Chapter 16

Carina

Two weeks had gone by since I had last seen or spoke to Harrison. I couldn’t believe I allowed someone like him to come into my life and even worse, I had allowed him to potentially dismantle my family in the process. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t even see my parents face to face. I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to Freya. The whole ordeal was so embarrassing that I decided to climb back into my cave and bury myself in school work like I did before I went out and met Harrison. What started out so beautiful ended up turning into something so dreadful.

It was a Friday evening when I got a call from Freya. I had made an island of myself, surrounded by a sea of school papers just waiting to be graded. The phone’s ringing startled me in the midst of my solitude.

“Hello?”

“Ok, enough of this. You haven’t been in the teacher’s lounge much, you barely speak to us at lunch and you walk around like a zombie. What the hell is going on?”

“Freya, I am fine. I just–”

“You are just full of shit and I know it. Open the door.”

“What?”

“I said open the door.”

Seconds later, the bell rang. I parted the sea of papers and walked to the door as she stood on the other side with the same look she had always given me when I gave her an answer she didn’t want to hear. One eyebrow raised above the other while her mouth was positioned to the side of her face. She propped her hand onto her waist and shook her head.

“Carina what the hell is wrong?” I shrugged my shoulders as she brushed passed me, coated in a scent of cucumber melon lotion.

“I should’ve known you were buried in the middle of school papers. You know, for somebody who does so much work, you sure do stay behind a lot.”

I closed the door and planted myself back in the middle of the living room floor, folding my legs like a pretzel. “Well, I’m not behind with these. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to have these graded until next week, but I guess I can stay ahead of the game now.”

She sat down on the couch. “Now? What happened? Things go south between you and Harrison?”

I massaged my temples with my fingers. I hated thinking about him and what happened between us. I felt like he played me for a fool and I just wanted to shove these past few weeks out of my mind, but no matter how hard I tried to bury it, the sickening feeling always floated back to the top of my mind like a helium balloon.

“Carina?”

I exhaled disappointment into the air. I looked at Freya’s face full on concern. She was my oldest friend and I knew she would be the only one that would understand.

“He was a fucking cop. An undercover cop.”

“Seriously?” Freya asked.

I slowly nodded. “He was sent to get details on my family so he could put them away for all the illegal stuff they are involved in. I was just his way to get closer to the family. He played me, Freya. He fucking played me like a goddamned flute.”

Her mouth went slack. Her eyes widened as if she was trying to see the whole world at once.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I tucked my knees against my chest and locked my arms around them to keep them in place. “He’s an undercover cop and he was sent to take them down. I would have been the reason my family went to jail.”

“Wow. I can’t believe it. Did you tell your parents?”

“What? Are you crazy? I didn’t tell them anything.”

“Don’t you think you should?”

“Why? Just so they can get pissed at me and worry about something else? I already told them that I don’t want anything to do with their business and then you want me to say, ‘oh, and by the way, I was dating this guy who happens to be an undercover cop and he was using me to get information about you guys so you all could go to prison. Sorry.’”

She chuckled. “Yeah, that might not have gone so well.”

“You think? Anyway, after he told me that he was an undercover cop, I refused to speak to him again. And I didn’t talk to you all because I didn’t want to feel like a more like an idiot. I mean, I feel that way regardless, but I just think that I would be even worse once you all found out. I can’t believe how stupid I was”

Tears started to form in my eyes and Freya immediately moved next to me on the floor. She sat next to me and put her arm around my shoulder.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Carina. You had no idea.”

“Yeah. I bet my dad would’ve sniffed him out the moment I brought him around. I couldn’t believe it though.”

“Wait a minute.” Her eyebrows pursed together. “You said he told you that he was an undercover cop?”

“Yeah. He told me a couple weeks ago. At the time, he said he had only been on the case for about a week, so I know he didn’t get much information from me. He asked about my family, but I didn’t tell him anything. I kept it vague, like I always do when people ask about my parents. I should’ve known right then and there that something was wrong.”

“Wait.” She looked to the right, staring at the wall as if it had eyes to stare back. “But, why would he tell you? Why would he tell you that he was an undercover cop if he was really trying to get some information on your family? Did he explain why he told you?”

“He said he couldn’t do it anymore.”

