Deeper

September

SEPTEMBER

Caroline

Two and a half weeks after the photos appear online, I have everything under control. Right up until I walk out of Latin and into West Leavitt’s elbow.

I’m walking with my head down, my mind on the upcoming student senate election. I thought I would run this year to represent my dorm, but now I don’t see how I can. The girl who is running is . . . well, I’m trying not to be uncharitable. She’s not my top choice.

I’m my top choice.

My feet are moving out the door and steering me to the right, away from most of the other students. I used to go to the left, but Nate has Macroeconomics in the classroom next to mine, and I don’t want to run into him. I’ve started going right instead, and then walking around the outside of the building to head toward the dining hall for lunch.

Today, though, my path isn’t empty—the hallway is crowded, heaving and alive. But I’ve got my head down, so I don’t notice until I walk directly into some random person’s back. The bag I’m carrying gets knocked out of my arms and onto the floor. I go to pick it up, saying sorry, noticing just how many legs there are on the ground here, starting to wonder what’s going on. I’m still trying to figure it out when I start to stand back up and get nailed in the nose.

I’m not aware, in the moment, that it’s a body part that strikes me, or who it belongs to. I only know that there’s a lot of flailing movement happening right in front of me, and that the bridge of my nose has connected with something that’s in motion and deeply unforgiving.

It hurts.

Oh, holy mother of God, it hurts.

I crumple, cupping my nose protectively, ducking my head and folding my body over the pain. My eyes fill with tears. Warm liquid slips over my lip. My tongue pokes out to lick it before I understand, ugh, blood. I’m bleeding. Then it’s warm all over my chin, coating my mouth, and I don’t even care because my nose won’t stop exploding.

I’ve never been hit in the face before.

It is distressingly AWFUL.

I know there’s something I should be doing other than bleeding on my own fingers, which I’ve pushed firmly up beneath my nose as though they have the power to do . . . anything at all. Which they don’t. Blinking, confused, I look around for what I’ve collided with and why it hates me. Considering the state of my nose, I’m expecting a brick wall, or perhaps a monster with cinderblocks for hands.

Instead I see big, male bodies, shoving and grunting. There’s space all around them, but I’ve breached it, which is probably why I got nailed in the face, and which also puts me in a perfect position to see the punch coming.

I don’t see it land. The man who gets hit is standing with his back to me, directly between me and the fist. But the taut smack of skin against bone sours my stomach.

The guy goes down, right in front of me. The other guy straddles his waist, chest heaving, leaning over so I only see the top of his head. He looks like he’s ready to take another swing, and I really don’t want him to, because this is all so primitive and brutal, I’m not sure I can stand it.

Then there’s this terrible noise—this high-pitched, reedy gasping noise—and the guy on top looks right at me.

Oh, god. I made the noise. That was me, that wheezy scream, and now I can’t breathe at all, because the guy on top is West, and the face he just punched so hard belongs to Nate.