All Broke Down (Rusk University 2)

An officer comes then and takes Matt away to make his phone call. He glances at me and mouths, “Javi?”

I nod, and watch him leave.

I know he’s prodding, hoping I’ll give in and say we can call my dad instead. But I just can’t. I know he could get us out faster, but I can’t see him yet. Not until I’ve figured out some excuse. Not until I’ve figured out what crack in my brain made me behave so rashly tonight.

It’s not because I’m upset over Henry, but I can’t help but think it’s all connected. My emotions are all out of whack, and the only thing I know is that today at that protest, I felt invisible.

And I didn’t realize until I clicked those handcuffs into place that I’d felt that way long before we set up camp in front of that homeless shelter.

“So what were you trying to change?” he asks.

I feel weirdly shy now that Matt is gone, and I no longer feel the need to go into my ten-minute rant about the state of politics in this country.

I turn away from him so that I don’t have to make eye contact, kind of like that whole don’t look directly at the sun or you’ll risk visual impairment thing. This was just a different kind of impairment. Like my ability to think straight. I wave a hand and explain: “The city is cutting funding for the homeless shelter downtown. They’re claiming budget problems, but really they just don’t want their historic downtown blemished with the less fortunate.”

He nods, but doesn’t reply, and why am I so damn self-conscious? We stay silent for a while, and I wish Officer Tribble hadn’t taken my watch because it feels like Matt has been gone a lot longer than the couple of minutes it should take for a phone call. And I can feel his eyes on me, ramping up my already frayed nerves. I’ve just given in to the urge to pace when he speaks again.

“So . . . Pickle?”

I spin and look at the cell across from me. The guy is staring, and I blanch. “Uh . . . no. I’m Dylan. That’s just a Matt thing. Dyl Pickle. It’s stupid.”

“Dylan,” he repeats. And I have never felt less invisible than I do in that moment with him looking at me.

“And you are?”

He grips the bar and leans back slightly, and he must be some kind of workout junkie because even with clothes on, his body is unreal.

“Silas.”

I take a seat back on the bench and pull my knees up to my chest. “Sorry for yelling at you, Silas. I’m a little wound up.”

“Getting arrested will do that to you.”

So will a complete mental breakdown. Which I may or may not be having.

“Yeah,” I answer absently, anxiety sweeping through me again. I lay my head down on my knees and try not to think.

Yeah, right. Like that’s possible.

“I’m sure everything will be fine. It’s not like you did anything too bad.”

I wince.

“Did you?”

“Define bad.”

He laughs. “I think our definitions of bad are probably very different.”

If I wrote the dictionary, bad would just have a picture of him under it.

“Why are you in here?”

I don’t really think through the question until the words are already out of my mouth, and his gorgeous eyes are narrowed on me. I’m pretty sure that there’s some unwritten rule about not asking people why they’re in jail while they’re still in jail. And this may just be a holding cell, but the rule probably applies here, too. His tongue peeks out to worry at his swollen, busted lip, and I feel a wave of heat curl up my spine.

Totally inappropriate. Totally psychotic because he is way out of my league. Or I’m way out of his league, I don’t know. Either way, someone is out of someone’s league.

And more important . . . he’s so not my type. At all. So, I’m not sure why I’m still staring at his swollen lip, wondering if he’d flinch if I touched it.

I rein in my thoughts. “Sorry. That’s none of my business, I—”

“I got in a bar fight with a friend.” He pauses and looks away. “Or someone who used to be my friend. Or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking.”

I laugh. “Me either. Must be something in the water.”

I want to ask what he fought over with his friend. Or his former friend. I want to know what makes a guy like him tick, what he cares enough about to bleed for. Because it sounds personal, not just the mindless, Neanderthal slugfest that I’d been picturing.

“Are you hurt?” I ask.

A flash of a smile has a field of goose bumps sprouting along my arms. “You worried about me, Pickle?”

I throw my head back and groan.

“I’m going to kill him.”

Officer Tribble returns then with Matt, and she gives me a look at overhearing my last words.

I lift my hands and say, “Hyperbole. I promise. No actual plans to kill anyone.”

As she lets Matt back into the men’s holding cell, he raises an eyebrow.

“Who are we killing?”

“You,” Silas answers.

Matt holds a hand to his heart and gives me a pathetic look. “I thought we promised to look out for each other on the inside? And now you turn on me for the first pretty face.” Silas frowns at the assessment of him as a pretty face, and I wonder what expression he’d make if he knew Matt really did find him attractive. Though I’m willing to bet if you go through life every day looking the way Silas does, you probably get used to all kinds of people finding you attractive. “You’re a hardened criminal already, Pickle.”

Silas’s frown is swept away by a low laugh at the name, and I drop my feet off the bench and stand. I’m getting restless, and maybe walking around again will help me.

“Since you’re already going to kill me, I guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you that I couldn’t get a hold of Javi. You can only call landlines, and I guess he hasn’t gotten back to the dorm yet. I left a message, but I bet he’s already working on getting us out.”

Javier is the president of our student activism group, Voice for Tomorrow. And Matt is right that he’s likely to be pissed with me. Today was supposed to be a preliminary protest just to raise awareness. We were hoping that it combined with the petition we’re compiling might be enough to at least get them to postpone the closing. Now I’ve made us look reckless and impulsive. Like troublemakers instead of informed citizens.