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Tim Bradford storms down a narrow hallway on the second floor of the Mid-Wilshire Police station, his anger leading him into the third interrogation room.
“Tim, slow down!” a voice calls out behind him, but the feeling of pure rage is acting as a barrier between him and his surroundings.
“Stop! Let’s talk about-” Lucy Chen calls out, following Tim into the room, the door slamming behind the couple.
He finally spins around to face his desperate girlfriend, but his rage-filled gaze sends her a step backwards, away from him.
“What is there to talk about? You lied to me!” he snaps, acknowledging her for the first time.
“I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you. It’s not the same thing,” she says eerily calmly, as if this whole thing was a joke. But the fire appearing behind Tim’s eyes tells her that this is the farthest thing from.
“You’re right, it’s not the same thing. It’s worse,” he scoffs, throwing his hands up in the air. Lucy has never seen him this angry, and she just cannot wrap her head around why he was suddenly on a rampage about something that didn’t have even the slightest effect on him.
“We’ve already fought about this, why are you rehashing it?” She reaches her hand out towards him, but he snatches his arm away as her fingertips land on her skin. He’s so wrapped up in his own mind that he doesn’t see the fear flash across Lucy’s face.
“You can’t just act without thinking about the consequences, Lucy!” Tim yells, loud enough that the sound escapes through the bottom of the door. Before Lucy can clap back and ask why he’s so pissed about something that’s already been handled, the door to the interrogation room creaks open.
“Everything okay in here?” Angela Lopez asks, her gaze specifically fixed on Lucy.
“Yeah,” Lucy pauses and bites her lip, “we’ll be out in a minute.”
Angela nods and slowly closes the door behind her. Lucy, who is officially pissed that her boyfriend's little outburst is causing a scene, has relinquished her worry and channeled it into annoyance.
“Tim, spit out what your problem is and let’s get this over with. We have a wedding in a few hours, we don’t have time for this,” she huffs, tapping her hands on the table as she awaits a response.
“Prim is blocking you, that’s why you were so on edge before your exam yesterday.” He says this in a much calmer tone than he has been talking in for the past five minutes, one that takes Lucy by surprise.
“Oh,” is all Lucy manages to mutter. She knows that she’s lucky for having kept this from Tim as long as she did. It was bound to come out at some time; she was just hoping that “sometime” was after she had proved Prim wrong by managing to pass the exam without his support.
“Look, it’s really not that big of a deal. I felt confident about the test, and Lopez and Harper backing me is going to help. Plus, Smitty did some sweet-talking for me,” she explains nonchalantly with a shoulder shrug.
“Seriously, Lucy? Smitty?” Tim exclaims, crossing his arms. While his initial outburst has subsided, Lucy knows that she isn’t out of the woods just quite yet.
“Tim, what is the big deal? It’s not like I can take back the five-player trade. And like I said to you six months ago, I have no desire to do so. In no way do I regret my choices.” Her tone was firm and unforgiving, conveying exactly how she felt. If ensuring that Tim wasn’t miserable at a desk job meant that she had to work a little bit harder to reach the next milestone of her career, she would choose to work harder without a second thought.
“Do you even understand what this means? If Prim tanks you, you’ll have to wait until someone else fills that spot on the board, or else you’ll never pass the exam. Lucy, this could hold you back for years.”
“Oh, so you’re saying that you don’t think I did well?” Lucy raises her eyebrows and clicks her tongue; it seems as if Tim has passed his anger off onto her.
“N- no! That’s not what I’m saying. Whether Prim tanks you or not has nothing to do with your abilities. I know that they’d be stupid to hold you back, but not everybody sees it that way. If you hadn't made that five player trade-”
Lucy cuts him off before he can finish that sentence, because she’s sure as hell that she isn’t going to like that he had intended to say.
“Why are you acting like this!? I worked my ass off and spent hours planning a way to get YOU out of a desk job! You should be appreciative,” Lucy grits with an eye roll.
“And I didn’t ask you to do that! You’re telling me that if you're a P2 forever, not a single part of you will resent me for being the reason?”
If Lucy wasn’t so annoyed by his childish persistence, she might have picked up on the hopelessness behind lining his tone.
