Love, Hate & Other Filters(53)

Holding me to his chest, he strokes my hair and kisses the top of my head. I cry into his shirt; my entire body shakes. The frames in my mind fast-forward, rewind, fast-forward without pause, and it’s all out of focus.

I’m not sure how much time passes. Seconds or minutes. When I finally look up, the courtyard is a jumble of people and voices. I see the dean and Ms. Jensen with Josh. Violet rushes into the courtyard with Mike and is followed by staff from the park. It’s all spinning, with me at the very center, trying to hold on.

Phil makes space for Violet, who crouches beside me, her eyes crinkled with concern.

“Can you help me get up?” I ask. “I want to go wash my face in the bathroom.”

“Sure, honey.”

Violet helps me stand up. I hold my left elbow close to my body, my right hand still fastened around the mini-cam. I limp over. My leg throbs. Every muscle coiled, wound too tight.

In the bathroom, I clutch the edge of the sink, trying to balance myself. Violet places a comforting hand on my upper back. “Try splashing cold water on your face. That might help.”

I hand Violet my camera and do as she suggests, wincing as I move my left arm. I dry off and breathe deeply a few times. My fingers shake, but it’s hard to believe that this is real.

“I caught part of it on camera,” I say.

“What?”

“I mean … my camera was running the whole time. I’m not sure what the picture looks like, but I probably got the sound.”

“At least you’ll have evidence.”

“For what?”

“If Brian lies. He assaulted you. You can press charges. And you know, with him maybe being involved in the incident at your parents’ office and the whole hate-crime thing, he could be in serious trouble.”

“I didn’t … I hadn’t thought of … I don’t want to tell my parents.”

“Maya, that’s not an option,” Violet says. “You’re limping. Your left arm is swelling up—you need to go to the hospital. The dean’s probably called your parents already.”

In the distance, I hear sirens.



The little courtyard bursts with people.

Just beyond the hedgerow, park security guards are talking to Dean Anderson. One of them barks at the buzzing crowd outside, “Make some room, people.” A police car pulls up, trailed by two ambulances. Red-and-blue lights splash across the pavement.

God. One of those ambulances is for me.

Violet helps me hobble out to the center of the courtyard. I strain to look for Phil, but I don’t see him in the crowd. Justin, Monica, and Mike rush up to us, full of questions. I look at Violet and slowly shake my head. She pulls our friends to the side and gives them the story so I don’t have to. I watch the flurry from outside myself. I’m inside the plane of focus, sharp and defined and totally still. All around me, my friends, the cops, they’re out of the plane, a blur, a fast-moving spiral. It’s dizzying.

I see Phil. And everything stops.

He’s talking to a policeman who is writing things down in a spiral notebook.

Two EMTs help Brian onto a stretcher. He’s holding an ice pack to his nose. I know it’s horrible, but I want him to be in pain. I want him to disappear off the face of the earth. When they move him away, I see splotches of blood on the ground.

Violet reappears at my side as the dean escorts an EMT over to us. “Maya, this is Rachel. She’s going to examine your arm and leg and see if you have any other injuries, and the police will need to talk to you as well.”

“That can wait till we get to the ER,” Rachel says.

“The hospital? But … I …” I whisper. I don’t want to go to the hospital, but like everything else lately, it’s out of my hands.

“I’ve notified your parents,” Dean Anderson adds. “They’ll meet us at Community General.”

The dam bursts on my river of denial.

“Can I ride with her in the ambulance?” Violet asks.

“Fine with us,” the EMT says and looks to the dean, who nods.

The EMT gestures for us to follow her. Violet takes my good elbow. I search for Phil’s face again. Did I thank him? I have to thank him. I can’t find him anywhere.

“Watch your head,” Rachel says, as she helps me step into the back of the ambulance. Another EMT joins her. They put an ice pack on my swollen, bruised arm, take my blood pressure and heart rate, and examine my leg.

“Violet, where’s Phil? Can you check?” I’m worried. Why has he disappeared?

“Back in a flash.”

“Is he the young man who stepped in?” Rachel asks while scrutinizing my injuries.

“Yeah.”

“Brave kid. He your boyfriend?”

I shake my head no.

The EMTs wrap up, ready to take me to the hospital against my wishes. Violet ducks back into the ambulance and sits down but doesn’t look me in the eye.

“Did you find him?” I ask.

“Not exactly,” Violet says in an uncharacteristic whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s with the police. They’re charging him with assault.”

The little boy with dark curls knows how to make himself invisible.

One rainy day, with his mother shut in her room, he occupies himself bouncing a ball against the living room wall. He hears his mother’s rhythmic prayers from behind her closed door, and he loses himself in her voice and the soft thud of the rubber ball against the wall. Startled when he hears the front door slam, he misses the ball and watches it bounce in slow motion as it knocks down a small vase full of fake flowers that his mother keeps on the end table.