Chapter 25
For a moment, no one moved. Time stopped. My heart stopped. Everyone around me turned to see me fall, but their eyes slid past my crouched figure to find the knife, open by my side. Technically a weapon on school grounds.
And of course the blade popped free.
I sucked in a gasp as Hudson reached for the handle, no doubt attempting to snatch it up—even though it was way too late.
“Put your hands up, Hudson!” Mrs. Savion’s shout came like a bullhorn behind me, and if I thought she’d been yelling at the boy who shoved me, she was definitely yelling now. “Drop the knife, now!”
Hudson never even had a chance to pick it up, though. He raised his palms like she pointed a gun at him, and he sighed, shutting his eyes as he did so.
At the word “knife,” the crowd around us started buzzing with their chatter swelling in my ears.
Superintendent Filmore, who’d been greeting students cheerfully at the door, turned into a bull as he charged his way over.
With a rough jerk, he hauled Hudson to his feet.
“You brought a knife onto school grounds? I knew you were thick in the head, but I guess I didn’t realize how thick,” he said, giving Hudson a hard shake.
From the way he was angled, it was impossible to see Hudson’s expression. I could hear his voice, though, and it was as nonchalant as ever. “I’ve never really been known for my good decisions, have I?”
Superintendent Filmore’s expression grew angrier, cheeks turning red. “Let’s go.”
“Wait!” I’d tried standing up, too, but I’d shifted my weight onto my leg, the pain sending me crashing back to the ground.
I sucked in a sharp breath as if that would satiate the fiery bolt that shot up my ankle.
When I looked up, the superintendent’s back was starting to merge into the crowd. “Mr. Filmore, I—”
“Are you hurt, Gemma?” Mrs. Savion ducked down beside me, plucking the knife up and shutting it with a click. Her wrinkled face was filled with concern and worry lines, but for the wrong reasons. “Is it your ankle?”
“It’s not Hudson’s knife,” I said, once again trying to scramble to my feet. Mr. Filmore had drawn Hudson away at that point; I couldn’t see his blond head in the crowd. “I have to tell him that, I have to tell them—”
“You need to go to the nurse’s office,” Mrs. Savion said, the calm quality in her voice clearly indicating that she hadn’t picked up on the intensity of mine. She looked up at people who were still lingering and staring. “Who can help Gemma to the nurse?”
I wanted to scream.
Two junior girls I didn’t recognize helped me to my feet.
One wrapped their arm around my waist to hold me up and the other carried my backpack, and despite my protests, they took me to the nurse, not to Principal Oliphant.
When I told Mrs. Wells, the school nurse, that I needed to go to the office, her response had been immediate.
“You can go after we check out your ankle.”
And so, despite practically fidgeting out of my skin on the cot, I let Mrs. Wells do her job.
“It’s a small sprain,” Mrs. Wells, said as she finished wrapping my ankle up. Her royal blue scrub top matched Brentwood High’s colors, and so did her golden yellow scrub bottoms. “We’ll keep some ice on it and keep it wrapped, and the swelling should go down.”
I shifted my position on the firm cot, looking down at where Mrs. Wells had propped my foot on a little yoga block. I couldn’t necessarily see that it was swollen, but it felt like it, like several bees had stung up along my ankle. “Can I walk on it?”
“Ah, I’d recommend against that,” she replied, and gave a little laugh. “It’s not a bad sprain, so you could put some weight on it after twenty-four hours. I would recommend forty-eight, though, to be on the safe side. I’ll give you a crutch you can borrow for the next few days.”
A sprained ankle. All because some junior was eager to get off the bus. The dread that reared its ugly head in waves came out in full force as I recalled the events that’d followed like I was watching a horror movie.
“Got the ice!” Rosie stormed through the open door of the nurse’s office with a plastic bag of ice, waving it like a trophy. “Sorry it took me so long. I got lost on my way to the cafeteria. Apparently, you don’t memorize the layout of a school after two weeks.”
“Thank you, Rosie.” Mrs. Wells took the bag from her and carefully laid it on the top of my ankle, letting the excess ice flow over to cover the sides of my foot. “Let’s let that sit for a while. Your mom should be here shortly.”
My world tilted. “My mom?”
“Principal Oliphant called her for the incident, since she’s the president of the school board. Something to do with a school safety issue.”
I couldn’t even believe how fast things were devolving, like I was in a plane that was nosediving toward the ground. Impact was coming.
