Hi all! I've missed you! But I spent my long weekend getting lots and lots of chapters done (instead of my homework), and now I'm ahead. So, I'll actually be posting things now. Anyway, here's chapter 4.
I still can't believe that two hours later I was on my way to Ryan and Esposito's crime scene. Only a couple of hours before, I had watched them go into interrogation to take down a suspect!
After I ducked under the yellow tape, my eyes roved over the sea of flashing lights, searching for the ambulance that held my friends.
And that's where I found him. Sitting on the back of an ambulance, still shivering under five blankets. He was staring off into the distance like that's what he had been doing for a while.
The sound of my approaching footsteps stirred him from his trance-like state. I sat down next to him and put an arm around his shoulders in an attempt to get him warm. He breathed out slowly and jerkily as he allowed his frigid muscles to relax. "Hey Crail," he mumbled, making a visible effort not to shiver as he spoke.
"Hey," I replied. "What happened? Or do you not want to talk about it?" I wanted to give him the same chance he had given me: to say "no."
He couldn't keep his chattering teeth still as he spoke a random string of words. "Flash bomb, Lockwood, hostage, cold, water, your mom, rope, Catholic school…" The mixed up jumble of words and phrases meant next to nothing to me. All I got from it was that Lockwood had water boarded my friends. And the perp was gonna pay. Big time.
I had one last question for him, one I wasn't sure if he would want to answer, but I went for it anyway. "Where's Jenny?"
Ryan had just started to relax under my arm, but as soon as I said his fiancée's name he tensed back up again.
"Sorry," I said. "Shouldn't have asked." This was starting to feel like a warped version of the other night.
"Dumped me," he said softly, but with a trace of bitterness in his voice. "Yesterday. For someone else."
I didn't know what to think. I had heard about Ryan and Jenny, seen him text her every half an hour to tell her that she was safe. Why any girl would want to leave this caring, funny, smart, devoted, amazing, handsome, and intelligent detective was beyond me. But I snapped out of my thoughts to take care of that detective.
I kept my arm around him as I replied. "She doesn't know what she's missing out on. No other guy could possibly compare to someone who loves her as much as you do."
His head dropped onto my shoulder, and I rested mine on top of his, silently marveling at how perfectly they fit together.
"I was getting ready to spend the rest of my life with her," he said dejectedly. "She said 'yes!' Why would she say 'yes' if two weeks later she was gonna dump me?"
He was probably asking the world in general, but I answered anyway. "Maybe she got scared of becoming a cop wife. I know I haven't been able to keep a boyfriend since high school, just because they're afraid of what I do."
"We've been going out for so long! Why, after a year and a half of knowing what I do every day, would she choose the time when we were planning our wedding?" He had a lot to get out of his system, so I figured I would be here for a while to talk to him. Strangely, I didn't mind staying there at all.
"Because girls are stupid," I said quietly, yet firmly. As I talked I realized that my hand had started to gently stroke his arm. Not for warmth, just to comfort him. "We over- think things. As soon as she started to imagine your wedding, she started to imagine your marriage, how it would play out. My guess is that one of the scenarios she created in her head was of your death. Of her, widowed, maybe with children who wouldn't have a father. And once a girl gets something into her head, she can't get it out."
"Why didn't she tell me?" he lamented. "I could've helped!"
"No you couldn't have," I said. "You would only have reassured her about your safety, not your love."
"Huh?" Ryan almost exclaimed. "What does my love have to do with anything?"
I knew this conversation was going to get awkward really fast, so I chose my words very carefully. "What a girl needs to hear in this situation is: 'I'll love you forever and ever, and as a long as you love me too, everything else will work itself out.'"
"Is it too late to say that now?" he asked, suddenly hopeful.
"Yes," I said slowly. "But it's never too late to tell her you love her and want to marry her. If she says 'no' to you again, you have to accept that, though." I felt the warning was necessary, since I knew he was going to go find Jenny as soon as he could.
"Okay," he said carefully. "So I find her, tell her I love her, and ask her to take me back, but if she says no, I have to let her walk away?" I could almost see him tentatively considering my advice and his plan.
"Don't script it," I told him. "It has to come from your heart, not from your brain."
"Got it," he said with a slight nod of his head. "Thanks for the advice. You're the best."
After that, I got up and walked away from the flashing lights of the ambulances and squad cars. As I left, I wondered why I didn't want Jenny to take Kevin back.
I feel like this chapter was half decent half awful. Was it too much? The whole "the sound of my approaching footsteps stirred him from his trance-like state" is starting to freak me out. Is it the corniest thing you've ever heard? As you can tell, I'm very insecure about my writing. And let me tell you, chapter 6 already has me in a nervous breakdown…
Anyway, hope you liked it. Y'all rock. Oh, and one more insecurity. "That perp was gonna pay. Big time," was purposeful. I do want her to sound like a cross between a southerner and a cop. You'll find out why in chapter 6. Oh gosh… chapter 6.
