Lightning

"I'm going to ask you one question. Please answer honestly."
 
I made whatever eye contact I could with him past the glare of his flashlight. I was stony-faced, shaking a little from the slight chill of the night. Mosquitoes bit the tops of my feet.
 
"Did you have intercourse with him?"
 
A small pause. I didn't mumble. "Yes, sir."
 
Another pause. I kept trying to see past the white sterility of his flashlight. I think I managed to find his eyes. The edges of my vision showed two more blue-uniformed shapes on either side of him. One was standing up straight, looking at me hard. The other was leaning against one of the metal poles that held up the rickety carport. He seemed interested, and he also stared, whether at me or the sweet little teenage stain I had in my eyes. After-rain sounded on the metal roof like the muted, erratic tapping of a nervous finger. I saw the street, too, slick from the downpour of hours ago. The orange of the streetlights softened the wild black-and-gray of the night and made it calm. I saw pine trees stuck between the ground and the sky. They did not sway. Everything was wet and clean and still.
 
It all looked like a movie, as things usually do. But I was engaged, not bored and restless any longer. That's where I found my peace. Any turmoil in my chest was quieted by the solidity of my interest in the situation, and by the way I still can and cannot believe that what just happened is real. Relevant. More than a plot element.
 
But in the night, wet, dusty light swirled in our breaths like smoke. My mother did not look at me. She stood to the right of me. I stood to the left of her. I was careful not to let my shoulders rise or my chin fall.
 
"How long have you two been involved?"
 
I looked sideways at my mother and then moved my eyes back to his. An array of slow seconds passed.  
 
I didn't mumble. "We're not together."
 
"You're just friends?"
 
"Yes, sir."
 
The cop leaning on the pole turned his head away and shook it, chuckling in disbelief. I felt strangely powerful.
 
In the long silence that followed, I watched arms of fog plume out of the officer's mouth and into the earthy light between all of us. My feet were wet, and I shook, although it was not particularly cold. The only sense of discomfort I had was concern for my partner in crime, who was eighteen. I'm sixteen. He was out of sight then. I wished I could send him some of my calmness.
 
I was told to be careful and safe. I was both of these things. After it became evident the silence had no effect on me and a pressing effect on everyone else, I was allowed to walk through wet grass and gravel back to my car.
 
The site of the aforementioned crime was a mess. The backseats had been pushed down, and an open sleeping bag had been spread over the bed-sized space left, topped with a sheet. We had proceeded to threaten society by making a wild mess of these items. They were strewn about, mostly pushed to one side. Our heat was still gray on the back windows. I remembered noticing the heat itself, and the gray when it first started being born there. All I could smell was stale pheromones. Some of them are still in my mouth and my head as I write.  
 
I laughed. I touched my face and my hair. Nothing changed.
 
I sang on the way home, to the rain. Lightning knocked on the sky like it heard me.