Marsha asks for dates, times, names, like I remember. All I know is the detectives showed up on my birthday, that the heat followed us.
When I tell her that, she pauses, tells me to go back. “Did you have contact with the officers prior to your eighteenth birthday?”
I feel like I’m on the verge of saying something that’s gonna land me in some shit, hesitate.
“It’s all confidential, Kiara,” she reminds me.
I take a bite of my pizza just to stall. Swallowing, I say, “Yeah.”
“And did they know of your age?”
I stop to think about that, take another bite. “Not sure. Some of them asked and I usually just say I’m old enough, but I don’t think most of ’em wanna know. Can imagine whatever the fuck they want that way, you know, little-girl fetish without the consequences.”
Marsha asks more questions that I wouldn’t have even thought had to be asked and it’s slowly getting clearer that this isn’t some sort of quick blip that’s gonna end in me and Trevor back on the courts in a week. I’m scared to ask Marsha, but our plates are empty, and we’re getting closer to the point when she tells me what I don’t wanna hear.
“What exactly’s gonna happen next?”
Marsha crosses her legs, wipes the last couple crumbs off her skirt, and tilts her head. “With all the publicity, probably a criminal investigation.”
I snicker. “They gonna arrest half the police force?”
Marsha raises her eyebrows, shakes her head more times than she needs to. “Oh, no, that’s not how this works. Not with law enforcement. If things go as I expect they will, we aren’t talking about any arrests, not at first. Instead, there’ll be a grand jury.”
I don’t know exactly what that entails, but I’ve seen enough news to know the only time a grand jury ever comes up, it’s because some blue-suit shot a black man and the government wanted to pretend they actually gave a shit. Never ended in nothing but black boy on the news, hood up, some report about how he smoked some flower in seventh grade. I’ve done so much worse.
“So I’m on trial?” I ask.
Marsha breathes in, talks out with her breath. “You have to understand that a grand jury isn’t a trial. It’s what comes before one. If the jury decides to indict, then they’re basically saying they think there’s enough of a reason to have a trial. So, there’ll be no arrest and, even if there was, you shouldn’t be the one being arrested. You’re the key witness, so you’ll be the framing testimony. Like I said, this is high-profile, even though technically grand juries aren’t supposed to be public.”
“And in my case?”
Marsha bounces one of her heeled feet. “In your case, the media will make it so there is nothing private about this, except for what occurs in the courtroom. That is entirely private.” Marsha pauses. “Trafficking is a very serious offense, Kiara.”
“I ain’t been trafficked,” I spit back.
“Whatever you want to call it. You were a minor and they are full-grown men with authority.”
The blue in the room is getting louder with every word coming out Marsha’s mouth. I shut my eyes for a couple seconds, hoping that when I open them the room will be a pink or a yellow or anything less sunken than the strange blue walls and the keep calm and carry on framed poster.
I open my eyes, the blue still blasting, and now the nausea is returning heavy, pizza threatening to show itself again. My face must be giving me away because Marsha asks if I’m okay and I ask her if the door to the patio opens and I think she says yes, don’t really care either way, I stumble toward the door and pull on it until it releases and I’m out over the ledge of the patio, looking down to the bay below.
If there’s an opposite of seasick, I think that’s what the bay does to me: everything stills the moment the scent of salt hits me, ocean breeze wrapped around my exposed waist, wind exacerbating the knots in my hair. It ain’t that I feel free, but I feel home. Probably more home than I do anywhere else, which is ironic ’cause it’s blue too, and I know I’d drown the moment the waves took me in.
Marsha follows me out, asks if I’m okay a couple more times, but I don’t have the energy to respond to her yet. I open my mouth enough that the bay-infused air can touch my tongue. I want to taste it, know the bay exists beyond any of this. Don’t matter if everything else caves in tomorrow, the bay will still be here, will still taste like salt and dirt and wood from boats that carried too many bodies.