Falling Into You

Chapter 14

I jumped into the front seat of Andy's car and we sped straight to the jail.

"So what the hell happened?" he asked

"We were in my room, and all of a sudden all these cops showed up and they arrested him"

"What are the charges?"

"They're claiming he murdered someone" I felt nauseous saying the words. 

"Holy shit" Andy rubbed his face with one hand "That's pretty bad"

"No shit!"

We pulled into the parking lot and my stomach flopped.  My feet grew numb increasingly as I walked to the front door. I held my stomach as I looked around. It was dark and grungy; the floors and walls were concrete. I could hear the slam of cell doors in the distance and I found myself imagining Jay in one of those dark lonely cells. I gripped my throat to keep myself from gagging. I walked slowly next to Andy, he seemed perfectly fine.

"Andy, how are you so cool about this?" I whispered.

"It's not a big deal, you just have to act like it's not scaring the shit out of you" he leaned down to me.

"Are you scared?"  

He held up his hand and titled it side to side a few times. As if to say he sort of was.

I looked around at all of the cells and the people inside them. The men were so huge, and scary. Jay didn't belong here. He wasn't huge at all and he didn't look scary- not to me at least. Maybe he did look scary to other people; I had never thought it about it before. My thoughts were interrupted by a large banging next to me. A man was holding the cell bars and shaking the door forcefully, I stumbled backwards and Andy caught me.

"Stay close to me" Andy said in my ear.

I nodded as I stared in shock at the angry man. He looked almost...crazy. I supposed being locked in a cold empty jail would be absolutely horrid.

"How far do we need to walk?"

"I think we came in the wrong door"

"Oh, there's a police officer over there" I pointed down one of the hallways at an officer pacing back and forth.

"Excuse me?" Andy shouted

"What are you doing back here?" the officer said sternly.

"I think we came in the wrong door..." Andy pointed in the direction we came "We are here to visit someone"

"The visitors door at the north end of the building. You came in the employees only door, didn't you read the signs?" he raised his voice directly at me.

Andy put his arm across me defensively. "No, we didn't" 

"Andy..." I warned

"We are looking for Jaylen Strauss"

The officer nodded once firmly "Right this way"

We were lead to room with booths and glass windows. There were chairs under the desks in the booths and there were telephones attached to the wall of the booth. I looked over at the other side of the room and saw the other boys. CC had his head in his hands, Joey had his legs stretched out with his butt halfway off of the chair and he was leaning on his fist with his elbow on the arm of the chair. Tyler and Peyton were sitting close hand in hand. My heart ached as I thought of Jay and me. I could feel the tears coming. They were interrupted by Peyton as she ran to me and was hugging me.

"Oh, Allie! I can't even imagine what you are feeling right now! How are you? Do you need anything?"

"Just one thing" I said quietly.