Mrs. Wells walked into the front of the office, leaving me mid-spiral.
Rosie sat down on the stool the nurse had occupied, smoothing down her black silky pajama top.
During all of this, I was still sitting in my pjs.
What was quickly becoming the worst day of my life, and I was in my pajamas for it.
“Rosie,” I said, pushing the cot to sit up straighter. “Did you see Principal Oliphant in the hallway?”
Rosie glanced over her shoulder at the open door before propelling herself closer to me, the stool’s wheels squeaking a little. “I didn’t get lost,” she whispered conspiratorially. “But I did stop by the office to ‘ask for directions.’”
I could’ve hugged her. “What’s going on in there?”
“There wasn’t anyone in the office’s waiting area, but it sounded like there was a party in Principal Oliphant’s room.” Rosie gestured wildly with her hands at the next part. “So many people talking at once. I didn’t hear Principal Oliphant’s voice, though, but a lot of male voices.”
Was one of those voices Hudson’s dad? The thought of Principal Oliphant calling his dad made me feel sick, because that meant things were serious. Which of course they were—there was an open knife on campus—but it wasn’t Hudson’s fault. It’d fallen out of my bag. I needed to tell them that.
“And there was…” She trailed off, frowning.
“What?”
“There was a police officer sitting in one of the chairs.”
Police. No, no, no. “I have to get to the office,” I told her, frantically looking around the room. “Where’s the crutch Mrs. Wells said I could borrow? Can you get it for me?”
Thankfully, instead of insisting I stay in the nurse’s office, Rosie rushed to grab the crutch from the next room. Mrs. Wells frowned at us both when we emerged from the room, and she stood up from her desk. “Gemma, I really think you should wait until your mom—”
I didn’t give her time to finish, and I shoved out of the infirmary with Rosie right behind me.
“What are you going to say?” she asked, keeping up with my hobbling pace.
The crutch was too short for me, and it scraped against my side with every step.
“Storming in there like this might not be the best plan of attack.”
She was probably right, but I really only had one plan—not to let Hudson face this alone. None of this was his fault, anyway. Hudson was in there facing the firing squad while I was the one sitting in silence with ice on my leg. He didn’t deserve to be in there—I did.
I hadn’t remembered that the knife was in my backpack, but now, I could remember it with perfect clarity.
Hudson passing me the knife. Me holding it in the backseat of Derrick’s car for a moment before slipping it into my backpack pocket, where I’d completely forgotten about it.
It was a wonder I hadn’t discovered it earlier, but with pencils and erasers and other random things stuffed into that pocket, I must’ve missed it.
My mind fell into the worst-case scenario—suspension, expulsion, permanent records—and there was no thinking beyond it.
“Why were you in the infirmary, anyway?” I asked Rosie, casting her a sidelong glance. “Are you sick?”
“I help Mrs. Wells with paperwork and everything for first period. It’s technically counted as an extracurricular.
” She shrugged a little. “It’s a solution I worked out with Principal Oliphant since I’m late waiting for my siblings’ bus sometimes.
It’s easier to come in and help Mrs. Wells rather than interrupt a history lesson or something. ”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’s allowed?”
“I mean, I don’t know if it’s something they do for everyone, but, yeah.”
Her situation sounded awfully similar to Hudson’s, but instead of being punished for it, she was given an option to make things easier. How was that fair?
It’s hard to change someone’s mind when it’s already made up, and Principal Oliphant had talked about the school board’s vendetta. Just because they didn’t like Hudson, they weren’t going to help him like they’d help others.
Since classes were currently in session, there was no one in the halls to witness us hurry through, or hurrying as much as I could with my throbbing ankle. We turned down the main hallway, and the office door was in sight. Just a few more steps—
The door swung inward, and I stumbled to a halt when the person who stepped out into the hall turned to face us.
Mom.
Mom was dressed in her work clothes, with a pretty top covered by a thick cardigan, her red curls pinned up out of her face. It exposed every single inch of the anger that tightened her features, the tendons in her neck sticking out as she drew in a deep breath. I’d never seen her so upset.
I crumpled under Mom’s stare, a muted sort of panic making my skin feel hot and cold all over.
A wave of dizziness struck me, one so strong that I nearly toppled on my unsteady crutch.
I hobbled forward, the crutch the only noise that pierced the air.
Black spots popped up at the corner of my vision, and suddenly actually falling into Rosie seemed like a very real possibility.