Aftermath(50)

Jamil.

The camera caught Jamil turning, his body in motion, as if hearing something over his shoulder. Jamil has heard or seen something, and he’s —

That’s when I realize Jesse has stopped. He looks to his left, noticing I’m no longer at his side.

“Skye?”

I lunge, saying, “Right here,” and I prod him forward. Keep going. Just keep —

He sees his brother’s photo on the wall.

“Let’s go,” I say, grabbing his hand. “Forget the speaker and —”

He pulls free and walks to the wall, one slow step at a time. Then he stops in front of Jamil.

Seconds tick past. I want to grab his hand again and drag him out. But I know I can’t, no more than he could have pulled me from that restroom door.

“Mom used to say —” Jesse’s voice cracks, and he clears his throat. “Sometimes, he’d pick on me in front of them – just little things, like elbowing me aside. Kids’ stuff. Mom would tell him to be careful, because someday I might be bigger than him. He’d laugh and say that would never happen.”

Jesse stands in front of Jamil’s photo, and has to look down to meet his brother’s eyes. It’s not much, maybe an inch. But he is looking down.

“He seems so… young.” Jesse rubs his mouth and gives a shaky laugh. “That makes me sound old. I just mean… when I remember him, at the end, he was practically grown-up. And now…”

And now Jesse realizes Jamil was our age when he died.

“He’s scared.” Jesse pushes his hands into his pockets. “He looks so…”

He swallows hard.

I put my arm around Jesse’s waist and lean against his shoulder, and I look at Jamil, and I remember the boy I hated. Hated as I have never hated anyone in my life.

No matter what happened to me in the years after that shooting, I never hated my tormentors the way I hated Jamil Mandal. In my memory, he looms huge, this brawny, sneering, preening bully who tormented his little brother, simply because he existed and as long as he existed, Jamil could never be the center of attention at home, the way he was at school. He always had to share. Share a house, share his parents, share the limelight, with his little brother.

Jesse had refused to play sports because he didn’t want to compete with Jamil. He stepped aside for his brother and shone in his own corner of the universe. He would be the academic to Jamil’s athlete.

But that didn’t help, did it? It divided the limelight between them, and Jamil’s ego – the ego of the older brother, the first in line – could not accept that. So he shoved Jesse down every chance he got.

I hated Jamil. Hated him so much. I used to dream of the day when Jesse would be an engineer or a doctor, a guy with a string of letters after his name and an amazing career ahead of him… and Jamil would be that loser in a crappy job, looking back on his glory days of high school football.

But now I look at Jamil on that wall, and I don’t see the ogre from my memory. I just see a boy. Smaller and younger than I remember. And scared. So incredibly scared.

What you did to Jesse was unforgivable, but I wish you’d had a chance to ask for that forgiveness. I wish you had a chance to grow older and grow wiser and realize what you did and ask him to forgive you. Jesse would have. I know he would have. I wish that for you, and I wish it for him.

“I’m sorry he was so frightened,” Jesse says, his voice barely audible. “I’m sorry…” His voice hitches. “I’m just…”

I step in front of Jamil’s image, and I put my arms around Jesse and hug him as tight as I can.

“I’m sorry, too,” I whisper.

Skye

Jesse and I are in what remains of the bleachers behind NHH. It looks as if some haphazard effort was made to tear them down, but there’s still a section remaining. On the scoreboard, someone has spray-painted #63 Jamil Mandal. Never forget!

Jesse shouldn’t be here. I want him anywhere but here. This, however, is where he wants to be. Sitting on those bleachers. Staring at those words.

“When he first made the team, I came to see him play,” Jesse says. “I thought that might make things better. If I…” He shrugs. “Supported him, I guess. It made Mom and Dad happy. But then Jamil said I was doing it for them, sucking up, and I thought that meant he didn’t want me there, so I stopped going. Things got worse after that. He was on me all the time, and I didn’t know why. I’d stopped going to the games, like he wanted.”

Jesse pulls one knee up, hugs it. “I wonder now if he was challenging me, you know? Seeing if I’d just been doing it for Mom and Dad, and when I stopped, that seemed to prove…”

He brushes back his hair and sighs. “I don’t know.”

And he never will. That’s what hurts the most.

“Whatever Jamil did,” I say, “is on him. If he wanted you at those games, he needed to act like it. Otherwise, he was setting up a game with rules you didn’t understand, and then punishing you for not following them.”

He nods.

“Can we go now?” I ask.

When he hesitates, I say, “I’ll stay if you want to, but I’d like to talk about what this adds to the case.”

He straightens, expression relaxing. It’s like flipping a switch on a track, reminding Jesse of the direction he needs to go. The path out of the dark place he’s in right now.