Kate
“This is crazy!”I scream as I watch the police officers place handcuffs on Christian while Malcom stands by, doing his best not to smile too big. “Why is Christian being arrested when it was Malcom who tried to force himself on me?!”
“Oh, Katherine, stop being so dramatic,” my mom scoffs, waving her hand in the air.
See, I knew this was going to happen.
“Dramatic!?” I reply. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Force himself on you? Why do you have to use such words?”
“Um, because they’re accurate?”
One cop places his hand on the back of Christian’s head as the other opens the door to the police cruiser. I watch with horror as they place him in the back seat like he’s some kind of actual criminal, instead of the hero that he really is.
“Dad!?” I almost scream, turning to him in the hope that his fatherly instincts will kick in and cause him to show some sense. “Are you really going to let this happen?”
“Honey, I’m sure Malcom would have backed off if you’d have just made it clear you weren’t interested,” he replies.
My heart drops. Guess not.
“All of this nonsense could have been avoided if Prince Valiant over here”—my mom waves her hand dismissively in Christian’s direction—“hadn’t decided to try and impress you with violence. I told you to stay away from him. That he wasn’t one of us.”
“You two have to be joking…”
“It’s all about signals,” my mom goes on, making me hate her even more. “I know you haven’t had much experience with boys, Katherine, but maybe you were just giving off the wrong signals and Malcom misinterpreted them and thought that you—”
“I’m leaving this family.”
The words push their way out of my lips before I even have a chance to process them. But as soon as they’re out and in the air, in my parents’ ears, I realize just how long I’ve been dying to say them.
That gets my parents’ attention too. They both perk up and look right at me. There’s a brief moment of tension where it seems like I might have some power in the conversation, but then my mother frowns.
“Katherine, don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not. I’m serious.”
“Leave the family?” my dad asks. “And go where? And do what? You’ve never spent five minutes in the real world.”
“She’s never even had a job,” my mom scoffs.
Embarrassment rushes through me. I somehow keep it together despite the fact that I want to turn around and run away from this entire situation. My stomach is sinking lower and lower with every second that passes. The police are talking to each other about something, but I know it will only be minutes before they take Christian away.
I know what I have to do to make this all go away, but the thought of it just adds a wave of nausea onto the already overflowing cascade of emotions that has taken over me.
“Fine. I’ll marry Malcom.” It almost hurts to say it, but I can’t let Christian go to jail over me. He doesn’t have parents with thick stock portfolios to bail him out. He doesn’t have a trust fund or a dad who can get him partner at a law firm. Christian is on his own, and something like this on his record could ruin him.
“What?” My mom sounds as shocked as if I’d been the one to suggest family time for tomorrow.
I nod. “And I will stop complaining about it too.” I turn to Malcom and march over to him and stare him straight in the eyes. “I’ll marry you. But you have to get them to drop the charges against Christian right now.”
“Drop the charges?” he asks, smiling. “But Katherine, he assaulted me.”
“Cut the bullshit,” I snap. “Get them to drop the charges now or this thing? Us? It’s never going to happen. Get them to drop the charges, Malcom.”
Malcom tongues his cheek, cocks his head to the side, and crosses his arms over his chest. He looks at me, glances past me at the police who are getting ready to drive off, then looks back at me with a smile on his face.
He’s enjoying this, the prick.