Big Bad World

What If...

The room had a deafening silence. Keith was holding his breath. You couldn't hear him breath. I was a basket case squeezing the life out of Keith’s hand. The eye contact with the cops sitting across from us was daunting. I could feel them glaring at me, almost as if they could see right through me. Maybe they knew about my trip to Australia last year and had just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t lie about it. There wasn’t much to lie about though. I didn’t remember anything about the trip besides arriving and leaving. For half of the trip I was partying it up with Aubrey, and the other half I had a strong conclusion that I could have blacked out. Trying to remember the trip fried my brain, and nothing jogged my memory. My mind told me to not say anything about the trip, but my heart was telling me a different story. Maybe it was safe to ask Aubrey about the trip first before mentioning anything to the cops. If only I could avoid this interrogation all together. 

The tapping of the cops fingers on the table became louder and louder for me. It was worse than nails on a chalkboard. One of the cops placed a recorder on the table, which made me more nervous. It felt like Keith and I had been accused or manslaughter or something of the sort. Keith’s jaw clenched and my heart thumped. The cop eyed the both of us and took out a notebook and a pen. He second handedly gave the notebook to the cop next to him to give him full control taking notes. Keith gave my hand a soft kiss and squeezed it, giving me some sort of comfort. A weak smile grew upon my face as he did so. 

“Lacey, did you know Cooper Hastings?” the main cop asked. I took a deep breath, shaking my head silently. The Cop gave a look as if he didn’t believe me. “Were you in Australia October of last year?” he questioned. Was I supposed to answer truthfully? I didn’t want to. Why did it matter? I didn’t start the fire. Without allowing my mind to do the talking, my heart decided to be honest. 

“Not sure if it was in October, but I was there last year at some point,” I mumbled. I glanced at Keith as he gave me a look of confusion. 

The cop nodded in a satisfactory way. He was reeling me in and getting his way. I despised it. “Do you remember what you were doing there?” 

I shrugged. “No, I honestly have no idea. I don’t remember much.” 

The cop nodded. “I see. What you do remember?” 

Keith let go of my hand slowly, looking at me with confused eyes. Why was I doing this? “Um… no… I just remember going down there with my best friend, and then coming home. I don’t remember anything about the trip at all.” I was speaking from pure honesty. I had just hoped the Cop could see that, as well as Keith. 

“What’s your best friends name?” the Cop questioned.  

I sighed. “Aubrey Paxton. But, really you don’t have to drag her into this.  I highly doubt anything happened on that trip. I was with Aubrey the entire time I think. She wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it was putting someone she loved in danger,” I confessed defending Aubrey as well as I could. 

The Cop’s eyes averted back to me and chuckled lightly. “We have to question everyone who was in potentially involved in this, Lacey. We have to bring your friend into this. Now, Keith did you know Lacey at the time?” 

I rolled my eyes at the Cop and looked to Keith, who appeared to not be able to comprehend what was happening. I dropped a bomb, and he had every reason to be confused and upset with me. “No, we didn’t know each other,” he let out with a soft mumble. 

“I see. You were married at the time, right? With Nicole?” 

Keith nodded, not having any kind of acknowledgement with me. “Yea, on the verge of divorce though,” he answered quietly. The man swallowed hard, quickly swatting my hand away when I reached for his. 

The Cop’s assistant was taking notes hastily. It had appeared that they both were onto me more so than Keith. Everything about the situation had made me agitated. How was I supposed to explain everything to Keith, when I couldn’t even explain everything to myself, or even the cop. “Now Keith, your statement says that you felt as if you killed Cooper because the fire sparked from a car you were working on. There was a gas leak, am I correct?” the Cop questioned. The questions were never ending and it had made me want to pull my hair out. 

Keith nodded. “It wasn’t a gas leak per say. I accidently kicked the gas can over. I didn’t think much of it though.” 

The Officer nodded. “Do you have any idea how the fire could have started? What ignited the flame?” 

Keith sighed. “You should know that. Something with the engine, I don’t know. I can’t what went wrong, but before I knew it, the engine had sparked and everything was on fire after that.” 

“You had thought Cooper escaped?” 

Keith nodded. “Yea, I mean he did, but he didn’t survive. I blamed myself for so long. I thought it was my fault.”  My mind had wandered, but I could kind of hear the conversation between Keith and the Officer. My heart was beating fast, and I hated that Keith had to relive this, and that I couldn’t remember anything about Australia. I just wanted this nightmare to end.

“Now that we have new suspects, we’ll be investigating more. Lacey, we will call you for more questioning soon” the Officer said as he rose up from his chair. My eyes darted toward the cop and shrugged. All I wanted was for him to leave. Keith’s eyes and mine had met instantly, but his eyes weren’t afraid, they were confused and hurt. Why was this entire thing happening? Keith quickly looked away and led the two Officers to the door, letting them out and thanking them for stopping by. After their leaving, Keith walked right past me and headed toward the upstairs. 

“Keith… please let me explain,” I said in a faint voice, but Keith was already gone before I could say anything more. How could everything about this week start off so perfect, and end up so broken and confusing? I had hoped that I would gain more answers about what happened in Australia. I had also hoped that Keith would let me talk with him. There was nothing I could do for now. All I could was cry, and hope that the situation would work itself out, but what if it didn’t? 

What if…