All Grown Up

by Larissa de Silva

  “Right.”

  “But I told them I wanted out. I was talking saying about going to school, maybe getting an AA in environmental science.”

  I looked him up and down. “Really?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, really. Is that so hard to believe?”

  “No. I just didn’t know you liked environmental science that much.”

  He laughed, quietly. “No, neither did I. Not until I started having to do community service, but I liked it so much I volunteered to keep doing it.”

  “Yeah, I can see you liked it.”

  “Anyway. That’s neither here and there. I told my boss my plans, and at first, he supported me. He said that he would even help pay for my schooling. Which was great, but I was doing it so I could get out of it, and he wasn’t having that. I was really good,” he said, taking a breath for what felt like the first time in minutes. “I mean, in the business, I’ve always been a useful decoy.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He wasn’t happy. We got into a screaming argument,” he said. “I told him I wanted out and there was no way that he could keep me there. I told him I wasn’t an indentured servant, that I appreciated everything he had done for me, but that I was done. And I meant it.”

  I waited. I hadn’t realized it until then, but I was holding my breath.

  “So I walked out. I was in his apartment, I turned away from him, and I walked out. As I was walking toward the door, I felt this warmth in my arm. It wasn’t pain. At least not at first. Then it felt like I was going to faint.”

  “So you didn’t fall on your knife while you were cooking.”

  He laughed, throwing his head back and letting go off the blanket. I didn’t realize how much I needed that bit of levity, too, because I instantly smiled. “I would’ve come up with a better story if I had known it was you who was going to see to me.”

  “You don’t get to pick your ER doctor.”

  “But if I had, I would’ve picked you.”

  I smiled. “That’s flattering. But a bit off-topic. So what did you do?”

  “I drove myself to the hospital. I was feeling very bad, very woozy, but I knew that I couldn’t just get the knife out of my own arm. That was just going to make it worse.”

  “A wise decision.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. Anyway, I didn’t want him, or any of my, y’know, colleagues, to find me. Which is why I checked out of the hospital. I was a little scared, but honestly, I was mostly embarrassed. I didn’t want you to see that part of my life.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. You were this successful ER doctor, and I was a petty criminal, who had just gotten stabbed in the arm,” he said. “I mean, could there be a bigger loser?”

  I bit down on my lower lip. “I don’t think you’re a loser,” I said. “You just… steered off the path a bit. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “That is a very charitable way of putting it.”

  “Well, I feel like it’s the truth. You were just doing what you could do.”

  “I guess,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Was that what the police were asking you about?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “They were asking me about the second time you came to the hospital.”

  “With the—oh, yeah,” he said, swallowing. “I mean, that tracks.”

  I waited, but I had scooted slightly closer to him as he had been talking. The more he talked, the worse I felt for him. I was feeling the warmth off his body and I couldn’t help but smile as his gaze met mine.

  “Hey,” I said. “You can tell me anything.”

  “I would rather not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll judge me,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, smiling at him. “But I’ll hold your hand while I do it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s not fair,” he said, though he was smiling back at me. “You’re not being fair.”

  “I’m actually being super fair,” I replied. “And you better deal with that.”

  He laughed, then his expression sobered. “Seriously, though,” he said. “It’s not as simple as just walking away. Trust me, I have tried.”

  “Is that what happened the second time?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “No, it… it was a little more complicated than that,” he said. “After the little tiff—”

  “You mean after he stabbed you,” I said.

  “Right,” he said, blinking. “After he stabbed me, it was clear that I needed to work for him for longer, and I decided I was just going to keep my head down and do it.”

  I waited. Our fingers were threaded now and he was holding my hand tightly.

  “Listen,” he said. “I don’t really want to—”

  “I know,” I replied. “But the thing is, you did bring me into it. You brought me into it when the cops showed up at my house, didn’t you? So you need to tell me.”

  “Fine. So what happened was, he told me to do another job with him. It wasn’t like I could say no, so I didn’t. I did my job. I staked out a house, after picking it, and we were going to rob it on Saturday. The plan was for the family to be out because they usually went camping in the spring, on the weekends, so would’ve made perfect sense.”

  “Okay.”

  “But what actually happened was different. We normally don’t go into houses that are occupied, because that’s super dangerous,” he said. “For the occupants, of course, but also for us. When they left, I noticed that the girl, the older teenager, wasn't with them. I told my boss to call it off. I told them she might be at home, but they said there was no way. They said it might be that she was going to spend time with her boyfriend, her friends, but they didn’t think that she was going to be there that night. They told me that the job would be called off if there was a party. I didn’t think I was good enough, but I had recently been stabbed, and I didn’t want to get in trouble again. As stupid as that sounds…”

  “It doesn’t sound stupid.”

