I’d been on the road for about fifteen minutes when my phone rang. I had on those magnetic things where I could mount the phone on the dashboard, so when the screen lit up I saw it was Easton. I smiled and shook my head as I hit the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel to take the call.
“Where are you? I just got into the garage.” Of course he had, because he drove like a New York City cabbie.
“Uh I’m still like five miles out of town, Speedy.”
I heard him scoff and smiled in anticipation of his response. He had a very inflated sense of his driving skills, which was kind of adorable. “I didn’t even drive that fast. There’s barely any traffic at this hour.”
I nodded in the direction of the phone, like he could see me. “You know I like to go just under the speed limit at night, helps me feel like I’m more in control of the vehicle.” I sped up a bit, because it was true that there was no one on the road and I was driving mad slow, not that I would admit that to him.
“Did I accidentally call my grandpa?”
The genuine bafflement in his voice had me busting up. “All right, smart-ass, I’ll see you in a few minutes. I’m really close to town,” I said, grinning as I drove down the dark county road.
“Fine, I’ll leave the door—”
A siren coming from behind startled me out of the conversation. I tried to slow down in case a first responder needed to get past me, but when I looked in the rearview mirror, there was a patrol car behind me, its flashing lights trained right on my car.
“Patrice?” I heard Easton’s voice still full of humor, and for a moment it felt like I was in a dream. Like time had slowed down, and then I realized it was panic. I was scared.
“I think I’m getting pulled over,” I said woodenly, my bare hands on the steering wheel suddenly felt like sausages. Still I quickly tapped on my phone screen, and switched the call to FaceTime, as I steered the car over to the side of the road.
When I saw Easton’s face he looked terrified. “Where are you? I’m coming over there.”
I didn’t have time to answer, because I had to deal with the deputy rapping on my car window.
I lowered the window all the way down and made sure I immediately put both hands on the steering wheel where he could see them, and made eye contact when I respectfully addressed him.
“How can I help you, officer?”
Right how I’d learned on those videos.
Easton
The first thing I realized when I heard Patrice say he was being pulled over was that until that moment I’d never truly felt terror. I must’ve gone through the first thirty-six years of my life without experiencing helpless, debilitating fear before, because what I was feeling was completely new.
I was having hot and cold flashes and my skin felt tight on my face. Even my vision went blurry. I looked at my phone as I powered up my car, frantically trying to think of what to do. How to help him without making things worse. I could only see a side of his face, and one of his hands, which had the steering wheel in a death grip.
After a second, I heard the voice of the officer. “Do you know why I stopped you?” He sounded young and cocky, and I prayed to anything that would listen that he could keep a cool head.
I could see half of Patrice’s jaw clenching at the deputy’s tone. I knew he was working hard on not mouthing off, and I wanted to scream into my phone, beg him not to do anything to piss the guy off.
“I assume it was because I was speeding.”
“You were going sixty, this is a fifty-five speed zone.”
Was he really stopping him for going five miles over the speed limit? The memory of my teasing from just a few minutes ago soured in my stomach and I had to breathe through the urge to puke.
I wanted to call the sheriff’s office and tell them to call this guy off, to tell him to leave Patrice alone. To not hurt him.
Every conversation Patrice I had had about how these things went was flashing before my eyes, and a wave of nausea rolled in my gut.
I didn’t know what to do.
I couldn’t take the call off because I wanted to see what was happening, and I had to think fast. Every second that passed had the potential to escalate.
“Sir, where were you coming from?” I stared at the screen, watching the scene unfold, and with growing horror realized this deputy seemed hell-bent on starting something with Patrice.
“I thought this was a speeding stop, can I just get my ticket and go?” Patrice’s tone was getting more and more annoyed with every word he said.
The guy spoke again, this time with a definite edge to his voice. “Sir, I asked you where you were coming from.”
I saw Patrice hands tighten on the steering wheel, then turn his head fully in the direction of the voice.
“I was driving back from Trumansburg. I was there having dinner with some friends and my boyfriend.”
Shit.
“Oh, your boyfriend.” The pit in my stomach widened at the cop’s snide tone.
“Yes, my boyfriend. Look is there a point to this? Are you going to give me a ticket or is this just outright harassment?”
“Did you consume any alcohol this evening?”
The conversation from earlier came back into my head, and the relief of knowing Patrice would have no reason to lie was so powerful, I almost wept.
“No, I did not.”
“Where are your license and registration?” This fucking guy was just not going to let up.
“They’re on the visor above this seat. I am going to take one hand off the steering wheel to reach for it.” Patrice was enunciating every word in a clear calm voice, obviously aware of his every move, something that would’ve never occurred to me to do.
I saw him reach up and after a moment, the deputy talked again.
“So you’re from New York City, what are you doing up here?”
“I work for Cornell. Again, is there a point to this?” Patrice could not keep the annoyance out of his voice when he talked, and before the cop even responded I knew things were about to get a lot worse.
