Chapter 15
The parking lot air hit my face and it was colder than the hallway had been. The clinic doors were propped open behind me and I could hear the fluorescent buzz cut off as soon as I stepped outside. Mom's hand was on my shoulder, not holding me tight, just there. Her thumb moved once against my jacket.
The sheriff's cruiser was parked under the lot light. He was in the back seat. I didn't look straight at him. I saw the shape of his head through the rear window and the way his hands were cuffed in front of him. An EMS guy was pulling off his gloves next to the ambulance bay, and the adult in the white coat stood at the curb holding a folded paper.
I kept my jacket open.
I'd unzipped it myself inside, in the exam room with the door closed and just Mom and the white coat there. My hands hadn't stopped shaking when I did it, but I did it. The hood was down now. The zipper was down to the middle of my chest. Cold got to the burned spot on my collarbone and it stung, but I didn't clutch it shut again.
The white coat came over to us. Up close I could see the light blue cuff under his sleeve and the black watch on his wrist. He crouched a little so he wasn't towering over me.
"Hey," he said. "You did good in there."
I nodded. My breathing was still a little fast.
He turned the paper over in his hands. "The EMTs took a look at my notes. It's a minor burn, first-degree, mostly redness. No blistering that needs the ER tonight." He looked at Mom when he said it, then back at me. "You'll follow up at the county clinic in two days, not the hospital. They'll check it and give you the cream if you need it."
He handed Mom the aftercare sheet, then handed me the other copy. It was warm from his hand. Plain white paper, with the clinic logo at the top and bullet points in big print. Keep clean. Cool water, no ice. Don't pick. Call if it gets worse.
"Call that number on the bottom if you have questions," he said to me, not just to Mom. "Day or night."
I folded the paper in half and held it open in my hand. I didn't ball it up. My hands stayed open.
The deputy walked over from the cruiser. He had his notebook closed and his radio turned down low. The man in the light gray coveralls was standing by the cruiser's front bumper in his brown boots, his hands in his pockets. He wasn't cuffed. He wasn't in trouble.
The deputy stopped in front of Mom first. "Ma'am," he said, then looked down at me. "Can I tell him directly? It's his case too."
Mom nodded.
The deputy crouched too, like the white coat had. "So here's where we're at," he said. His voice was even, the way grown-ups talk when they want you to believe them. "The man in the cruiser is detained. He's being cited for the unsafe muffler drop and for leaving that exhaust piece where you could get burned. That muffler is bagged in my trunk as evidence. You are not in trouble. You didn't steal anything. You picked it up because it was hot and you were hurt. That's different."
I felt Mom exhale next to me. I hadn't realized I'd been waiting for that part.
"What about him?" Mom asked, glancing toward the coveralls man.
"Cleared," the deputy said. "He called it in right. He told us where it fell off, where the kid was. He's a witness, not a suspect. He's free to go."
The coveralls man gave a little nod when the deputy said it, but he didn't come closer. He just lifted his hand once toward me. I lifted mine back. My jacket sleeve slid and the cold hit my wrist.
The deputy turned back to me. "He's not leaving town tonight. He'll go to the county office with us. If we need anything else, we'll call your mom. You don't have to see him again today."
Behind him, the ambulance doors shut with a soft thump. The EMTs were done. The lot was just the cruiser, the clinic lights, and us.
When the deputy stepped away to talk to Mom by the cruiser, the white coat stayed with me. He didn't reach for my zipper. He just stood there.
I looked down at my jacket. The dark gray fleece was dirty at the cuffs where I'd been holding it so tight all afternoon. The zipper pull was right where my hands had been fisted for hours, but my hands were open now, one holding the aftercare sheet, the other empty. The hood was down around my shoulders. I could feel the winter air on my neck for the first time since that morning.
I thought about leaving it.
I could have taken it off and handed it to the white coat and left it on the chair inside. Part of me wanted to. It had been the thing I hid behind. But it was also the thing I held shut myself. No one zipped it for me at the end. I did.
I pulled the zipper up an inch, then back down, just to feel that I could move it either way. I left it down.
"Mom," I said, and my voice was hoarse from crying earlier. "I want to take it home."
Mom came back and knelt. "You sure?"
I nodded. "I want to keep it open."
She didn't fix it for me. She just smoothed the hood flat against my back. The white coat smiled a little.
May you like
"Good call," he said. "It's yours. You get to decide how you wear it."
We walked toward Mom's car at the edge of the lot. I didn't clutch the front of the jacket. I let my arms swing. The burn stung a little with each step and the cold helped. The clinic doors stayed open behind us, the hallway empty and bright, no one locked inside anymore. I left them open too.
