Chapter 42
Ashby
“Hey, hey, hey!” Mr. Riveira shouted as he came running toward us, with Mr. Kallio and Principal Madigan right behind him. “What is going on here?”
I didn’t look up. I kept one arm locked around Milow’s back to keep her upright.
My other hand covered hers, making sure she kept pressing the shirt from my backpack against her nose.
My stomach churned violently. The amount of blood was unreal.
There was too much of it. Way too much. It smeared across her hand and arms, soaked into the fabric of her sweater, and continued to drip onto the floor in dark splashes that made my head spin.
I forced myself to focus on her. On keeping her awake. Her body felt limp against mine, and her head tipped forward like she couldn’t quite hold it up anymore. It had to be the blood loss making her this drowsy.
God. There was so much fucking blood.
“Stanley, get off him,” Mr. Riveira ordered, grabbing onto Stan’s arms. “Come on, buddy. Let’s calm down.”
“Calm down?” Stan snapped, twisting against his grip. Before Mr. Riveira could fully pull him away, Stan drove his fist straight into Bennett’s face.
“All right. That’s it!” Principal Madigan roared. “Enough!”
I barely registered it. My attention snapped back to Milow as her knees buckled in my hold. I tightened my arm around her immediately. “Hey,” I said quietly, my voice shaking despite my effort to keep it steady. “Stay awake, okay? Stay with me, sweet girl.”
“What happened here?” Mr. Kallio asked, stepping closer and carefully sliding an arm under Milow’s other side to help support her. “How did it escalate like this?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered, my eyes never leaving her face. She looked so fucking pale, and the blood just kept coming. “But I do know this school has done absolutely nothing to protect its students from bullies.”
Mr. Kallio let out a slow breath, sounding tired more than surprised. He didn’t argue with me. “I’m calling an ambulance,” he said. “We’ll get her to the nurse’s office so she can lie down.”
“She shouldn’t be lying down with a nosebleed,” I snapped. “Jesus Christ, how fucking incompetent is this school?”
“Language, Ashby,” he warned sharply.
Right. My language was the problem. Not the pool of blood on the floor. Not the fact that Milow was barely standing.
I pulled Milow closer to my side, subtly shifting so Mr. Kallio’s hold loosened. I didn’t want anyone else handling her. I didn’t want anyone else touching her. I should’ve been there sooner. That thought wouldn’t let me go, and I needed to be the one holding her now.
“To my office. Now,” Principal Madigan barked, gripping Stan and Bennett by the arms. “You too,” he added, jerking his head toward Hailie and Aspen.
I didn’t look at them. I couldn’t. All I could see was Milow in my arms, and the terrifying truth that no matter how much I held her, I couldn’t stop the pain.
“Dear heaven! What happened?” The nurse, Mrs. Bouchard, stared at us in open horror as I guided Milow down onto the bed.
I didn’t answer. I hadn’t seen it happen, and that alone made me want to put my fist through the nearest wall. But I didn’t need to see it. Milow had confirmed it. I already knew who had done this. I knew it had been Hailie.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Kallio said. His voice stayed controlled, but I could hear what sat under it. No teacher could witness this and feel nothing.
“We’ll get you cleaned up, darling,” Mrs. Bouchard murmured, clicking her tongue. “Oh, you poor thing.”
I kept my arm around Milow and slowly rubbed her back to comfort her.
I had her right hand in mine, holding it in my lap.
She looked gone. Her eyes were wide and empty, and her lips were parted from the pure shock.
Her whole body trembled, and I cursed myself repeatedly for not being there to stop the horrendous attack from happening.
“I’ve got you, Milow,” I said quietly. “I’m right here.”
Her head turned with effort until her eyes found mine. She looked at me for a long second, then lifted her left hand. [Sleepy.]
Her fingers didn’t move right. The motion was clumsy and delayed, but I understood anyway.
“I know,” I said. “But you can’t sleep. You have to stay awake, okay?”
Her hand dropped back to her side. When her gaze followed it down, I saw the skin around her eyes darkening already, bruises blooming fast and ugly. Whatever Hailie had done had been violent. It had split her open and left her bleeding without mercy.
“I’m here, Milow. I won’t let you go,” I whispered, but my own voice seemed far away. Nothing felt real, but I forced myself to stay strong and focus on her.