“Get out of the vehicle.” The cop’s voice all of a sudden shifted, and he sounded pissed.
“What? Why?” If I didn’t know him the way that I did. If I hadn’t spent the amount of time I had with him in the last few months, I would not have been able to hear the genuine fear in Patrice’s voice.
“I said get out of the car.”
I sat there frozen in terror, praying to every deity I’d ever heard of to please just make him do whatever the deputy was asking him.
“I’d like for you to tell me the reason why I need to get out my car when you stopped me for going five miles over the limit.”
There was muffled sound as though someone was trying to force the car door open, and for what seemed like forever, I could not make out what Patrice was saying. That’s when I panicked, because I could already see Patrice on the ground, shot. I immediately put the phone on mute and dove to get my work one out. I didn’t know what I was doing, or who I was calling, but I needed to stop this right now. On the screen I saw that Patrice was no longer holding the steering wheel. He must’ve gotten out of the car.
Completely out of fucks and shaking with fear for what could happen if I didn’t do something, I called Day.
He picked up after two rings, even though it felt like a century. I spoke over him as soon as he answered.
“Do you know who’s posted on the road to Trumansburg tonight? You have to call him off. He’s got my boyfriend on the side of the road, Whitney, and it’s escalating.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My boyfriend,” I screamed into the phone, not caring at all how this looked or what it could mean later. “He’s a professor at Cornell, got pulled over and your deputy is being an asshole. He made him get out of his car for no fu
cking reason. You need to find out who he is, and call him off.” I was practically barking at him, and I knew this would probably come back to bite me. I did not care.
I could leave my entire career right here, right now, if it got Patrice back in his car and headed home.
Day didn’t hesitate. “Let me call in.”
I waited on the phone, fearing the worst, because Patrice was still not back in the driver’s seat. I thought back to just minutes before when we’d stood on the sidewalk and said I love you. The thought of losing that, of losing him was unbearable.
Finally Day came back on the phone. “It’s Deputy Hines. He’s fairly new. I’ll radio him.”
I exhaled, feeling relief beyond anything I’d ever felt in my life. My limbs felt liquid as the tension started to seep out of me. After a few seconds, which felt like hours, Day spoke again and I could hear the tension in his voice.
“I radioed him, he’s letting him go.”
I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see me, as I stared at my phone screen and finally saw Patrice getting back in his car.
“Thank you.”
Day exhaled. “No problem.”
I ended the call without saying another word and waited for Patrice to say something, but he must’ve forgotten that I was still on FaceTime. The next thing I knew, it seemed like the car was moving. When I looked at the length of the call I saw we’d only been talking for six minutes.
The longest of my life.
“How are you doing?” I asked in the most normal voice I could manage. Afraid I’d spook him while he was driving.
But when he spoke his voice was distant. “I’m fine. I’m going to turn this off, while I’m driving. See you in a few.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Patrice
The five-minute drive to the building took me fifteen, because I had to stop twice when my hands started shaking so bad I thought I was going to get into an accident. I kept replaying the last ten minutes over and over in my head and I felt sick about all of it. I tried to calm myself and figure out a way to have a conversation with Easton about what he had done without losing it. I hated feeling like I did, humiliated and scared, so fucking scared.
I pulled into my parking spot, feeling like my head could snap right off my neck from the tension. I didn’t want to blow up, take things out on Easton. I didn’t want to say things that I could never take back. I thought of the sweet moment we’d just had by our cars, and it felt like it had happened to someone else.
I opened the door and saw him getting out of his car, which he parked on the spot nearest the elevator. As he hurried over to me, I took one breath, then another. Looking at him now I had the same thought that I had when that cop made me get out my car, I don’t want Easton to feel responsible for me. I didn’t want him to have to see me get hurt and then feel like it was his fault. Maybe all this was bigger than the two of us. Maybe this was all hopeless after all.
“Are you all right?”
I turned and leaned against my driver door as he stood just a few feet away. Still trying to breathe through the jumble of emotions of the last few minutes. I decided to stay here, to talk to him while we were out in an open space. A place where I’d have to keep my voice down, where I’d have an easier time walking away.
I looked down at my feet as I thought of what to say. Of how to explain to Easton that what he’d done was not even remotely all right, but that beyond that the reality of where we both stood in life finally sunk in and I was scared for both us. When I looked up I could see the flatness of his mouth, the way his fists were shoved in his coat, that he knew things were not okay.
“You’ve been telling me for weeks now to be patient, that things are just so slow when it comes to these things. Not a public statement, not a word to the community that this was not okay, that they were right to be scared. Your boss didn’t, you didn’t.” With every word I said Easton got paler, his eyes downcast, and something in me almost wanted to hurt him. When I spoke again my voice sounded so fucking tired. “But the minute these stops come to your door, you have it taken care of it in three minutes.”
He stepped toward me with a protest in his mouth, but I held up my hand.
