Chương 2
“Good,” he said. “Now the whole board heard everything.”
The viewer count continued climbing.
Vanessa’s terror lasted less than a second before instinct replaced it. She stepped toward the phone.
“Give me that.”
Logan moved it out of reach.
“That’s school property now.”
“It is absolutely not school property.”
“It’s evidence.”
“You threw a metal ball at us.”
“At the clasp.”
“You could’ve killed someone.”
“You were about to dump a full bucket on her head.”
“It was paint.”
Maya watched their mouths. Logan spoke slowly enough that she could follow him. Vanessa did not. Her words blurred at the edges when she turned away.
Brooke began pulling off her blazer, but wet wool clung to her sleeves. She swore and tugged harder. Tessa said something to her that Maya missed. Vanessa reached for Logan’s wrist.
Logan’s voice dropped.
“Don’t.”
Vanessa stopped.
The restraint in that single word frightened her more than shouting would have. Maya saw it happen in the way Vanessa’s fingers closed around empty air and then folded against her skirt.
The phone emitted a series of camera beeps. Someone had triggered screenshots through the livestream interface. Comments multiplied across the display.
SCREEN-RECORDING.
SHE BROKE HER HEARING AID.
CALL THE POLICE.
IS THAT THE PAINT BUCKET FROM FACILITIES?
CHARLES CROWE IS STILL WATCHING.
Vanessa read the last line.
She looked toward the phone as though her father might be physically inside it.
The rooftop door slammed against its stopper. Dean Rebecca Harland appeared with the school nurse, two security officers, and Coach Danner. Harland took in the paint, the broken chain, Maya on the ground, Logan’s stick, and the phone in his hand.
Her face became administrative before it became human.
“No one touches anything,” she said.
Logan raised the phone slightly.
“It’s still live.”
Harland looked at the screen.
That changed her.
“End it.”
“No,” Maya said.
Everyone turned toward her.
The sound of her own voice reached her as a dull vibration. She stood slowly, one hand on the vent housing for balance. Her right ear felt naked in the wind. A shallow cut crossed two knuckles. She tucked the loose striped tie back inside her shirt collar.
Harland came closer, shaping every word with care once she noticed the missing device.
“Maya, we need to get you downstairs.”
“The video stays on.”
“This is not the place to discuss—”
“It was the place when she broke it.”
Harland’s mouth closed.
Maya pointed at Logan’s hand.
“If you turn it off, she’ll say something happened after.”
Vanessa laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“You think this makes you look sane?”
Maya looked at her.
“No. I think it makes you look recorded.”
Coach Danner stepped between Vanessa and Logan. He took the lacrosse stick first and handed it to a security officer.
“Phone,” he said.
Logan did not release it.
Danner lowered his voice. “You did enough.”
“That’s the problem,” Logan said. “Everyone here always decides enough happened about thirty seconds before it gets expensive.”
Harland’s eyes sharpened.
“Logan.”
Maya saw him consider arguing. His fingers tightened around the silver phone. Then he looked at her.
She nodded once.
He handed the phone to Harland.
Harland did not end the livestream. She held it away from her body, glanced at the comments, and told one of the security officers to record the screen with his department camera. The decision was imperfect and visibly improvised, but Maya understood what it meant. Too many people had already seen the feed. Any attempt to erase it would become another event.
The nurse guided Maya toward the door. Maya paused beside Mr. Bell.
The key ring trembled in his hand.
He did not meet her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She could not hear him, but she read it.
She did not answer.
Downstairs, the nurse’s office smelled of rubbing alcohol, mint gum, and the burnt coffee someone had forgotten on a warming plate. Nurse Alvarez cleaned Maya’s knuckles, checked her pupils, and asked if she had been struck anywhere else. Maya answered by watching the nurse’s lips and guessing at the words she missed.
The room’s fluorescent lights hummed in a way she could feel but not fully hear. Without her device, certain consonants disappeared. She kept asking people to face her. They forgot, apologized, and forgot again.
Someone had given her a gray athletic sweatshirt to replace the paint-streaked shirt. It belonged to the girls’ soccer team and hung past her skirt. Her scuffed white sneakers left faint red prints on the tile from paint she had stepped through without noticing.
Outside the office, adults gathered and separated. Shoes stopped near the door. Voices rose, softened, and moved away. Maya caught pieces through the glass panel: board chair, police, liability, viral, parents, weapon.
Weapon meant Logan’s lacrosse ball.
Liability meant her hearing device.
Viral meant everyone was suddenly frightened of the same thing for different reasons.
Nurse Alvarez placed a tablet on Maya’s lap and opened a notes application.
DO YOU WANT YOUR MOTHER CALLED?
Maya typed back.
SHE WORKS UNTIL FOUR. CALL HER, BUT TELL HER I’M SAFE FIRST.
The nurse nodded.
A second message appeared.
POLICE ARE COMING. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SPEAK TO ANYONE WITHOUT A PARENT OR ADVOCATE.
Maya stared at the word advocate.
At Briarwood, advocates were people whose offices had frosted glass and whose names appeared in smaller print beneath somebody else’s title. Maya had met three of them during scholarship orientation. Each had said she should reach out anytime. None had given her a personal phone number.
She typed:
PLEASE PUT THE BROKEN DEVICE IN A BAG. DO NOT LET THE SCHOOL THROW IT AWAY.
May you like
Nurse Alvarez read the sentence twice. Then she found a clear medical evidence bag, wrote Maya’s name and the time across the label, and placed the pieces inside.
Logan arrived at the doorway twenty minutes later with red paint on one cuff and no varsity jacket. Coach Danner stood behind him.
