Chapter 5
By the next morning, half the school seemed to know there was a video.
Nobody knew what it showed, which made the rumors easier to shape. At my locker, two students lowered their voices when I approached. In first period, someone behind me whispered that I had gotten caught cheating and cried until my mom threatened the school.
I kept my eyes on my notebook.
The teacher passed out a quiz. When the paper reached my desk, the words blurred for a moment. I pressed my thumb against the edge until the room steadied.
At lunch, I carried my tray past the crowded center tables and sat near the vending machines. The motors hummed behind me. I had taken two bites when Alex appeared.
“Can I sit here?”
The empty chair across from me was already pulled out, but he kept one hand on its back and waited.
“Yeah.”
He sat. His black graphic T-shirt was visible beneath an unzipped jacket, and his closely cropped hair was still damp from the cold drizzle outside. He placed his phone face down beside his tray.
“People keep asking me to send them the recording,” he said.
My appetite disappeared. “Did you?”
“No.”
I watched his face for the quick defensiveness people used when they wanted credit for doing the obvious thing. It never came.
“What did you tell them?” I asked.
“That it isn’t entertainment.”
At the table behind him, a chair scraped. A boy I recognized from class walked over with his own phone raised loosely in one hand.
“Alex,” he said, smiling as though we were all in on something, “just show me the part where she loses it.”
Alex covered his black phone with his palm. “No.”
“Come on. Everyone already knows.”
“Mason said no.”
I hadn’t, not in those words. Alex looked at me, caught the mistake, and corrected himself.
“I mean, I haven’t asked Mason for permission. So no.”
The boy’s smile flattened. He glanced at me, then walked away.
“You could’ve just said you didn’t want to,” I said.
“I don’t want to.” Alex moved his hand away from the phone. “But it’s your face in the video. That matters more.”
The tightness under my ribs eased by one small degree.
After lunch, the assistant principal called me from study hall. My mother joined by speakerphone, her voice clipped by a weak connection. The student who had offered a statement had not yet signed it. Their parents wanted assurances that their name wouldn’t be shared around school.
“We can limit distribution,” the assistant principal said, “but Mrs. Hackins will eventually be entitled to respond to evidence used in the review.”
My mother’s voice crackled through the phone. “Then protect the student from retaliation.”
“I’m trying to follow procedure.”
“Procedure should include not punishing a kid for telling the truth.”
I stared at the conference table. The two papers were no longer there. The assistant principal said they had been secured in the office safe, along with printed photographs of their condition.
“Can I know what the student saw?” I asked.
“Not until the statement is finalized.”
The uncertainty followed me through the rest of the day.
Near dismissal, I found Alex waiting under the awning outside the main doors. Rain silvered the parking lot, and cars crawled through the school pick-up line. He held his phone in one hand but kept the screen turned toward himself.
“My mom’s late,” I said.
“I can wait somewhere else if you want.”
I looked at the cluster of students under the awning. A few watched us openly.
“Stay.”
He leaned against the brick wall beside me, leaving enough space that our sleeves didn’t touch.
A notification lit his screen. He read it, locked the phone, and put it away.
“Another request?” I asked.
“Three.”
“You know refusing will make people think there’s something huge on it.”
“There is something huge on it.”
I looked at him.
“You,” he said, then winced slightly. “That sounded different in my head.”
Despite everything, a short laugh escaped me. It surprised both of us.
Alex looked toward the rain. The corner of his mouth lifted, but he didn’t push the moment into anything bigger.
My mother’s car appeared at the far end of the line. Before I stepped off the curb, I turned back.
“You can show the recording to the review staff,” I said. “And our parents. Nobody else.”
“Okay.”
“If that changes, I decide.”
“Okay.”
He answered without bargaining. I wanted to thank him, but the words felt too close to admitting I owed him.
So I said, “See you tomorrow.”
His gaze held mine for a quiet second. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
When I got into the car, my mother asked why everyone had been staring.
I buckled my seat belt and watched Alex remain under the awning, alone with the phone everyone wanted.
“Because he wouldn’t give them what they wanted,” I said.
May you like
For once, being seen beside him didn’t feel like another accusation.
It felt like I had chosen where to stand.
