Chapter 352: Good child
They turned onto the street and saw the police lights before they saw the house, red and blue washing across the parked cars and the manicured hedges of the Delacroix property, students spilling out onto the lawn in various states of panic, phones already up recording, someone crying near the mailbox.
Amara’s heart stopped so completely for a second while Julian nearly forgot to put the car in park.
And then she saw her. Justina, standing near a cruiser, not in handcuffs, not crumpled on the ground, but upright, talking actually talking, calm and clear, to an officer with a notepad, her arms wrapped around herself against the night air but her chin level, steady.
"You really are a good child," the officer was saying as Amara and Julian approached, close enough now to hear it. "You should head home. We’ll handle it from here."
Justina nodded, turned, and walked toward her car without seeing her parents yet, the adrenaline clearly still running through her in that stiff, careful way people walk when they’re trying very hard to hold themselves together.
It was Amara who reached the officer first, Julian half a step behind her. "Officer, what happened? Is she alright? What was going on? We are her parent?"
The officer flipped back a page in the notepad, unhurried, the way people are when the worst part of their evening is already behind them.
"Your daughter called it in herself, ma’am. Saw some students doing drugs in a back room, stepped out, and called us straight away instead of getting involved or staying to watch. Didn’t panic, gave us a clear location, waited outside until we arrived. Made our job a lot easier tonight." He nodded, something like genuine respect in it.
"You should be proud."
Amara felt something in her chest that she could only describe, later, as relief so large it nearly buckled her knees.
"Thank you, officer," Julian said, and there was a warmth in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago, replaced now by something closer to pride so overwhelming it needed somewhere to go. He turned to Amara.
"I told you to have faith in our baby."
"Yes, yes, that’s my baby," Amara said, and heard her own voice come out thick, closer to tears than she expected. "I feel so proud right now, it feels like I’ve just been worried."
"Let’s go home," Julian said softly, an arm coming around her shoulders, and they walked back to the car together, leaving the flashing lights and the scattering students behind them, following Justina’s car the whole way back like they couldn’t quite make themselves stop watching it.
—
They pulled into the driveway only a few minutes after her, and the second Justina stepped out of her car and saw them climbing out of theirs, something in her seemed to give way all at once. She crossed the driveway at nearly a run and folded herself straight into their arms, the composed, upright girl from the police cruiser gone entirely, replaced by someone who suddenly looked much younger than sixteen.
"Mum, Dad," Her voice broke on the words, muffled against Amara’s shoulder. "I went to the party, and they were, they were doing drugs, and smoking, and I got so scared. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have gone, I shouldn’t have lied about it."
"Shh, it’s okay, baby." Amara held her tight, one hand smoothing over her hair the way she used to when Justina was small enough to carry, feeling the last of the evening’s fear drain slowly out of her own body as she felt her daughter’s heartbeat settle against her own.
"You did so well tonight. You did everything right."
"You should have called us the second you saw something, not the police first," Julian said gently, arms wrapping around both of them at once, "but you kept your head, and you kept yourself safe, and that’s what matters most right now."
Justina nodded against her mother’s shoulder, still crying, the tears now less fear and more the particular release that comes after fear has finally been allowed to leave the body.
"I just wanted one normal night," she said quietly, almost too quiet to hear. "I didn’t even get to talk to anyone. I just left."
Amara pulled back enough to look at her daughter’s face, brushing a strand of hair away from her wet cheek, and felt, for the first time in longer than she could remember, that she understood exactly what her daughter needed to hear.
"You will," she said. "There will be other nights. Come on, let’s get you inside."
They walked in together, the three of them, the porch light catching the wall of family photographs through the open front door, one more night added, invisibly, to a story none of them had taken a picture of yet.
—
Julian made breakfast the next morning, which was rare enough on its own that the kitchen felt different because of it, plates that matched, eggs done exactly the way each child liked them without anyone having to ask twice, the smell of it pulling all three of them downstairs faster than any of Amara’s usual calling ever managed.
There’s proper order when he’s home, Amara thought, watching from the doorway with her coffee, watching Julian flip something on the stove one-handed while JJ narrated a dream she’d had about a talking library.
It didn’t happen often enough, this particular kind of morning, and Amara let herself enjoy it without picking at why.
The kids laughed through most of breakfast. JJ’s dream had apparently involved a librarian who turned into an owl at the exact moment the plot mattered, but the moment the subject of the school run came up, all three of them turned into a united front of refusal, in the particular way teenagers manage to disagree about everything except the one thing that inconveniences their parents.
JJ, at least, was easy about it, kissing her father on the cheek and bolting for the bus stop the second her plate was clear, the way she’d been doing since she’d won that argument weeks ago.
Josh and Justina were another matter entirely.
"I am not riding with him," Justina said, nodding at her brother.
"I didn’t ask to ride with you either," Josh said, not even looking up from his phone.