“How many times do I have to tell you that I regret nothing!?” she yells.
“Shhh,” Tim whispers, knowing full well that his best friend is standing on the other side of the one-way mirror, listening intently as her two friends argue to no end. He didn’t care enough to give up the fight, though.
“You know what, you’re being ridiculous-” Lucy starts, spinning away from the table. But as her arm follows the rest of her body, it brushes past a cold, metal device.
Both Tim and Lucy had been so wrapped up in their fight that they hadn’t noticed the shiny lie detector sitting in the middle of the room, still hooked up and ready to be used. It happened a lot: the other officers often forgot to power off machines. And a lightbulb turns on in Lucy’s head as the little green light blinks near the power button, reminding her of its existence.
“If this is such a big deal to you, let’s put it to the test,” Lucy says with a smack of the lips. Tim opens his mouth, but she’s already taken a seat and begins to connect the monitors to the veins along her hands.
“You cannot be serious,” Tim scoffs, but he finds himself sliding into a seat on the other side of the table from Lucy. She stays silent as she calibrates the machine and states her name and age to check the accuracy.
“Alright, I’m ready,” she announces, locking eyes with her boyfriend. There’s a terrifying fire behind her eye, one that would scare almost anyone. Even Tim.
“Uhm,” he clears his throat, “why didn’t you tell me the truth about Prim?”
“Because I knew that you would try to handle it in an immature way, and I knew that I could deal with it,” she asserts with confidence, and the lack of movement from the dial confirms her answer.
“Do you regret making the five-player trade?” he asks next. He wouldn’t admit it, but his heart beats a little faster as the words tumble out of his mouth. He diverts his eyes away from the dial as Lucy prepares to answer, because he’s sure that it’s going to confirm his fear.
“No.”
Tim takes his first deep breath of the moment when the dial stays so incredibly still.
“See? I told you,” Lucy sighs, rubbing her hands over her eyes. “Can we just… put this behind us? We need to finish out our shifts and get ready for the wedding.”
But for some odd reason, Lucy’s instant gratification with the results cause his insecurity to bubble right back up into his chest. He knows that she is an adult who is more than capable of making decisions for herself, but he just can’t bring himself to understand how she has been able to let this go so quickly.
“These machines aren’t that accurate anyway,” he huffs, reaching across the table to re-calibrate the monitors. But before he can lay a finger on the set-up, Lucy swats his hand away with a firm smack.
“Hey!” he yelps, but she isn’t the least bit forgiving.
“No, that’s it! I’m done putting up with your bullshit, Tim Bradford. I’m an adult who can make my own choices. When I made the trade for you, I knew what the risks were. ” Tim watches as the dial shakes from her agitation, but it’s yet to indicate a lie. “I would gladly be blocked by Prim for the rest of my career if it meant that you were happy. You matter more than any career, Tim, because I love you, and-”
She immediately catches herself, her hand flying over her mouth to stop her voice from pouring out. Tim watches in awe as the polygraph machine prints out an unwavering, straight line.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” she tries to defend, and for the first time, the marker flies up and down, drawing marks all over the tiny paper behind the display.
“You’re lying,” Tim whispers to himself, but loud enough for Lucy to hear it.
“No! It just slipped out, it’s nothing. I-”
The marker continues to shake, and the pulse monitor reflects the same pattern of anxiousness and lying.
“Lucy, stop lying.”
And she doesn’t really know what to say, because they’re scientific proof of her love sitting between the two of them. She can’t really deny it anymore, because she’ll just further disprove her defense.
“I’m sor-”
“I love you too,” Tim says at the same time, cutting her off. “I love you.”
None of them know what comes next; the vibrations had never felt so weird coming from their lips. Sure, they’ve said those three words to people before, but this felt different. This wasn’t something mechanical; they weren’t saying it just to say it.
“I love you,” Lucy repeats again, because for some reason, those are the only three words that remain in her vocabulary. It’s as if a weight has been lifted off of her shoulders, and everything suddenly seems to clear. She can hear the birds chirping right outside of the station, and the sun is suddenly shining through the poor blinds over the windows.
“I love you, Tim. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
And this time, he believes her. And it’s not because of the lie detector machine.