Page 113 of Unconditionally Yours

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Delilah

They march me into the station and the lighting is criminal. Not sexy-criminal. More like highlight every pore, flaw, and impending breakdown in merciless LED. I ask if I can use a ring light. They say no. Misogyny, clearly.

I listen as they rattle off charges which sound worse than they are. “Actually, it was performance art with romantic subtext. And the assault was a consensual vibe check. Put that down.”

For a second, I wish I’d shut the fuck up and just be normal. I do not.

When it’s time for the mugshot, I give them my good side, lashes fluttering, trauma in my eyes but hope in my smile. Like a Sephora model who got kicked out for loitering.

“Face forward.” The officer sounds like a gym teacher who gave up on dreams. I comply, somewhat. Chin up, shoulders back, I pose. If this mugshot is going in the system forever, it’s going in fabulous.

Then I hear Jett. “Fucking unbelievable.”

I whip around so fast the camera flash catches my hair mid-spin. Ruined shot, whatever.

He’s got that murderous glare on his face, the one that usually makes me weak in the knees and wet.

They yank him into another room.

The fingerprinting is worse than I remember.

They take my hand, a little too firmly, and not even in a hot way, and start inking each finger like I’m a goddamn kindergartener doing crafts.

“Do you model?” I ask sweetly. “Your hands are very… Burberry ad in a foggy Scottish field.”

He ignores me.

The black ink smears my manicure. I nearly cry over it. Not because of the polish. Because I don’t know if Benji will ever hold this hand again. His face as they dragged me out of the building was a twisted mix of anger and heartbreak. A look that didn’t fit him. I did that.

Next they hand me the orange jumpsuit and say I’ll need to remove my accessories. Shoes, gone. Barrettes, gone. Every little thing I clung to that made me me, gone.

They put me in a holding cell with a woman named Tammy who asks if I believe in aliens. I say only the sexy ones. She nods like she gets it.

I sit cross-legged on the cold bench like a lady who definitely isn’t processing trauma through pageantry, and I start rehearsing my court speech. Something about temporary insanity by way of romantic overinvestment.

I wonder if Rhys will visit. Or if Jett will punch someone. Or if Benji will cry. If I’ll cry.

But my throat hurts.

I don’t want to be funny.

I want someone to come for me.

And I want to deserve it.

At some point between my fifth alien conversation and my third existential crisis, they decide I’m too spicy for the drunk tank and upgrade me to the Sad Girl Suite Deluxe, complete with a metal toilet that laughs in the face of dignity, a mattress thin enough to double as a yoga mat, and a roommate named Destiny who looks like she once ate an entire ouija board for fun.

Destiny tells me she’s in for “spiritual arson” and asks if I’ve ever astral projected during an orgasm. I say no, but I’m open to it.

Apparently I’ll be here until morning. Chad’s lawyer brought up my little Hank mishap, so now a judge has to “review my pattern of behavior” before setting bail. Which is a really dramatic way of saying “she’s a lot and we need a minute.”

Destiny offers me a poptart from somewhere inside her bra. It’s broken into thirds and tastes like soap and sorrow. I eat it anyway.

For a while, I keep up the sparkle. I pose on the bench like I’m in a jailcore photoshoot. I try to think about how funny this’ll be in therapy. I do finger curls on the bars for tone.

But somewhere around midnight, the silence hits different.