Stranger

04 | Officer

I had never stepped inside a police station until this day. The black and white mosaic tiles below my feet looked grimy, scarred with black skid marks from officers' polished shoes. The ceiling was an intimidating three storeys high. Despite its size, the reception area was bare, inhabiting only three scarcely placed chairs and a desk. An officer stood behind, glaring down at the sudoku he was attempting to complete. Hearing our footsteps, the officer produced a fake smile in our direction.

"What can I do for you guys?" he sighed. I opened my mouth to respond but Ryan took over. I could tell that the situation was enraging him and the attitude of the officer didn't help. 

"My girlfriend's been receiving texts from a guy. We believe he's stalking her."The officer almost rolled his eyes. I bet they got these types of reports several times a week that often accounted to nothing, but I had a feeling there was something more to my report. 

With barely a change in tone, the officer responded like he was reading from a script. "Has she given her number to someone new?" I shook my head after he finally looked in my direction. "Could it be an ex boyfriend or someone playing a prank?" I shook my head again. "Have you tried blocking the number?" 

I perked up. "No, I'm more interested in finding out who's stalking me! He came to my college today, is that enough evidence?" The officer picked up on my disdain and breathed out another sigh.  Every fibre in his body told him to file away the report and deal with it later, but I must have caught him on a good day.  

"Okay, I'll help you out," his eyes darted towards his uncompleted sudoku puzzle with a want in his eyes. He started typing on the outdated keyboard as he enquired, "What's the phone number? I can run it through our database and find out its location." 

I read out the number as he copied them into the keyboard and proceeded to press enter. He waited as the system scanned through the database. A harsh, short noise sounded from the computer when a dialog box popped up. 

The officer scowled, "Looks like there's nothing on our database." Feeling defeated, I held tightly onto Ryan's arm for support. "But, I've found a location." He continued, "it appears to be linked to a phone that's approximately 10 miles North of us, on Newark road." He faced his body towards us and folded his arms like he had fulfilled his duty and nothing more was needed.

"You're not going to come with us?" I asked. 

"No can do. All the other officers are out dealing with serious crime. And I'm needed here." His face lightened up, like the thought of staying in the station all day pleased him. "You can always ring us up if you need us."

Ryan muttered something under his breath before grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the exit. 

"Come on Mya, we'll sort this out ourselves." He scorned at the officer whilst he dragged me behind him. 

We stepped out into the Autumn air and started walking to the closest bus stop which was about 10 minutes away from the police station. We remained silent as we walked hand in hand, processing our thoughts. The traffic was dense and congestion was present in most of the lanes but I guess that's what comes with living in a large city. A car drove past us, driving way too fast, blaring house music. I shook my head slightly with discontent.  

"I think I heard your phone buzz." Ryan stated, pointing to my jacket pocket. I was so captivated by the goings on around me that I hadn't heard it. For a moment, the stranger didn't cross my mind but the thoughts suddenly flooded back when I read the text. 

"You shouldn't have gone to the police. You've ruined it." 

Puzzled, I showed the text to Ryan. "Ruined what?" He asked.

 I shrugged my shoulders, "I have no idea. He knows we've gone to the police though." My voice raised as panic set in. For the first time, Ryan couldn't reassure me. He had no answers and I could tell he felt out of his depth this time. Sadness was etched on his face. Aware that the stranger must be somewhere nearby, he breathed heavily, let go of my hand and turned towards the road. 

"What do you want?!" He shouted all around him. "What do you want from her?!" 

The words echoed off of the nearby buildings and his face now pointed to the sky. People stopped in their tracks and looked over at him in total shock. They must have thought he was a lunatic, but he didn't care, he never cared about people's opinions of him. Whenever Ryan felt like he was losing control of a situation, he got angry and he had to find an outlet for that anger. And this was his choice of outlet today and if it helped him, I didn't want to get in the way of that. I grabbed his hands and stared into his eyes. It was something I often did when he had an outburst. He slowly un-clenched his fists, the redness in his face diminished and his breathing calmed as he focused on me. 

Ryan and I were so attuned with each other that a lot of our communication was non-verbal. Small gestures and facial expressions were enough to show what we were thinking or how we were feeling. Like they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words". Similarly, our gestures were worth a thousand words, words that only we could understand. Just by looking at Ryan in those few seconds, he knew I wasn't angry at him for his actions; I rarely got angry with him. What he did know was that I cared for him but I wished he didn't care for me as much as he does sometimes, for his sake. I've always been a laid back person so to see someone, especially someone I loved, invest so much emotion into my issues, upset me. I should be the angry one, not him.