Caleb’s POV
Friday morning I walk through hallways covered in "SPRING FORMAL MONDAY NIGHT" posters. Every corner has girls discussing dresses, guys pretending they don't care about matching ties.
Evie's dress is hidden in my closet—deep green from Goodwill. I was going to surprise her with tickets tonight, finally do one normal high school thing right.
The Oregon acceptance letter sits folded in my pocket like a weight. Full ride, possible starting position freshman year, everything I never dared imagine. But all I can think about is 2,906 miles. I looked it up—that's the exact distance between Eugene and New Haven.
I've been researching Connecticut schools on my phone all week like some desperate stalker. UConn has a decent basketball program but I’ve already missed application deadline there. Yale doesn't give athletic scholarships, and even if they did, I couldn't get in with a gun to my head. Every search ends the same: Oregon or Evie, not both.
The thought of life without her makes me unable to breathe. She's there every morning, sprawled across my bed with color-coded study notes, wearing my hoodies that hang to her knees, making actual breakfast instead of the cereal-from-the-box shit I usually eat.
More than that—she sees me as something beyond what this town decided I was at thirteen. When she looks at me, I believe I could be more than another Voss with a record. I could be something.
After school, I'm walking to my car when I see a crowd gathered outside the 7-Eleven across from campus. Trevor Mills is holding court, his nasally voice carrying across the parking lot. Phone out, that familiar video playing on full volume.
I try to walk past. Trevor's been showing that video for weeks, it's old news. Let him be pathetic.
Then his voice carries across the street: "Look at her begging like that. Bet Voss pimps her out to the whole team now. Virgin for Life to Verified Whore."
The group laughs. Someone says something I don't catch.
"Probably takes it everywhere like the slut she is," Trevor continues, warming to his audience. "Good Christian girls are always the dirtiest once you break them in."
Someone adds, "Her daddy must be so proud his little girl's the town bicycle now."
I cross the street without conscious thought. My body moves independent of my brain.
My fist connects with Trevor's nose, the crunch audible over traffic. He goes down hard on the asphalt, phone flying, blood immediately streaming. I follow him down, get three more hits before someone pulls me back.
"You broke my fucking nose!" Trevor screams, spitting blood. "You're done, Voss! Assault! I'm pressing charges!"
His friends are filming everything. Of course they are.
"Say her name again," I snarl as Marcus holds me back. "Say one more word about her."
Someone's already calling 911. I hear "assault" and "fight" and "there's blood everywhere" and know I'm fucked.
I try to leave but Trevor's friends block my path.
"You're not going anywhere, psycho. Cops are coming. Just like your daddy, right?"
The police arrive in eight minutes. They take one look at Trevor's face, the videos on multiple phones, my bloody knuckles, and cuff me without asking questions.
"You have the right to remain silent..." The words blur together. I've heard them before, when I was thirteen, watching them arrest my father.
In the back of the cop car, I watch the school get smaller. Students are filming my arrest, phones pressed against the fence. By tonight, everyone will know Caleb Voss got arrested for assault. Just like his father. The cycle continuing.
At the station, they book me with mechanical efficiency. Assault and battery. Disorderly conduct. My fingerprints join my father's in some database. The mugshot flash is blinding.
My one phone call goes to Mom.
"Caleb?" Her voice is tired, like she's been expecting this call for years.
"Mom, I fucked up. I'm at the station. Trevor Mills—I broke his nose."
Silence, then: "How much is bail?"
"Two thousand."
"Jesus Christ, Caleb. I can't get that until Sunday when the bank opens. I don't have it."
"It's okay, Mom. I'm sorry."
"Just survive in there. Don't make things worse. Keep your head down."
"Tell Evie—"
"I'll tell her."
The holding cell is everything I imagined. Cold metal bench, toilet in the corner with no privacy, drunk guy in the opposite cell rambling about his ex-wife.
All I can think about is Evie. She's probably heard by now. Videos of my arrest are definitely viral. She's wondering if this ruins everything.
Oregon will find out and rescind the scholarship. Yale might reject her for associating with me. Her father will use this as proof he was right.
I've destroyed everything with my fists, just like my father always did.
Hours pass. No windows, so I can't tell if it's day or night anymore. They give me a sandwich that tastes like wet cardboard and water in a paper cup. The drunk guy finally passes out, snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
I sit on the bench, head in my hands, replaying the moment over and over. Trevor's words. The rage that went from zero to nuclear in a heartbeat. The satisfaction of breaking his nose. Then immediate regret when the cops showed up.
I'm nineteen. This is my adult record now. This follows me forever.
Friday evening, I hear footsteps in the corridor. Female voice talking to the desk sergeant, sweet and convincing. My heart stops—I know that voice.
Then Evie appears outside my cell, still in her school clothes, eyes red from crying. She looks so out of place in this dirty police station, like a painting in a crack house.
"Hi," she says quietly, fingers wrapping around the bars like she can pull them apart if she tries hard enough. "Mia drove me. Her cousin works here, let me have five minutes."
"You shouldn't be here." But I move to the bars anyway, needing to be close to her, to smell her shampoo instead of piss and desperation. "You shouldn't see me like this."
"Where else would I be?" She reaches through the bars to touch my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone. "Everyone's talking about it. Trevor's apparently going to need surgery. His parents are pressing full charges."
"I'm sorry." The words feel pathetically small. "I ruined everything. Prom, Oregon, your reputation—"
"Stop." Her voice is firm. "I don't care about any of that. I care that you're in here. That you threw away your future for something that doesn't matter."
"You matter," I say fiercely. "What he was saying—"
"I've heard worse. I survived it." She's crying now, tears falling freely. "But I can't survive losing you to this. To violence and jail and becoming everything this town expects you to be."
She's right. I know she's right.
"Time's up," the sergeant calls from the desk.
Evie presses her forehead against the bars. "Hanna says Sunday for bail. I'll be here the second you're out. We'll figure this out."
"The prom—"
"Screw the prom." She manages a watery smile. "Just survive in here. Don't do anything that makes this worse."
She kisses her fingers, presses them to my lips through the bars. "I love you. Even when you're an idiot who fights people in parking lots."
The sergeant appears to escort her out. She looks back once, and I see it in her eyes—fear that this is the beginning of the end, that violence and poverty and circumstances are finally catching up to destroy what we built.
As her footsteps fade, I sit back on the cold bench, knowing she's right. I've become exactly what everyone expected—another Voss with a record, another poor kid who couldn't escape his destiny.
The green dress in my closet feels like a joke now. Normal high school things aren't for people like me.
Monday's disciplinary board feels like a lifetime away. For now, there's just this cell, the weight of my mistakes, and the image of Evie's face through iron bars—the girl I love on one side, me on the other, with metal between us.
Just like my parents' last photo together.