My vision burned. Tears stung behind my eyes, but I swallowed them down.
I couldn’t fall apart. Not now. Not with her slipping right in front of me.
Mom and Dad arrived even before the ambulance sirens could be heard. They were out of breath when they entered the nurse’s office, and after scanning the room, they came over to where we were sitting.
They crouched down, cooing to her with that frantic, trembling tenderness only parents could manage, and I didn’t let go of her, not for a second, even as the flood of anger, helplessness, and exhaustion washed over me in waves that made my heart ache impossibly hard.
“My baby,” Mom whispered, her voice breaking as she cupped Milow’s now-clean face in her hands.
Her nose was still bleeding, though not as much as before, and I held a cold compress against the bridge of her nose with gentle pressure.
I was afraid to hurt her more. Afraid that any wrong move could tear her further apart.
Mom’s eyes were glistening with tears that refused to fall.
She scanned every inch of Milow’s face. The swelling, the bruises forming under her eyes, the pain she couldn’t voice but that radiated in every line of her body.
I caught Dad out of the corner of my eye, dragging a hand over his own face like he was trying to erase the horror he felt from his expression.
They were both clearly broken, yet they tried desperately to stay strong for her.
They wanted to be a shield even when their own hearts were cracking, because that’s what parents were supposed to do.
“Who did this?” Mom asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
I tightened my jaw, forcing back the rage clawing at my throat.
I swallowed it down because I didn’t want to make the moment worse.
The weight of everything pressed down too hard already.
“The same girl who’s been bullying her for years,” I said, keeping my voice low and measured, but it was edged with all the fury I couldn’t let spill outward.
Mom’s face twisted. I recognized the shame immediately because it mirrored the same crushing shame I felt for not being able to protect Milow the way I knew I should have. The way I had promised her I would.
“I’m going to speak to that girl’s parents,” Dad said through clenched teeth.
He couldn’t keep his anger inside any longer.
He reached out for Milow, brushing the hair from her face with the gentlest touch possible before leaning forward to kiss the top of her head.
“I love you, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice shaky.
The weight behind his words nearly broke me because I felt the helplessness, the love, and the rage all at once.
We were all at a loss for words. There were so many things I wanted to tell her, so many words I wanted to spill to soothe her. I wanted to promise her she was safe, to make her pain go away, and yet nothing I could say felt like it would be enough to make this moment any better.
She was suffering, and yet, the moment the pain on our faces registered, she pushed her own hurt aside and forced herself to stay calm so we would not fall apart. Even with what little strength she had left, she focused on soothing us instead of letting herself be the one who needed comfort.
While the three of us were drowning in fear and anger, Milow acted as if she were not the one who had been hurt.
She kept herself composed despite the blood and the pain, ignoring the exhaustion shattering her body.
Her expression was clouded with worry for us, and I felt a sharp sting in my heart because she had already carried enough.
She had already fought more than anyone her age should have, and still she tried to take away our pain when it was supposed to be the other way around.
She lifted her hands, trying to sign something to us, but we couldn’t understand her. Her fingers weren’t moving properly, and they were all bruised and swollen.
I shook my head and lowered her left hand to my lap, needing her to rest it. Even the smallest movement could make the swelling worse and the pain sharper.
“You don’t have to do anything right now, Milow,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice from shaking too much. “Let us take care of you, okay? Let us hold you this time.”
Her eyes searched mine, as if she were trying to fully understand the idea that she could allow someone else to carry even a fraction of her pain.
I realized that she had never once believed she was allowed to hurt.
That somewhere along the way, she had learned to swallow her pain whole and carry it quietly, convincing herself that her purpose was to soothe and comfort.
To hold everyone else together, even when she was breaking.
Just the idea of being held in return, of letting herself be weak, felt so foreign to her that it barely existed at all.
Her selflessness was astonishing.
I kept holding her, forcing myself to steady my breathing until the paramedics finally arrived.
Only after they had lifted her carefully onto the stretcher and secured her inside the ambulance with Mom at her side did I let go.
I fell into Dad’s arms, letting him hold me as I cried.
My body trembled violently, and my stomach twisted so hard it made me sick.
I stumbled away from Dad, and before I could stop it from happening, I threw up on the sidewalk.
All the tension and fear that gathered inside me for the last hour poured out of me uncontrollably, and it only stopped when there was nothing left inside.