13. A Most Unwelcome Blast From The Past #4
“Or, we'll publicly expose the other boy in that video. You'll have no choice but to give them both the same punishment and think of how much you'll lose if the head coach withdraws his teaching and financial support from your school,” he lays down harshly.
“You are not insinuating that Kingston Adair… he would never have such an abnormal…” the principal scoffs with such incredulity that I don’t know whether to believe him or not.
“You can be shocked, or we can show the proof the same way he's done to Qiang, well, maybe not the X-rated proof, but pictures and videos that we’ve taken of them together that can easily prove a relationship existed between them.
“We'll cooperate by keeping Qiang out of the school halls, on the condition that they are allowed to continue the remainder of the year at home with the same honors, academic reputation, and scholarship they already have. What do you say?”
The principal sighs. “Do I have a choice?”
“You do. You could do right by my child and protect them the same way you do the elitists that attend here.
But we all know that's never gonna happen, so this is the best you're gonna get from us, and frankly, it’s kind, considering I can haul all of your asses into court for bullying and defamation,” he threatens emphatically.
We all know we’d most likely never win, but the publicity generated in the process would reflect negatively on the school’s reputation. We all wait on bated breath while the principal stares back at my dad for a moment, then lets out another heavy sigh.
“Fine. I'll allow him to graduate with his honors and scholarships. I won't impede his future education by outing his uncouth reputation on the condition that he never sets foot in this school again.”
My dad nods once, a tick in his jaw telling me he’s not happy with how things went down at all, but also knowing this was the best we were gonna get without years of court battles, threats, and attempted pay-offs to get us to shut up and go away.
“Done. I'll have my lawyer deliver a contract for you to sign this afternoon,” he says before turning to Mom and me, motioning that it’s time to go.
Idon’t know what hurts worse right now, Kingston’s blazing hateful eyes, or the way he just slammed me up against the brick wall.
I was walking home from the store when he came out of nowhere and pulled me between the convenience store and the liquor store and shoved me against the wall.
The Kingston I know is nowhere to be found in the cruel set of his eyes and the ticking of his jaw. He’s cold, calculating, nothing like the warm, sweet man I’ve come to know and adore.
“Not a word to anyone, Qiang, or I’ll make your life a living hell.”
The words trickle down my spine like acid. Typical threats from the bullies growing up; they push you down and tell you not to tell or else. But we’re all older now; this isn’t playground bullying anymore; this is the kind of threat that destroys livelihoods.
How did he fool me so completely? How could I possibly have missed even a hint of his cruelty? How the fuck did I let this man infiltrate my life enough to become a threat?
“Why? I never did anything to you but help you when you asked,” I breathe out pitifully.
He huffs out a sardonic laugh, looking at me like I’m the biggest fool who ever lived.
“Because it was fun,” he says, slicing a bit of my heart out.
“The tutoring was boring, but you were cute. Convincing you we were more than what we were to get laid was almost too easy. But then you started whining about wanting more and our futures, and it got old. It wasn’t fun anymore, and now you know what you always meant to me.
So keep your mouth shut, and don’t show your face in front of me anymore,” he snarls viciously, and it slashes my heart until there is nothing left but tatters of mutilated muscle.
Qi knew. He warned me to be careful, that he gave him bad vibes, that he looked at me like I was a plaything. He read Kingston like a book, and I barely made out the title.
I look up once more into the baby-blue eyes I thought were so familiar, the ones I drowned in, time and time again. Now they’re unrecognizable; he’s unrecognizable.
All it would take would be a slight softening of the jaw, the wrinkle on his nose when I used to tickle his face, the quiver in his lip whenever I said something that made him happy. But he’s gone, buried beneath the hard exterior of his dad’s expectations and cruel belittling.
“I didn’t show up in front of you; you came after me.
I obviously had every chance to scream your name from the rooftops, and I didn’t, so you had no reason to come after me unless you just missed me that much,” I spit back, hurt and angry at the continued attempts to somehow paint me as the bad person in this scenario.
Kingston raises his hand and points in my face, jabbing me harshly on the cheek. “Don’t spout nonsense. This is your one and only warning.”
“Get the fuck away from Qiang,” my brother’s low voice growls out in a warning before Kingston’s body roughly hits the wall next to me.