“I want you to tell me, Easton. Tell me how it makes sense to let those stops go on for months now without taking any kind of position, when it was other people’s lovers, or parents or kids.”
My voice broke then, and I had to take a deep breath, to finish saying this shit, because the shock from everything that had gone down in the last hour was starting to wear off and I was shaking again. “I can’t be that person, Easton. I can’t be the one for whom the rules are broken, while every other fucker that looks like me has to just live with it.”
His mouth twisted then and he took a step, closing the space between us. “That is not what that was, Patrice,” he said, desperation clear in his voice. “It’s not that I don’t care about what happened to other people. I know now how wrong it was for us to stay silent, to not reassure the community.” He fisted the hand he’d been running through his hair. “I freaked out, okay. I got scared. I get that I may seem hypocritical—”
I scoffed and leaned my head back, starting to feel pissed off. “May seem hypocritical, Easton?”
“Patrice—”
“No. That’s the kind of energy you need to have for every single person that is stopped in this town, and doesn’t have a boyfriend with the pull to help him out. You know what it takes to make this better for everyone? Sacrifices. Your boss won’t say anything because she can’t piss off the police, the sheriff can’t do it because he already lost some votes. Meanwhile black and brown people in this town go on thinking the people who are supposed to keep them safe just don’t care. You knew all along that what was happening was dangerous.”
I wanted to touch him one last time, to run my fingers over those lips one more time. “You remember when you told me that you could go your whole life without thinking about the real history of this country?”
He gave a sharp nod in response, his arms crossed tightly against his chest. “We’re not just learning history, we’re making it too. You can’t just be brave when you’ve secured yourself a soft landing or without making any of your friends uncomfortable.”
“Does anyone get a second chance with you? Or is everything black and white, Patrice?”
I laughed again, pushing off the car. “You know what’s wild?” I sounded as if something had been turned off inside me, numb. “When I got stopped the first thing I thought was: if something happens to me, I don’t want this on Easton’s conscience.” I let out a choppy breath and could hear Easton’s shuddering one. “I also don’t have the luxury of navigating in the grays, and I won’t be anybody’s token, especially not yours. It’ll destroy us.”
I walked away and headed to the elevators, but before I took two steps he was hot on my heels. “Oh no you fucking don’t,” he gritted out, getting into the elevator with me. I pushed the button for my floor and put in the special access code for him. And almost laughed about the symbolism in that small detail. The fact that Easton had the kind of life where one needed a special code to get to him.
As the elevator doors closed he got right back in my face. “I’m not going to beg you, Patrice, because I know that there’s nothing I can say that you won’t turn it into another self-righteous reason to condemn me and then yourself for caring about me.”
His eyes were a dark green now and blazing, to anyone else he would’ve looked angry, but I could see that he was hurting. “I fucked up. I should’ve done better. I don’t have a do-over, and I have to live with that.” He shook his head as the elevator stopped on my floor. “But there was never going to be a way for me to win when it came to us.”
I stood there not knowing what to say, too tired to try.
“You can tell yourself that you’re just saving us both
by doing this.” He ran a hand under his nose, but somehow he kept the tears from falling. “Before we even really begun you’d already decided that I was going to disappoint you. Now I have. I hope your sanctimoniousness keeps you warm at night.”
With that he pushed past me and walked out of the elevator, but before taking the stairs to his place, he turned back to look at me, and in a strangled voice said, “You’re so much stronger than I am, Patrice, because I would never put my convictions ahead of the people I love. If had to do it again, I’d still make that call.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he was being unfair, but before I could, he pulled the door open and took the steps up to his place.
When I got to my apartment, I closed my eyes tight and tried to breathe through the tears that were threatening to spill. I kept repeating under my breath, this is for the best, this is for the best, this is for the best.
Easton needed someone who could be with him without reservation, who could love him without conflicts or guilt.
Maybe I just wasn’t that man.
Easton
“Are you all right?” Pri asked, the naked concern in her voice making me grimace.
I sighed as I tried to sit up on my bed, my muscles achy from lack of use. My head still groggy from all the sleeping I’d done. I debated on what to say but in the end decided I didn’t have it in me to act like I wasn’t wrecked.
“No,” I croaked, glancing up at the clock on the wall, which was telling me I’d been in bed for almost fifteen hours.
“Did something happen with you and Patrice? I called him after I read his thread about the stop, but he didn’t pick up. Just texted back ‘I’m fine.’ Like the broody asshole he is.”
She sighed again and I could tell she was trying to gauge how much to push. “I didn’t even bother asking him how you were doing, because those tweets about the stop were at an eleven, so I figured at the very least you and him got into something.”
I scoffed at that major understatement and slumped against the headboard, completely at a loss about how to make things right with Patrice. Because no matter how much I hedged, he had been right about me. I’d chosen to let an issue that at some point would end in a tragedy slide until it came right to my door. Because it would piss people off.
American Love Story (Dreamers) Page 25