  “Nevertheless. They decided to push through the job. Something about it made me feel really uncomfortable, so I called the police.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head, looking away from me. “When I went to the bathroom, I called the police,” he said. “I told them there had been a suspicious car in the neighborhood, and I gave them the address next door to the one we were about to hit. I was using a burner phone, so I knew they wouldn’t find me. I did delete the incriminating entries, but I was gone for long enough that they were suspicious.”

  “Why did you do that?” I asked after a beat.

  “I just couldn’t face it. I didn’t want them to hit this house, with this young, defenseless girl. I knew that things were going to get hairy, and that wasn’t what I wanted. I wouldn’t have been able to stop them,” he said, his voice so quiet it was practically a whisper. He took a deep breath before he spoke again. “So, I called them. As soon as I saw the squad car pulling up, I drove away.”

  “Is that when you got into the accident?”

  “Yes. It is,” he said. “We were arguing about it in the car, one of them pulled out a gun, and I just didn’t know what else I was supposed to do.”

  “So you put yourself in danger.”

  “I guess. It was more like I did what I needed to do,” he said. “Everyone felt like they were in danger in that situation, but they wanted me to turn back, and I wasn’t willing to do that. I wasn’t willing to put that poor girl in danger.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

  He laughed. “What do you expect me to say? I am afraid of my criminal counterparts?”

  “No. I don’t know. I just…”

  He smiled at me. “It’s never that simple. You can never just get away from it."

  “So what are you going to do?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I have to do something, and I can’t exactly go to the police.”


  I put my head on his shoulder, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. He was right, but I also had no idea what to do, and I didn’t know what it meant for us.

  But right then, sitting there next to him, I made the decision that I was going to stick by him. Whatever that meant, whatever happened next, I was going to stick by him.

  Because I believed him.

  I believed every pained word he had said to me after each trembling breath. And regardless of how tempting it was to judge him, I knew that he needed my support.

  “For now,” he said, brightening up a little. “How about we dig into these cupcakes?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  2019

  Things didn’t end on a sour note. He kissed me deeply before he left, thanking me for sticking by him. Still, the uncertainty felt like a hanging cloud over us, and I didn’t know how I was going to get over it. Jody was right. Whether I liked it or not, he was a criminal, and I needed to decide if it was okay to be dating a criminal.

  I didn’t know that it meant being this involved with him, but worse than that, I had no idea that it meant being this worried about him. And I was really worried about him, despite myself, despite the fact that I didn’t want to be. I already had so much baggage when it came to Jody, there was a part of me that thought it was an absolutely ridiculous idea to get involved with him again. I had told him I was going to stand by him, and I knew I was going to do it, but as I thought about it more, I didn’t know what had possessed me to say that. Things were already complicated enough between us.

  Add in the criminal element, and they got insanely hard. Maybe they were too hard, regardless of how much I liked him. I looked at the mountain of uneaten cupcakes on my coffee table, packed them up neatly, and put them in my fridge before I made my way to my bedroom. I went to bed and tried my best to go to sleep, but it was hard to get to sleep as I thought about Jody.

  I still managed to drift off, and for the rest of the week, I felt like I was asleep as I worked through every shift. I couldn’t focus on what was happening right in front of me, and could only think of Jody.

  Of what was going to happen with him.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about it. He didn’t update me, but I expected that the police had paid him at least one visit. His phone number hadn’t changed, but he barely got in touch with me, and his checkup texts were the only time that I heard from him.

  They were always short messages, to the point, simply saying good morning and good night. I knew that he was letting me know that he wasn’t in prison, but we never really talked about it like that. That would’ve made it real. I didn’t think either one of us wanted to be real.

  It wasn’t until about a full week had passed that I decided I needed to speak to him in person. The tension was getting to be too much. I needed to know what had happened, but I also didn’t want to speak about it over the phone. It might have been too paranoid, but as far as I knew they had tapped it, and they were listening to his conversations. It sounded ridiculous when I thought about it, when I really thought about it, but this was an entirely new playing field for me.

  I didn’t know what was ridiculous and what made sense. I didn’t know anything related to his criminal lifestyle, and that put me at a huge disadvantage.

  It was late on a Thursday afternoon, and for a change, I didn’t have to go to work. I texted him, asking him what he was doing, but he didn’t get back to me. After about half an hour, I decided to call. He answered almost immediately.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “I’m a little bit busy right now, can we talk later?” he asked. I could hear the sound of people in the background, and wherever he was, it did seem like it was busy.

  Instantly, my stomach sank. I didn’t want him to keep any secrets from me, but we were in the very early stages of dating, and I couldn’t ask him to account for his whereabouts all the time. Hell, I couldn’t ask him to account for his whereabouts at all. In reality, it was hardly any of my business, and I needed to be okay with that. It was difficult, though. Both our long history and the length of our new relationship made things a little trickier to navigate than they would have been otherwise, I thought to myself, as I took a deep breath and told myself not to take it personally. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “We can talk whenever you want.”

