FIVE YEARS EARLIER
Officer Gonzalez doesn’t take me home. He doesn’t know where it is. I won’t tell him. So he has taken me to someplace even more terrifying: the police station downtown. It makes me regret ever agreeing to get in the car with him in the first place.
There’s a phone ringing loudly throughout the office. The air smells of coffee. There are officers drifting back and forth between desks. I am sitting at a row of seats against the back wall, anxiously squeezing the bottle of water that Officer Gonzalez has given me, my gaze darting all over the place, trying to keep tabs on everything. I tried my best. I refused to give them my surname. But one of the lawyers here in the office right now knows my mom and has given away my true identity.
Which means that my parents have now received their second phone call of the day about me. First from Principal Castillo, and now from Officer Gonzalez. And if they weren’t happy about getting the phone call from school, then they definitely aren’t going to be happy about answering a phone call from the police. In the space of one day, I have gone entirely off the rails, and even I can’t explain what’s wrong with me. Mom is going to be so disappointed, and Dad is going to be so furious.
“So,” Officer Gonzalez says as he appears again. He sits down next to me with a cup of steaming hot coffee, and he takes a long sip of it. I look sideways at him. “You’re lucky. Your parents didn’t even realize you were missing, so you didn’t send them into a spiral of panic for the past hour. They’ll be here any minute.”
I turn my eyes down to the floor. My stomach hurts from how sick I feel. I shouldn’t have stopped by that stupid tree. I should have kept walking. I should have got on the bus. I should have really left town.
“Are you alright?” Officer Gonzalez asks when I don’t reply.
And the truth is, I’m really not. But how do I tell him that? I feel so weak, my body is aching, my head is spinning, my sight is blurring with the tears that are threatening to fall. I am so, so scared. I lift my head and turn to look at him. My eyes meet his, and I am begging him to really, truly look at me, to see the fear and the pain in my eyes, to tell me everything is going to be okay, that he’s going to protect me. I want to tell him the truth, but I can’t find the words to explain just how broken I am.
But the truth is in my eyes. I am telling him. I am trying.
I am broken, I am in agony, I am scared.
But he doesn’t see it. He doesn’t say anything at all.
I look away, fighting back the tears, tilting my head back down to the floor again. “I’m fine,” I say.
“I’ll keep an eye out for your parents,” Officer Gonzalez says. He gives me a reassuring pat on the back of my shoulder as he stands, then he walks away again, sipping at his coffee, nodding to fellow colleagues as he disappears back out of the office.
I slump back against my seat, squeezing my eyes shut and pressing my hands to my face. I flinch from the pain, then quickly push my hands back into my hair instead. I pull on the ends in frustration. I’m so exasperated, so lost. How am I supposed to handle this mess now? Every day, my life seems to spiral more out of control. Every day, I feel more helpless. Every day, I grow weaker.
I just want it all to stop.
I want Dad to stop.
I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of protecting him. I’m tired of pretending I’m okay.
But I just can’t find the words to make it all end.
“Tyler!” I hear Mom’s voice echo from somewhere in the distance, but the reality is that she’s right next to me, because suddenly her arms are wrapping around me and she’s pulling me in close, squeezing me tight as though she’s afraid I’ll disappear again. “What were you even thinking?!”
I open my eyes, suffocating under Mom’s hold, and she is planting kisses into my hair. I try to look at her out of the corner of my eye, but it’s impossible to see her face when she’s clinging onto me so closely, so I remain paralyzed in place. I look up to see Dad’s expression instead, but he’s not here. My eyes dart all over the office in search of him, but only Mom has turned up.
Officer Gonzalez is watching us closely, his arms folded loosely across his chest, and he gives me a reassuring nod. “He was over in Wilshire on Twelfth Street,” he explains. “Kid posted up by a tree? I thought I better check it out. Turns out he was worried you were mad at him for that fight at school.” He lets out a small chuckle. “I didn’t realize he was your son.”
“Oh, Tyler,” Mom says, exhaling a long breath of air. She releases her hold on me now and leans back, delicately cupping my busted-up face in her hands, her fingertips brushing my bruised skin. She looks even worse than she did earlier. More worried, more stressed. Her eyes are wide as they pierce mine. “Don’t ever do something so stupid ever again.”
I glance down at the floor and give her a small, single nod. I didn’t mean to upset her again. Now I feel even guiltier. Today is officially the worst day of the entire year, and I just want Mom to take me home so that I can crawl straight into bed and sleep the rest of the night away.
“Thanks for picking him up,” Mom says, straightening up in front of me and turning to face Officer Gonzalez. She shakes his hand, then gently reaches for my shoulder. It’s our cue to leave, so I grab my backpack from the floor by my feet and stand up.
“No more fights at school, Tyler, alright?” Officer Gonzalez tells me with a teasing smile. I am staring back up at him, and although he is still being nice, I wish he could have been more. I wish he could have helped. I wish I could have told him how to.
Mom guides me through the office, back toward the station’s reception. She gives small nods of acknowledgment to some of the officers and detectives that she’s acquainted with, but she definitely doesn’t stop for any small talk. It’s almost like she’s embarrassed, because her pace is much faster than usual, and she is quick to lead me through the reception and out the main entrance. As soon as the door falls shut behind us, Mom comes to a halt and steps in front of me, crouching down so that we’re eye level. She reaches for my hands.
“Tyler,” she says sternly, searching my expression for answers. “Why would you even do such a thing? What is wrong with you?”
“You and Dad were mad at me,” I admit quietly, staring down at my hands in hers. I try to pull away, but she tightens her hold. I didn’t mean to worry her.
“Of course we were mad. You were in a fight, Tyler!” She closes her eyes, tilts her head down, and releases a frustrated sigh. She is quiet for a few seconds, as though she is thinking, and then she opens her eyes again and looks at me with a small smile. “I’m sure as you get older there’s a lot of things I’ll get mad at. I’m your mom. It’s my job. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, and it doesn’t mean you should run away. Okay?” She squeezes my hands again.
“Okay,” I say. I swallow and dare myself to ask, “Where’s Dad?” I’m relieved he hasn’t shown up, but also worried that the reason he isn’t here is because he is too angry to look at me.
“At home with your brothers,” Mom tells me as she lets go of my hands and straightens back up. “He doesn’t know, so let’s keep this between us. I told him you walked to Dean’s, so he’s still not pleased with you for sneaking out, but at least he doesn’t know why. You know how protective he is.”
I stare at her. Protective? Dad is the one I need protection from. She really has no idea. Which is what I want, I guess. I’ve tried so hard to keep it all hidden, to keep the truth from surfacing, to protect her. I’m doing good, it seems, but it’s so, so hard. I am letting myself get hurt in order to protect my family, but if I tell the truth, then I hurt them. Either way, it feels like I can’t win.
“Mom,” I say as she’s searching through her purse for her car keys. She casts a quick sideways glance at me, raising an eyebrow and listening. But I don’t know what to say. Every time I think I might just have the courage to finally tell someone, the words get stuck in my throat. I can’t say it. I can’t admit it. So, just like I did with Officer Gonzalez, I go for the easy way out. I tell her, “I’m tired.”
“Good,” Mom says, “because you’re going straight to bed when we get home.”
My heart sinks. Even my own mom can’t hear the pain in my voice, or see the anguish in my eyes, or the bruises all over my body. Even when I want her to.