Chapter 1 - The Bat Over Our Heads
The marble was cold through my dress pants and the light from the chandeliers was too bright to blink away. I could feel it on my face while I held onto Maya, and I could see the dark shape of the bat still hanging over us. That was the contradiction I couldn't make fit in my head. We were at a party where everybody was dressed up and smiling for pictures, and the woman in the long burgundy dress was standing behind us with a bat raised like we were on a sidewalk somewhere late at night.
Maya's sheer sleeve was bunched in my fist. Her crying was shaking both of us. The woman's heeled sandals clicked once when she shifted her weight, and I smelled her perfume mixed with floor polish. She didn't look like she was going to stop.
My name is Leo. I was the boy in the white shirt and the dark vest.
She had told us to stand there. That part I remembered in pieces. The double doors had been open and music had been coming from the other room and then it wasn't. People in suits and long dresses had stopped talking. I had pulled Maya down with me to the floor because she was already crying and I didn't know where else to go. The bat was dark wood and scuffed near the handle. I watched it move a half inch in her hands.
Then she swung it down.
I didn't think. I flinched and turned my shoulder over Maya's head and squeezed my eyes shut. I heard the air move and Maya jerk against me. The marble vibrated under my knees. I waited for it to hit, for the crack and the pain, counting one second that felt longer. My breath caught in my throat and stayed there.
Her shadow fell across us again as she lifted for another try. I could see the burgundy velvet of her dress out of the corner of my eye, tight around her knees as she leaned in. Maya was sobbing into my vest.
She was going to do it again.
I wanted to believe this was a mistake. I wanted to believe she would drop it.
"What the hell are you doing?"
The voice came from behind, from the doorway at the far end of the hall. It was loud and broken open and I knew it right away. Maya heard it too because her hands grabbed harder at my shirt. I didn't turn all the way. I was afraid to look away from the bat.
Footsteps hit the marble fast. Shoes slipping then catching. I saw him in the edge of my vision, the man in the blue denim shirt over the olive T-shirt and khaki pants, running through the double doors toward us. His face was pale under the stubble. His arms were already out.
May you like
The woman froze with the bat still up. Her eyes cut toward the sound. Her mouth was open, angry. She didn't lower it.
He kept running.