  “Wait,” he replied before I could hang up. “You’re not upset, are you?”

  I bit down on my lower lip. “No,” I replied. “No, not exactly upset, I’m more…”

  “What?” he asked when I trailed off.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Worried. I’m worried about you.”

  “Why are you worried about me?” he said, though I could hear the smile in his voice. “Honestly, I can handle myself.”

  I laughed, a little dryly. “Maybe I’m the one who can’t handle any of this,” I said. “I might just not have the personality to deal with it.”

  I heard him sigh deeply. I could hear his footsteps as he moved away from something or someone. His voice dropped to a whisper before he spoke again. “I’m—listen,” he said. “I’m, like I said, a little bit busy right now, and I might not be available for a little while. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hang out. I don’t want you to think that I’m neglecting you or anything, I just…”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You can tell me what’s going on.”

  He sighed again. His voice was strained when he spoke. “I didn’t want to get you involved more than I already had.”

  “That’s not fair. We talked about this; you don’t get to just decide things like this.”

  He waited for a second before he answered. “Fine. I’ll tell you what’s going on, but I want you to know that you can’t talk me out of it.”

  “Wait, what are you doing?”

  “You are going to try to get involved, and that is not what I want.”

  I shook my head, feeling a headache coming on as I licked my lips. “What are you doing, Jody?”

  “I’m going to the police.”

  “What?”

  He sighed again. “I’m doing it. They got a hold of me, and apparently, they have quite a bit of evidence.”

  “So—does that mean you’re giving up your accomplices?”

  “No!” he said. “No, no. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “But it’s not your fault. That’s the only way you can get out of it.”

  He laughed, no humor in his voice. I could hear him pacing back and forth. The familiar sound of traffic was going on around him and I could feel my anxiety ramping up. The longer he was silent for, the more scared I was. “I’m not a rat,” he said. “I’m not going to give anyone up.”

  I scoffed. “Why not?”

  “Look, even if I wanted to give them away, which to be clear, I don’t, going into a new environment like jail after you give up your accomplices is basically a death sentence,” he said. “It would be different if it was a trial and we had all gotten picked up, because then everyone does whatever they need to in order to survive. But I just went in, told on them because I was scared, and then just peaced out so I could get a short sentence? Please.”

  “I mean… When you put it like that.”

  “I’m,” he said. “Jess, I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t gotten you involved with this.”

  “I’m a big girl. I can deal with that.”

  “I don’t know if you can. I’m going to confess—”

  “Stop,” I said. “Don’t do anything stupid. You need to speak to a lawyer.”

  “No, I don’t. Even if I could, I have thought about this a lot,” he said. “And like I said, I don’t think you can talk me out of it. I’m trying, trying here. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  “Martyring yourself is not doing the right thing,” I replied. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  He scoffed. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m trying to—”

  “You’re not
trying to do anything,” I said. “If you are truly going through with this, then I would like to be there with you.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he replied.

  “Too bad,” I said. “You can’t talk me out of it. Where are you?”

  He laughed quietly. “Fine,” he said. “I’m in central, the police station near the plaza. I’ll send you a pin if that helps you find me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Please hold off on confessing until I get there, at least.”

  “Fine,” he replied. “Fine. There’s a huge line, anyway…”

  “Good,” I said. “Stay where you are, please.”

  “Okay,” he said, after a little while. “Fine. I’ll wait for you. But only because I like you.”

  I hung up and smiled for a second before I thought about the sinking feeling in my stomach.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  2019

  I got to the police station after navigating about forty-five minutes of traffic. My heart was beating so fast as I thought about whether he had walked into the police station and confessed, even though he had said he was going to wait for me. There were too many things on the line. I was worried, no, in fact, I was panicked. It took forever to find parking too, because the downtown area was always full of people, and I was worried that the ten minutes it took me to find a way to park was enough to push him over the edge.

  When I got to the plaza, however, he was waiting, sitting on a bench. His hands were clasped together over his lap, and he was staring into the distance. I sped up my walk as I began to approach him, worried because he looked very pale. His foot was bouncing up and down on the hard ground, and I could see his jaw was tightening as he thought about what was about to happen. In truth, it did scare me. I thought maybe he would have changed his mind as he waited, but I knew him enough to see the determined look in his eyes, and see that it was not the case.

  He was definitely going to do this. I was going to get no say. Whether I wanted it or not, he was going to turn himself in, and he was going to take responsibility for things that he was not responsible for. He probably thought it was his only way out, but I couldn’t help but be upset at the idea that he would be serving time for crimes he didn’t commit.