Page 6 of I Knew You
It must have been obvious I’d been in a wreck - my clothes were tattered in places, my appearance was disheveled, and I had Julianna’s blood from her head wound on me.
She’s gone. I should have been with her.
“I did this,” I said, eyes whipping up to face the police officer. “I wrecked the truck. Julianna…”
“That’s the girl?” he asked.
I nodded before continuing, “She wasn’t driving, if that’s what she said. There was a deer, but I was drinking earlier?—”
The man’s forehead scrunched up. “What? Why would you—if you’d just—are you of legal age?”
“Nineteen,” I replied.
He shook his head, looking at the ground. “Dammit. You just outright confessed to a crime, young man. I’ll have to take you in. You know that, right?”
“Yes, sir.” My voice sounded steadier than I felt. “I’m not—I’m pretty sure I’m sober now. But I had to do the right thing.”
The officer nodded, looking somber.
My thoughts and the officer’s actions were temporarily halted when a car came around the curve, lights shining ontous. It stopped several hundred yards back, pulling over into the small sliver of grass on the side of the road.
It was my father’s Mercedes. To make matters worse, he was driving. Not only was it out of character for him to drive himself anywhere, but he looked determined, too. I saw it in the way he stopped the car, got out of the driver’s seat, and opened the door.
He pulled his sports jacket around him and buttoned it at the front before striding toward us. Many people in town said I was a miniature version of my father. He was handsome, to be sure, and that part of the equation felt good. But any other speck of my father that I inherited made me want to obliterate myself.
Even in that moment, when I should have feared his consequence, I hated him. I hated him for every insult he’d ever said to me. All the backhands and pushes into walls. The times I’d watched him hit my mother. Never enough to mar her beauty, but enough to make her feel like a bug under his shoe. I hated that he was never home, never a clear witness to what he did to his son and wife, as he treated us like objects he was forced to put up with.
He ran his hand through his slicked-back hair, and by the time he reached the officer and me, a couple of other nearby officers had made their way over to our huddle.
“Gentlemen. Chief McKay.”
I stared at my father, my rage manifesting in a tick in my clenched jaw. He didn’t even look my way. He kept his eyes on the chief.
“Ah, glad they were able to get a hold of you, Mr. Winchester. This is your truck?”
“Yes, it’s mine. I’ll assume all responsibilities and costs for the removal, of course. If you can instruct the wrecker to take it to whatever the nearest shop is, I’d appreciate it.”
The chief’s skepticism melted into thin air, making me huffout an exasperated breath. The audacity of my father knew no bounds.
“Of course,” the chief said, completely accepting the command, and instructed one of his underlings to make it so.
“Now, I’d like to take my wayward son home…” My father locked eyes with the chief as if telling him something without saying it out loud.
The chief swallowed.
“I can’t do that, Mr. Winchester. Your boy here admitted he’d been drinking when they crashed.”
“They?” My father’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes. Your son was with a girl.”
“Julianna East,” another deputy volunteered, flipping through papers behind us.
“Yes, Miss East,” the chief reiterated. “She was transported to the hospital. The EMT said she was stable.”
My father’s seething gaze turned onto me. I tried to keep my face neutral. I wanted nothing to bleed through so he could use it against me. The hardness in his expression told me everything I needed to know. This wasn’t going to end well.
“We can resolve this amicably, right, Chief?” My father’s voice was smooth.
