come in here a second?” I didn’t even bother looking to see who it was, although I knew it was probably the sheriff.
He pushed the door open, walking past me and into the room. He sat down on my bed next to me, putting an arm around me and holding me tightly to him. I felt like crying, but it wouldn’t do any good because I had no idea what I was really sad about.
His face was so close to mine, only inches away. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, but he smelled nice, like peppermint gum and coffee. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re going to take care of this.”
For a split second, it seemed as though he meant something else entirely by his words.
***
The sheriff drove me all the way back to town and dropped me off in front of the diner. There were plenty of people waiting for our arrival, including Sheriff Hightower, Officer Stokes, and a lot more cops than I remembered seeing before.
As soon as I stepped outside, people started yelling things at me like “You killed those kids!” and “Did you shoot up the house?”
A couple of the reporters were already standing on the sidewalk, asking if I had anything to say to the people of Jasper County. One of them shouted at me “Why?”
My mouth opened and closed several times, but I couldn’t find the right words. It felt like someone had punched me in the gut and taken all of my air. It wasn’t easy for me to breathe, and I tried hard to remember how to speak and move my limbs.
“Are you okay?” Sheriff Hightower asked, leaning over and helping me into a pair of handcuffs. “They’ve got you under arrest. They can hold you for twenty-four hours before releasing you without bail. You should go to the hospital first.”
I shook my head slowly, trying not to cry. “No… No, it’s okay. I’ll wait until morning.”
He didn’t argue with me, though he did ask where I wanted to be booked and how I planned to pay my way. He seemed kind of upset, and the whole time I was talking to him, I could feel his hand trembling against my back.
I thought it might have been from nerves, but now I wonder if maybe it was something worse.
After leaving me at the sheriff’s office, he went back to check on Mr. Davenport and his wife, then headed out to the house with the police chief to try and figure out what happened.
I had a seat in the small interrogation room and waited for a detective to show up to talk to me.
“What do you want to know?” I asked her when she finally knocked on the door. I felt awful, but I also felt exhausted beyond belief.
She was tall, blonde, and pretty, wearing a black pencil skirt and a white blouse with thin red stripes running up each sleeve. She held a notepad and pen in her hands, scribbling away in the margins and occasionally glancing at me while she spoke.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Do you live around here? Can I have your name and address?”
I told her, though I don’t think she believed me about anything after that initial lie.
She wrote everything down, taking copious notes as she listened to my story. I talked for almost three hours straight. It was the longest I’d ever gone without sleep in my life. I told her the truth, as much of it as I could remember, but she made me repeat most of it over and over again.
At the end of my interview, they gave me another cup of water and let me use the bathroom before sending me back home. The police chief came inside and apologized profusely. I thanked him for coming over, then asked him to tell Mr. Davenport I needed him to leave me alone, or I would call the sheriff myself.
Then I laid down on the couch in the living room and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the cushion.
The End