"Did you catch any other?" The cop holding my elbow asked his colleague. His colleague shook her head, "Other units are chasing some of them down the street, they'll catch up. Let's just head down to the station first to deliver these kids."
The cop nudged me to keep walking to the car by my elbow, my hands in the cuffs that he'd put on me earlier. Yes, this bitch has got to be the unluckiest person on this planet. That, and the fact that I just can't run even if my life depended on it. Outrunning the cops was like running in one of my nightmares. It was as if they were The Flash and I was running underwater. My escape was doomed from the very first start, I was just overoptimistic. The policeman used his hand to cover my head so that I don't hit it against the top of the car as I got in the back of the squad car, two other teenagers already sitting there. The guy sitting in the middle raised one of his hand and gave me a small wave, his other hand that was cuffed to the raised hand lifting too. The girl that was sitting by the other side of the car's window was dozing off, her head leaning on the window. How was she able to sleep in this situation? In a police squad car? ON HER WAY TO THE BLOODY POLICE STATION. I was sitting there in the back of the car, sweating from my mini marathon run away from the police before the cop caught me and dragged me to the car. It's been a few minutes since I've stopped running but my heart was still racing and the sweat that covered me has now turned into cold sweat that was caused by my anxiety levels skyrocketing. As the policeman and his partner got in the car and drove away, my heart started beating faster. I didn't know it could do that since it had already felt like it was going to jump out of my chest, but it did. The car accelerated as it drove away from the then-empty house of the crashed party. I bit my lip and my leg wouldn't stop shaking. I didn't even know it had started shaking. My fingers on my right hand picked at the skin of my fingers on my left hand, causing the chains on the cuff to clink together, reminding me of their presence. All my nervous habits were happening all at once and it was getting out of control. I feel like I might have a cardiac arrest any second now.
Maybe if I had one then I would've ended up in the hospital instead and they'll maybe pity me enough to just let me go. But alas, my heart didn't stop beating when I needed it to the most and we reached the station whilst I was buried in my own thoughts. I didn't realize the car had stopped moving until the policewoman opened my door and helped me get out, keeping a hand on my elbow in case I tried running away. I guess they think I was a high flight risk. They thought right. With the hand on my arm the entire time, I had no choice but to comply and follow the cops into the station. They sat me down on a chair and asked me for my details while scanning my fingerprint and running it in their database. I tried explaining myself to the policeman that caught me on the scene but he had simply said, "Save it for when you're in the station." So I guess this was the moment he was referring to. Once I opened up my mouth to start explaining, I couldn't stop talking. It was just a word vomit from then on. "I swear I don't know anything about what's happening. I don't know who hosted that party, I got dragged to it by a friend who's friend, I don't know, goes to the same school as the host? I don't know why I was chased down and cuffed and brought down here. I'm freaking out, I have clinical anxiety and I need someone to tell me what's happening!" I blurted out, gasping for air by the end of it. I stared, wide-eyed, at the policeman looking at me in surprise at my outburst. "Whoa, there. Calm down. Okay, I'm gonna check everything you just said and if it's all true then everything's going to be just fine for you so don't worry unless you did something you're not supposed to." He said, trying to calm me down, his hands doing the calm down gestures at me.
My hands were planted on the table and I searched his eyes for reassurance that he's telling the truth. The cop was probably in his late 20s or early 30s, he had dark skin and his eyes were widened, as if he was inviting me to check if he was lying or not. Somehow, that was actually reassuring. He didn't stop trying to calm me down as he started to explain the situation for me, which I was absolutely grateful for. "We got a call that the party you were in had drugs involved and that's why it was crashed. We're rounding all of you up to catch the dealer so that we can find out who the head of the ring. We're just doing our job here." He said slowly, raising his hands and shrugging as if to say, "I didn't want to arrest you, it's just something that we gotta do." I know I've watched too many movies when I started thinking about the possibilities that they'll plant a fake evidence just to pin the crime on me to close the case. But, something about the cop sitting before me told me he was trustworthy, that I can believe what he was telling me. Maybe it was the transparency in his body language or maybe it was the empathetic and worried look on his face as he watched me take shallow and quick breaths as I worked my way through my anxiety attack in front of him. My breathing started to slow as I stopped freaking out for a second. "Do you want some water?" The cop offered me a bottled water from behind the counter. I accepted it graciously and thanked him, gulping half of its contents down before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "So what happens now?" I ask him once I've calmed down just enough to think properly. "We'll have you do a urine test." He slide a bottle and a plastic ziplock bag across the counter to me. "Unfortunately, it'll take us some time for the test results to come out so you'll have to stay in one of our holding cells in the mean time while we work on that." He said it slowly and while watching my reaction closely, as if he was scared I'll start freaking out again. I think I might've broken this cop. I nodded slowly, thinking that staying in a holding cell wouldn't be so bad.
