Icon of the Indecisive #3 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 19

Later, when Ms. Farrah was trying to put the report for the dean together, she had some trouble explaining the timing of the events to him.

It said that she first saw me before eight a.m., when she ran into me at the cafeteria and started to ask me about my Guidance schedule for the day. She noticed my badly-done cover job in the harsh cafeteria lights, and insisted that I be taken to the clinic.

I refused at first, but when I raised an arm to keep her from grabbing it, my sleeve sort of fell back and the thing that looked like a bruise made by fat fingers became visible to her. And she freaked out, pulled rank as staff of the school, and ordered me to go to the clinic with her.

According to the clinic nurse on duty, he had signed me in at 7:46 a.m., and spent the next few minutes taking my vital signs. Height, weight, blood pressure, even looked into my ears. Ms. Farrah could attest to this, as she was in the room with me.

At the same time, on the other side of the campus, a commotion was going on in the parking lot.

According to the report filed at the Student Discipline Office, Justin Acapulco arrived at the paid parking lot in front of Ford River at 7:40 a.m. (according to the parking ticket issued). The lot attendant said that Justin would usually park there when he happened to come to school after 7:30, because all the free slots inside would be taken. There was a car waiting on the curb, but the attendant didn't think it was unusual, because the paid parking lot was a common drop-off point for students with classes in the morning.

But then as Justin left the lot and crossed the street, several guys got out of the parked car and started talking to him.

One guy was doing all the talking, and he was the one who hit first. It was a kick to Justin's groin, or slightly above it because the aim was off. Justin fell, hitting the pavement on his side, but was soon back on his feet because two other guys pulled him up. The loud guy then punched him again near his midsection, several times, and then finally his face. It couldn't have taken more than five minutes, and the attendant took that long to get out of his booth, yell at the attackers, and grab his cellphone to call Ford River security.

The guys got back in their car—black, heavily tinted, new and without a license plate yet—and sped off. Justin dropped to his knees on the sidewalk.

He was brought into the clinic at 7:55 a.m., according to the same nurse's log. His vitals were taken when he arrived, and the head nurse was the one who noted that his two patients that morning had the same pattern bruising.

Right cheekbone, ribs, arms above the elbows, abdomen.

Ms. Farrah insisted on creating her own report, to start an investigation on the involvement of "non-sanctioned student organizations" in the incident, but it was soon dismissed because Justin's attackers had been identified, and my injuries mysteriously disappeared within an hour.

The nurse wrote it up instead as a coincidence.