The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(24)

“I have no idea what the hell I’m going to tell my dad,” Danny says bitterly as the cops push through at last.

“Tell him I took care of something you should have been a little more concerned about,” Luke snaps.

There’s no time for Danny to respond, though I’m not sure what he could have said. It never felt like Danny wasn’t upset enough on my behalf. I’m questioning it now, though.

Luke and two of the kids he hit are taken in the back of a squad car. “That was fucked up,” says Danny as we follow them. “I don’t know what he was thinking. We could lose our scholarships over something like this. You understand that, right? If I’d gotten involved, I could have lost my scholarship. He still might. And you don’t solve violence with violence.”

He slides his fingers through mine as he waits for my answer.

“Yeah,” I reply without conviction. “I get it.”

But the old Juliet, bad Juliet, is smiling wide, feeling like the world is being set right again.

WHEN WE GET to the station, Luke has already been led away to be photographed and fingerprinted. I wonder if he needs a lawyer, and I already know he’s screwed if that’s the case. None of us have that kind of money.

Danny is taken to give a statement, and a few minutes later a cop appears, looking at me as if I’m the guilty one, as if I’m the one who started this.

“You’re up,” he says.

I follow him to his desk, where I tell him about the guy who pulled me off my bike, embellishing the story just a bit in case it doesn’t sound bad enough on its own. I don’t know why I feel compelled to lie. Maybe it’s just that, so many times, the truth wasn’t enough. Even now it isn’t.

“Why didn’t you file a report when it happened?” he asks.

“What good would that have done?” I retort. If I’d filed a report, they’d have found a way to blame me. Some condescending bullshit about not biking along the coastal road, about being more careful, how I should have worn a helmet. So I didn’t file, and they’re using that to make me look guilty too.

“Well, for starters, it would make me more inclined to believe the story you’re telling me now.”





So…file a report simply to provide a defense in case shit goes down later—does he realize what



fucked-up logic that is?

“I didn’t file because I figured you’d turn it around and make it sound like it was my fault, kind of like you are right now.”

“Look, I’m not saying you’re at fault, but your boyfriend charged at a guy who’s half his size, with no provocation—”

“Luke’s not my boyfriend. Danny—the one who just gave a statement—is.”

He raises a brow. “So your boyfriend did nothing and his friend started the fight?”

It sounds bad. It looks bad. If the incident with the bike was as awful as I’ve made it sound…

you’d think my boyfriend would be out for blood. And he wasn’t.

“Danny’s dad’s a pastor. He’s…not like that.”

“Fine,” he says, as if he doesn’t believe me again. “Well, then, Luke charged at this guy with no provocation and apparently threatened to hold him under water until he stopped breathing, so you suddenly crying rape is—”

“I never did ‘cry rape’,” I say between my teeth. Crying rape. No one accuses someone of ‘crying assault’ or ‘crying robbery’. Nope, just rape. Just shit that happens to defenseless teen girls and not as much to men with a little power. “Like I said, he pulled me off my bike and tore my shirt, and if you don’t believe me, Mrs. Allen can tell you herself about how she had to pull gravel and glass out of my face with tweezers.” I point to the remaining scrapes down my left side and to the faint bruising on my cheekbone.

He sighs. “So do you want to press charges against this kid? The one who grabbed you?”

“I won’t if he won’t,” I reply.

He doesn’t like this answer. He taps his pen against the desk repeatedly, staring me down. “You know, your boyfriend…Danny? He’s in the clear. Every witness stated he wasn’t involved, and the other kid, Luke…he sounds like a pretty violent guy. He already has a record and it’s not the first time he’s done this. He’s no one who deserves to be protected.”

Yes, he is.

I shrug. “I just want this over with.”

Danny is eager to leave but I refuse, so we sit in the lobby until Luke is released. He walks down the hall, slowing in surprise when he realizes we waited. He’s like me—fully expecting to be abandoned, every fucking time. “Thanks,” he says.

“Of course,” Danny replies. “You’re family.”

But it was me Luke looked at when he said it.

ONLY A WEEK LATER, the guys are leaving for football camp. As long as the summer felt at times, the end has come too fast.

We walk them to the car, and Danny presses his lips to my forehead. “I’ll call you when I get to school,” he says.

Luke shakes the pastor’s hand and hugs Donna before he turns to me.

I study his face: the dark eyes, the full lips, the unshaved jaw. It takes a second to realize what I’m doing.