Benefits

Ch. 69: Self Control

Self Control- Frank Ocean

Noses on a rare, little virgin wears the white. You cut your hair but you used to live a blinded life. Wish I was there, wish we had grown up on the same advice. And our time was right. Keep a place for me, for me. I'll sleep between y'all, it's nothing. It's nothing, it's nothing. Keep a place for me, for me.

-

We pull up to the station, and I feel my breathing decrease.

"Are you ready?" Lauren asks me.

We've been sitting in the car for 15 minutes, and I don't think I'll ever be ready. But I nod my head to her and begin to exit the car. She follows suit, and I enter the sunken police station.

Men in police suits scour the floors, and the place itself is a madhouse. I see the front desk, and a man huffily types away at the computer monitor. I stop in my tracks. What am I to say to him? What am I to say about my father?

"Dawn?" Lauren's arm wrapped through mine; breaking me out of concentration.

"Huh?" I huff.

"You can do this." She soothes. "Come on." Her feet carry me towards the desk, my feet try to stay glued to the floor, but slowly we come closer to the desk.

The man takes notice of us, and his once harsh glare to the screen turns slack. "Hello, ladies. Can I help you?" He attempts a smile.

"Hi. I'm uh... Lauren."

"Okay." He shrugs his shoulders.

"This is my friend Dawn. Dawn Rivers. Her father attacked her and her mother, and one of your detectives called Dawn to claim a report." I thank Lauren with a squeeze to her arm. Though she can be a major bitch at times, she still is one of the nicest people to me.

"Oh. Yes of course. Excuse me for one moment." He stands from his desk and heads through the mayhem ahead of him.

"Thanks for coming with me." I finally speak.

"Anything for you." She mumbles back to me, as a tall dark man approaches me with some files in his hands.

"Who's Dawn Rivers?" His familiar voice rings through my head. He was the one who called earlier.

"Me." My voice trembles for unknown reasons.

"Come with me. Alone."

I look back to Lauren, and I want to beg her to not leave me, but she takes her arm out of mine. A smile presses to her lips, as she lightly pushes me to the detective. "I'll still be here when you get back." She reassures.

I nod to her in agreement. I had to do this alone, I can't always have someone hold my hand in these situations. Even though every second I was apart from Jake just made yearn for him more.

So I follow the man, and we sit at a desk in a empty room. I believe he can sense I'm nervous only because he continues to eye me in all sorts of ways. Why am I so nervous? I'm here to tell him the truth, and nothing but the truth.

"I'm detective Montey. We spoke on the phone earlier today."

I nod my head of understanding, but my eyes don't look at him directly.

"I just have a few questions for you, and then you can go home."

I wish I could go home, but going home would be the possibility of getting hurt.

"This is your father's second recorded offense. Am I correct?"

"Yes." It's his second recorded, but he's done a lot more than that.