That was until an influx of teenagers entered the station like a mob, a cuffed mob, escorted by some other cops. Then, the thought occurred to me and I turned to ask the cop the question. "So, just asking, how many holding cells do you have exactly?" I asked him. The cop, having made sure that I hadn't broken down in another panic attack at the revelation that I would have to stay in a holding cell, had gone back to his computer and typing something into the system. He answered me without looking away from his computer. "Two, why?" Cue a second round of an impending anxiety attack. My breathing hitched before picking up once again at the thought of staying in a confined space with so many people. People that might actually be criminals. Yeah, nope. Abort. Abort. I shot up from my seat and was about to run to the nearest exit, cuffed hands or not. I'll figure out how to get out of them when I'm in the comfort of my home after I've made my escape. But I guess years of dealing with people who might be criminals and flight takers didn't go down the drain for this policeman. His hand shot out and grabbed the chain of my cuffs before his head even looked up to see what I was doing, as if he did that without processing what he did. "I- I can't.." I stuttered, starting to break down again, tugging my cuffed hands away as tears starting to spring in my eyes. Having to stay behind bars was bad enough but to have to share that space with people who might be dangerous freaks me out more than anything. I didn't spend all my life behind a goodie two shoes to avoid being in the exact situation I was in for nothing. What is happening?!
The hyperventilation started again and the cop got to his feet, his hand still holding onto my cuffs to prevent me from running. His hand that wasn't holding onto me moved up and down, his palm turning up when he raised it and then flipping down when he lowered it as he exaggerated his breathing. "Hey, hey, breathe..." He inhaled and exhaled, his eyes urging me to copy him. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes, too panicked to listen to him. "Hey, hey, come on." He shook my cuffs to get my attention. I don't know if that was a good idea but it did get my attention. I opened my eyes and saw him, he immediately got into the breathing exercises again and this time, I did it with him. After 2 minutes, I finally calmed down enough and he managed to sit me down, going around the counter desk to get to my side. "I'm sorry, I wish there was something else I can do for you but.." He shrugged helplessly. I twisted the cap to the bottle of water open and took another sip to help myself cool down some more. I know he's just a low ranking cop and that there's so much he could do. I understand that, I just.. I don't know if I can go along with this. "Come on, I've got you. Scream anytime you need to and I'll be right there. I'm just a few feet away, you'll be okay." The cop said as he walked behind me, arms on mine, and basically pushing me to the back of the station where the holding cells were while my feet glued itself to the floor, refusing to give in and help make the walk easier. When we got to the holding cells, he pushed me towards one of the cells' door and used his key to open it. My heart rate spiked and I started feeling like I was about to cry again as the door swung open. The cop gave me a nudge inside and I stumbled on my foot into the cell. He gave me a sad and weak smile, as if it was hard for him to do this to me too but he had no choice.
I turned around, tears in my eyes blurring my vision. I brought my cuffed hands up to my eyes and wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. When I brought my hands back down, something.. or rather someone caught my eye. There, sitting in a corner of the holding cell I was in, was Alex. I locked eyes with him and the urge to cry suddenly disappeared, and it's in place was shock. My tear-dry eyes widened in surprise at the sight of him in a holding cell inside the police station. And I guess it was a surprise for him too because his eyes considerably grew in size when he spotted me standing in the middle of the cell like an idiot.