Reboot

A few random notes: Yes, I'm starting working on this again for NanoWrimo 2007. All stylistic things, such as paragraph indentations and italics will have to wait. They are saved in the Word Document, but for some reason, I can't get it so that I can publish straight to my blog from MS Word. Anyway. I like comments, so if you have any, and you're still reading, leave some! We continue right where we left off.



He lifted his hands and backed away as Sam lifted her hands to her face, pushing her hair out of her face with her palms. Her hands came away wet with tears.
The police officer who was stepping closer to both of them unhooked a pair of handcuffs from his belt and said to Anthony, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be used against you in a court of law.” Anthony could feel fear lacing through his body, white-hot, but he did nothing to resist the officer.
“Officer, I think there’s a misunderstanding here—“
“I think I understand everything just fine,” said the officer, snapping a cold metal cuff around Anthony’s right wrist.
“No!” said Sam, finally able to speak. “Officer, p-please….I know that it looks really bad….but he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I wasn’t crying because of him...”
After binding Anthony’s other wrist with the handcuffs, the officer turned around to look at Samantha consolingly. “Sweetie, you don’t have to lie about it. I can see that he was trying to take advantage of you, that he was hurting you. He can’t hurt you any more. So you don’t have to lie about it.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed, squeezing the last of her tears out of her eyes. “I’m not lying. I was freaking out, and he was trying to snap me out of it. He was trying to help me. And if he was trying to hurt me, I would definitely tell you about it.” The officer still looked skeptical, but now whirled his flashlight in the direction of running footsteps. Gali and Mr. Rhodes squinted from the bright light of the flashlight, and Gali yelled,
“Why don’t you guys have your red lens in your flashlight?! We’re never going to find ghosts if you don’t have any night vision!”
“Ghosts?” asked the officer, lowering the flashlight beam from their faces so that they could see again.
“What’s going on here?” asked Mr. Rhodes, glaring at the handcuffs on Anthony, whose face was a mix of humiliation and anger.
“I have the situation under control,” said the officer. “It’s none of your business. Now, if you’ll just back away, please.”
“These kids are under my control,” said Mr. Rhodes. “I’m their chaperone. This is the paranormal research team from High Glen. We were just walking around in the graveyard, looking for ghosts. I know it sounds weird, but it’s just some harmless fun.”
The police officer looked incredulous. “Look, Mr….ah…”
“Rhodes. I’m an English teacher at High Glen.”
“Right. Well, Mr. Rhodes, when I arrived here on the scene, just walking around doing my rounds, I saw this man,” and here he flushed Anthony’s face with the white light of his flashlight, “forcing that girl up against a crypt, holding her there while she was crying, and slapping her right across the face. Maybe you came here to have some innocent fun, but what I saw was clearly more than that. I want to take the boy in for questioning.”
“That isn’t what happened—“ Anthony began, but he was interrupted by Samantha.
“I told you that I wasn’t lying, Officer. I don’t have any kind of…romantic relationship with him. I was crying….because of school. High Glen is really….hard. And I’m only a freshman, and this is my first year away from my parents. I was crying about this paper I have due next week, and staying some really stupid stuff, and Anthony was just trying to convince me that everything’s going to be okay.”
“Then why did he slap you, sweetie?” asked the officer, still convinced that Samantha was trying to cover up an abusive relationship, or potential rape.
“Because….” Her mind was racing, and she knew that nobody else could say anything. If Anthony, Gali, or Mr. Rhodes offered up a reason for her, it would make it seem like they were helping her cover something up. And she certainly couldn’t tell the police officer that Anthony had slapped her to break her out of a reverie induced by a ghost….if indeed it had been a ghost. “Because I…” What could possibly be plausible? What would make someone trustworthy slap her? Now Samantha stared hard at Anthony, pleading with him to trust her. “I told him I wanted to die. To….to kill myself,” she said, letting her voice break when speaking the last two words. She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to look disturbed. Anthony looked dumbfounded, although it seemed as though the police officer interpreted this as concern. Gali looked extremely skeptical, while Mr. Rhodes shifted into mentor mode, putting on an act for the cop.
“Samantha, you know that you can talk to your teachers if your work load seems like it’s too much. And there are counselors at High Glen who are ready to talk to you about these kinds of issues. You don’t need to face it by yourself.” He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah, Sam…” said Anthony, his right hand still shackled in half of a set of handcuffs. “I’m sorry that I hit you, but you just….scared me, really. We’re your friends, and I wish you would let us try to help you.”
Gali didn’t trust her acting abilities at all, and opted not to speak.
“I know,” said Sam, “I’m so…sorry. Officer, please, Anthony didn’t do anything wrong. He was just being a good friend.” The police officer was studying her face very carefully, as well as Anthony’s.
“All right….” He said. “I’m still going to have to file a report, though. And you, missy, I highly recommend that you take up with the counseling services your school offers. Suicidal thoughts are very, very serious. You’re lucky that you have friends who care about you.”
Samantha attempted a small smile as the officer removed the handcuffs from Anthony. “I know now…I think….that I’m lucky.”
The police officer took out a small pad of paper and started making notes, asking for their full names, and asking Mr. Rhodes how to contact the school. Gali hung back a bit, trying to be inconspicuous, and then heard two laughing voices approaching, one male and one female. Even with all of the adrenaline she could already feel from the presence of the police, she could still feel part of herself fill with rage when Ayumi and Perry walked into their scene.
“What’s the matter?” Perry shouted, before seeing the police officer standing in their midst. “Did you guys already find a ghost??”
“Shut up, Perry,” snapped Gali. She walked forward quickly to reach him before he started talking to the uniformed officer. “Police guy over there found Anthony holding Sam against the wall of a crypt, and saw him slap her. She must have been possessed by a ghost. She lied to the officer, though, and told him she was suicidal.”
“Why would she tell him that?” asked Perry, his eyes darting from Samantha to Anthony, to the cop.
“We shouldn’t keep talking here,” said Gali, not wanting to seem conspiratorial. “But she said it because it’s the only other thing that would make sense. The cop thought he was about to rape her or something. Just please….don’t say anything stupid. This is really bad.”