Me: Please do.
He doesn’t answer to that. I drop my phone onto the counter and look around me. I’ve never felt so alone.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“What’s up is that I can’t get anywhere near your street!” Christian sounds exasperated, huffing loudly. I hear honks from different cars, and Christian shouting, “Yeah, yeah, we know! We’ve been stuck here for twenty minutes now, assholes.”
“Was there an accident?” I plop down on my couch and munch on the tip of my hair. It is legit the best thing to eat around here. I need to go to the supermarket before my dad arrives next week. Ryan is fine grabbing something from Wendy’s at the end of every day, but when my dad comes back home from being on the road for weeks, I like to make sure he gets some home-cooked meals in.
“I don’t know. Maybe? I mean, it looks a lot more serious than that. There are like five police cars here.”
“Hmm.” I roll my eyes. “Probably a burglary, knowing my neighborhood.”
“And three ambulances? And yellow tape. Never a dull moment in your hood. No wonder you’re bored with our preppy school.”
I lie on the sofa and start flipping through the very few channels that my TV has to offer.
“I’m bored right now,” I whine. “Tell me what you see.”
“Well.” He sighs. “I see six…no, seven different police officers. At least one of them is hot.”
“Yeah.” My eyes become droopy and lazy. Perhaps because I haven’t eaten anything all day. I kind of forget to function properly sometimes. Especially since everything with Pierce has happened. “And?”
“Caution. Ambulances. A motorcycle on the side of the road…”
My heart stops in my chest. “What?” I ask. “Repeat that, please.”
“I said ambulances, a motorcycle…”
This time Christian doesn’t even finish his sentence before I hang up. I’m putting on my white Chucks and flying out the door in a second. My heart is in my throat.
Ambulances. Motorcycle. Police. Ryan.
I run toward the main road. My legs are a separate entity from the rest of my body. I never knew I could be so fast. I arrive at the scene. It’s already dark outside, and the red and blue lights are blinding me. I see the ambulances.
I don’t see Ryan.
There’s a cluster of people standing by, whispering and taking pictures. I slice through the crowd and run to one of the officers who is standing on the other side of the yellow tape, his arms folded over his chest. He looks somber and serious.
“What is this? What happened?” I ask him breathlessly. He barely e
ven shakes his head to show me that he heard me. I’m not going to get shit from him, I know then and there. I look around. People are crying. Some women cup their mouths in disbelief. I’m not sure what’s happening. I walk around trying to find a gap in the crowd, but there are too many people around the scene so I can’t see what’s actually going on in the road.
It’s not until I get a text message from Christian that I remember I hung up on him.
Think we got disconnected. I’m gonna take off. Try again tomorrow?
I don’t even respond.
“Remington?! Remington, is that you?” My neighbor, Janice, rushes toward me. She lives across the street and has like eighteen children from a bunch of different dads, and a little too nosy, but she is a good person. Hard working. She sometimes bakes stuff for Dad on his birthday. I don’t even want to begin to think why they’re tight or why she remembers his birthday.
“Hey.” I try to smile, moving some of my hair from my face. “What’s going on?”
“Did you see?” She jerks her thumb behind her shoulder, her eyes full of sadness. I shake my head.
“It’s too crowded. I’m really worried. Ryan went to get us something to eat, and he isn’t back…” I trail off. “I hope it’s not an accident.”
Her face melts in horror, and she grabs me and hugs me to her chest. She smells of cigarettes and vanilla. “It’s not, honey. Not an accident.”