I don’t know why Qi is suddenly standing here, unless he followed me. He’s been upset since everything went down, hovering between being comforting towards me and being almost violently angry at the situation. And looking at him now, there’s an anger in his face that I’ve never seen before.
Kingston slams his hands against the wall with frustration before rounding towards my baby brother.
The difference in their sizes is terrifying.
My brother shows signs of growing much taller than me, but at fourteen and still mid-puberty, he’s barely an inch taller than my five-five and maybe a hundred and ten pounds if he’s wearing a heavy jacket and just ate a feast.
Kingston, however, is seventeen and much closer to full-grown at five-eleven and just shy of two hundred pounds, and I’ve just seen how cruel and hateful his face can be.
That doesn’t automatically have anything to do with his physical strength, especially given that my brother is well trained in fighting, but it does speak a lot about the mean intent in Kingston versus the sweetness I’ve always seen from my little brother.
“You really want to play little boy?” Kingston growls out, squaring up to my little brother without seeming to give an ounce of a shit that he’s three years younger than him and just a portion of his size.
“No, he doesn’t. Leave him alone, Kingston. Qi, let’s just go home.”
I grab Qi’s arm and steer him away from Kingston and back towards the mouth of the little alley we’re in so we can leave.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Qiang,” Kingston says tauntingly, and I know he’s baiting Qi.
He couldn’t just let the hit go; my little brother hurt his pride, and Kingston isn’t going to be happy unless he gets his pound of flesh. I’ve seen him act like this on the field during football games, but I didn’t realize it was a flaw that carried itself off the field as well.
Qi pulls his elbow out of my grasp and squares off with Kingston. “You will stay the fuck away from Qiang,” he deadpans without a trace of fear in his eyes.
“You mean like this?” Kingston asks in a deadly voice that has chills racing down my spine before his hand snaps out and pushes me roughly to the ground.
The shock of the fall takes my breath away, and it takes a moment or two for my head to catch back up, but when it does, it’s too late.
The chance to get Qi out of this situation falls to dust when he races forward and connects his foot with Kingston’s jaw. A cacophony of grunts and cries of pain pierce the evening air while the two end up in a tangle of arms and legs.
Qi cries out in pain, and it snaps me out of my shock and propels me to try to interject between them. I need to get Qi away from this menace before it’s too late.
And then everything shifts. I’m not a fighter; I’ve never even come close to raising my hands to another person, so I don’t recognize the flurry of movements beyond the gut-wrenching queasiness of violence and pain.
What I do know is there’s blood, and most of it is coming from Kingston. Qi is straddled over him, screaming in a voice that I’ve never heard before, a hysteria that sounds like he’s mentally checked out, while pummeling his fists into Kingston’s face.
Kingston’s arms are raised weakly against the onslaught until they drop completely. Regardless of Kingston’s weakened state, Qi’s not stopping the flurry of blows.
“Qi, stop. It’s enough,” I try to reason with him as his demeanor cracks from one of anger to one of tears and frustration.
My heart cracks because it’s all for me.
Qi is as zealously protective of me as I’ve always been over him.
He’s warned me time and time again about Kingston, and instead of listening, I rationalized it away, and by doing so, everything Qi was afraid would happen has happened.
The trauma isn’t just mine; it’s his too, and I need to get him out of here now.
Dodging the punches as best I can, I shake him out of his stupor before he causes too much damage. Kingston is reduced to quiet whimpers of pain by the time I finally wrench Qi off of him.
“I told you he was bad. I won’t let him hurt you anymore,” Qi cries, his hysteria calming down and being replaced with tears as he sobs into my shoulder.
“No more, it’s over now,” I pat his head as my eyes snag on the three cameras in the area, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this moment is going to have some serious consequences.
For now, I grab Kingston’s phone and, using his finger to unlock it, I place a quick call to the authorities to have him picked up before dropping it back down and getting Qi out of that alleyway and back to safety.
What might have been a final warning has now turned into the calm before the next storm. But it’s not Qi’s fault. He warned me repeatedly, and I didn’t listen. It’s my fault, and now it’s my turn to protect him, just as he didn’t hesitate to step in and protect me.