Officer Fournier shook his head as he looked back at the biker.

“Wow,” the blue-eyed cop said. “You’re all partying, and he cheats on you, so you took his car. I see.”

“The man had a dog. It ran out in front of the car,” I said quietly. “I was trying to swerve out of the way of the dog, and I went into a skid. I guess I was going too fast so I started to spin, and then the man was just… there.”

I lost it again. I folded like a lawn chair as I started crying.

After about a minute, I wiped my wet face on my thigh. When I sat up, Officer Fournier was staring at me in the rearview mirror with a look I couldn’t quite read in his pale eyes.

We held eye contact for a long, startling electric beat. I guess it was a strange time to feel attraction toward someone, but there it was. I couldn’t look away. He cut away first, tapping my dad’s prayer card to his chin.

“What if?” he said after a moment.

I had my own what-ifs going through my head right at that moment. Like, what if I hadn’t had Jell-O shots for lunch? What if I hadn’t taken Alex’s car? What if I’d never been born?

That’s when the officer suddenly opened his door and got out. Then there was a snap and a click and the door beside me opened, too.

“I’m making a judgment call here,” he said as he undid my cuffs. “Get back in your car and get out of here. Go back to school, Jeanine. This never happened.”

Chapter 9

I STOOD UP in the street beside the police car, rubbing my wrists, trying to absorb exactly what was happening. My head was spinning faster than the Camaro had, faster than the blinding carnival lights on top of the cop car.

I looked forward past Alex’s Camaro at the open road. Beside the empty beach, the dark water was as still as glass.

“I don’t understand, Officer Fournier,” I said.