I shook my head and grabbed the red marker that I used to mark incorrect answers on the homework papers. With a hint of aggression, I crossed out wrong answers and marked down papers that had the slightest errors. Freya put her hand on top of mine to slow my pace.

“That means something, Carina. He has to feel some kind of way about you if he told you that he was a cop and he barely started on the case. Those aren’t the actions of a man who was set out to destroy you and your family. If you ask me, I think he really has feelings for you, and he probably risked his job by telling you who he really was.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Whatever, Freya. It doesn’t really matter why he told me, the point is that he was using me.”

“But did he know you were connected to the family all along, or did he find out after you all met?”

I tapped the red marker on the papers in front of me, recollecting everything we argued about the day he told me that he was an undercover cop. I distinctly remembered him saying that he didn’t find out that I was connected to the family until after the fact and the more I thought about it, the more everything started to make sense.

“He said after.”

“After. That makes sense, Carina. Trust me, I am not taking his side, but the man didn’t know. At least, that is my guess. He didn’t know and as soon as he realized it, he told you. Listen, if he didn’t care, I think he would’ve kept going with the case and even right now, you wouldn’t know what was going on. He would’ve kept that quiet and in the meantime, he would’ve been steadily building his case against your family.”

She made more sense. I hated the fact that he had even put me in this position, but as Freya continued speaking, I started to understand what that he was attempting to be genuine with me. I didn’t want to believe her, but that truth was more evident now than it had been before she showed up.

“I do miss him.”

“I know you do. There hasn’t been another man to make you smile like that in years. But, I know this is a tricky situation for you. If you keep talking to him, knowing he is a police officer, that won’t sit right with your family. But, who knows what you will be passing up on if you just let him walk away.” I leaned my head back onto the couch and covered my face with the palms of my hand.

“What am I going to do, Freya? This is just too much for me right now. Damn it. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

“You mean, why did he have to have a job as a police officer?” She laughed. “I don’t know, but maybe you should call him and ask him that. Or just talk to him. When was the last time you did that?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Yeah... Talk to him and give him a chance to explain himself, you know, without you throwing a fit.”

She made me laugh when I didn’t want to. We had been friends for so long and throughout that time, she was always there for me, whether good or bad. If I needed a kick in the pants or if I just needed someone to talk to, she was in my corner. I exhaled, then put my arms around her.

“Thank you, Freya. Thank you for helping me see what the reality was behind all this.”

“Yeah, yeah. I should start charging you a fee for this good ass advice. Lord knows where you would be in life without it.”

She hung around for a couple more hours, drinking and talking with me until she got a phone call from one of her friends.

“Well, Anthony finally called me like he said he would an hour ago, so I am going to go meet up with him. You can’t be the only one around here getting some,” she said, winking at me.

“Well, for the past few weeks, I haven’t gotten any, either.”

I walked her to the door. Before she left, she embraced me again and with that, she left to her car and drove away. I slowly closed the door behind me as Harrison’s image floated into my mind. I had been such an ass to him for the past few weeks and I wondered if he had already moved on from me or if there was still a chance that we could work through this craziness.

I had always told my family that I wanted nothing to do with what they did. But was being with Harrison too risky? I sat on the couch with my phone in my hand. My thumb hoovered over his name as I debated whether I should give him a call. Finally, I built up enough courage to dial his number.

It rang a few times and then it went straight to voicemail.

“Hey, Harrison. I know people don’t really leave voicemails anymore, but, I wanted you to hear my voice when I said this. I want to talk to you, face to face. I promise I won’t freak out on you this time, but, I just want to give us a chance to talk and clear the air. We are in an interesting situation, but I hope you can look past that and at least meet with me. So, when you get this message, please give me a call back.”

I hung up the phone and placed it on the table, then sat down on the floor in the midst of school papers. The silence was deafening as I waited for the call back and before long, I decided to pick up my red marker and continue where I left off.

He probably wasn’t going to call. I completely messed this up. Maybe I would just end up being single for the rest of my life. It took me over a year to find somebody I could connect with and once I finally did, I allowed my temper to get the best of me. I could barely grade another paper before I put the pen down and curled into a ball on the floor. A few silent tears rolled out of my eyes and before I knew it, I was fast asleep.