Versus

The police arrived while Emma was still talking to Lauren. The guard escorted them outside of the gate, explained to Emma that this was a criminal matter (involving the little girl, who wasn’t a student) and the police had to take over.

Emma handed the police her phone so that they could speak to Lauren. In a matter of minutes, a family van was pulling up beside them.

When Lauren stepped out of the van and Shelly saw her, she ran from Emma’s lap and into her mom’s arms.

Lauren held her sweet head, with both hands, and covered her cheeks with a hundred kisses. One after another. Each sweeter than the last.

The guard had called Emma’s mom, while she was preoccupied with Shelly, so she arrived just a few minutes after Lauren. “They are both ok” was the only comment Emma could remember hearing him say.

“I am, Mom,” Emma confirmed, already feeling better seeing her mom’s face. She realized how the little one must have felt, seconds ago, when her own mom pulled up. Relieved….safe!

Macy loaded Emma’s bike onto her car while Emma agreed to ride with the police officer, down to the station. She was asked to ride in the back, which felt strange and embarrassing, but she agreed to anyway.

Macy watched her daughter sitting in the back of the police cruiser, pulling away in front of her. Her emotions entangled with fear, gratitude and so much pride.

The guard handed her a card, “This is for the Dean. I just hung up with him. He stressed that if you need him for anything, do not hesitate to call.”

“Thank you,” Macy replied.

She quickly followed the cruiser carrying her daughter.

Emma gave as best of a description of the man as she could, to the sketch artist. As she sat at an officer’s desk, she couldn’t help but notice the endless activity. Officers quickly moved about the large room. Conversations going on simultaneously. Phones ringing. Laughter even. No one really noticed her. She wondered if her horrific day was somehow their norm. She wondered if they were numb to the severity of what most of the general public never see. Was the numbness somehow a defense mechanism?

The little girl and her mom exited the bathroom and the second Shelly spotted Emma sitting there, she ran straight for her again.

“Oh!” She almost yelled as her new friend hugged her again. “You are one strong girl,” Emma said more to herself than to Shelly as she jumped, full force, into her lap.

They just hugged in the seat. The police officer was updating Emma and Lauren simultaneously regarding the attempted abduction of Shelly. She was so kind to spell some of the words to avoid scaring Shelly. Emma was hearing the officer speak but it felt like she was watching a crime series and she just wanted to turn it off but was trapped in this terrifying episode that had her cast as a character in its plot.

She just didn’t like the reality of this world. Evil tried to take from good people all the time.

After a lengthy question and answer session was complete, they were all free to go.

“Call me any time you want to, ok?” Emma offered as she explained that she was starting college in a few days. Shelly seemed impressed that Emma was such a big college student. Emma played it up for her expense.

“You and I can have lunch sometime at Mom’s.” She promised, and Shelly smiled.

“I’ll never be ever to thank you enough,” Lauren said while standing to lean over and hug Emma again.

“I’m just glad I was there!” She said the words as a sick feeling came over her. What if she hadn’t been there? She pushed the thought out of her mind as quickly as it tried to terrorize her.

“But Shelly said that you kicked the man onto the ground!” She said through tears that began again. The reality of what could have happened was weighing hard on this young mom.

“It goes to show what you can do, even when you’re scared. I didn’t know I had it in me. And now, even though we were all very scared, look at what happened. He failed. And we even met because of that guy. He messed up big time, huh?”

“Yep,” Shelly agreed with another hug.

Emma instantly felt like her mom. This was a speech that she would have given.

Emma already loved these two. They reminded her of her mom and her. Just a younger version. They dealt with their demon tonight…and won. Just like they had done, a long time ago!