The coffee I drank an hour ago hasn't kicked in, and I'm losing faith that it's going to. It's almost midnight, I've been on shift for three hours, and I have six more to go. The good thing about working in a small town is that nothing ever happens, but the bad thing about working in a small town is that nothing ever happens.
Of course we get the regular trespassing calls of teenagers sneaking into cornfields at night, a drunk driver speeding through a stop sign, and the occasional destruction of property from someone's vengeful ex, but compared to the cities around us, its normally a police officer's paradise.
Since our precinct is relatively small, we take turns rotating night shift every other month. I worked every night this week, and what was supposed to be my shift off, I went into work for John, then straight into a night watching Nat. True to her word, after singing the elephant song three times, she finally went to sleep. This morning, I took her to swim class, then straight to a birthday party for one of her friends.
By the time I brought her back to Chelsea, she was wired on sugar, and I had to head back home to try and rest before my shift. I laid in bed for thirty minutes before it was time to shower and dress.
It's nights like tonight, when I'm sitting in my patrol car, fighting to keep my eyes open, that I wish I lived in a town with a bit more excitement. I never saw myself staying in Eden, a town where everything stays the same. There was a time in my life when I wanted to go everywhere, do everything, and be anyone. For a time, that's exactly what I did.
Rachel and I didn't meet until high school, and I was too shy to ask her out until senior prom, but when I saw her come down the stairs in her blue dress that night, I knew there could never be another woman for me. No one made me laugh like Rachel. No one made me feel invincible like Rachel. No one understood me more than Rachel understood me.
We were both dreamers, we both wanted to build a life away from this town, where no one knew our last names, or judged us for who our grandparents or great-grandparents had been. We wanted a fresh start, an adventure, and we wanted to build that life together.
She majored in the graphic design, and I majored in English. For over a year after graduating, we lived in different parts of the country. Her doing freelance work for local businesses, me picking up whatever work I could find. One day I was substitute teaching, the next I was on a construction site. Things weren't always stable, but we were happy, because we were together, and we were seeing the world. Rachel was in talks with a major magazine when everything with my brother happened.
She stayed with me for a few weeks, but I'll never forget that night when we had our final argument, when she walked out of the door, out of this town, and out of my life for good.
I'll always be thankful for the taste of life on the outside, but I think knowing how it feels to be away has only made me more grateful for what I have here. Sometimes, when we finally get what we want, we realize it isn't really what we want at all. Sometimes the person we think will always be there for us, is the first to turn their back when things don't go according to plan. I learned that with Rachel.
I'm thinking about our stint in Chicago when headlights flash in front of me, and another patrol car pulls beside me. I roll my window down, coming face to face with the bastard himself.
"Well, if it isn't the cause for my lack of sleep." Officer Johnathan Castillo finishes rolling down his window, shaking his head at me.
He flashes me the same, cocky grin I've known since middle school. "You're just cranky because I'm the reason you didn't get any sleep, not some girl. Who is it you're talking to now, Dana? Or is it Sandra? It's hard to keep track nowadays." I stare at him blankly, flashing him my middle finger. He knows very well there's no Dana, I don't talk to Sandra, and I haven't lost sleep over a woman in a very, very long time.
