Chapter 31 Bloodred
Bloodred
Before last period, I tell Jamie I need to borrow a book from the library, and he tells me he’ll save us two seats in our class.
It’s when I’m walking down the hallway that I let my guard down. My mind full of possibilities that grow from improbabilities. The torn hijab, the missing sketchbook, the dirty gym clothes, and the laughter still hurt, but hope is trying to burst with color inside me.
A door opens as I’m walking by an empty classroom, and I’m suddenly shoved inside, nearly losing my bearings. The door slams shut, and my breaths cut off with it.
Nicole stands in front of the door, flanked by Hayley and Alexis, while Jenny stands a little farther off with an anxious expression.
“What the hell?” I snap.
“Alexis told us everything,” Nicole says, nostrils flaring. Her black hair is sleek, pulled into a high, tight ponytail, and there’s a red shadow along her eyes.
I stare at Alexis, who has the decency to look somewhat guilty.
I fold my arms to steady myself. “And what? You’re the school’s vigilantes now?”
Nicole flushes and steps closer. “I don’t like you, Jihad.
And not because you’re poor or Muslim or any of the stuff you told Alexis you thought was the reason.
I don’t like you, because you’ve been weird ever since you got to this school.
And I have no idea what you said to Jamie to fool him.
Now, I don’t know if it’s because your mother was murdered and you feel like you want to take it out on us, but that’s not going to happen. ”
My stomach squeezes.
“Alexis told us you think it was a hate crime. So you think if you can’t catch the murderer, we’ll do, right? Is this why you painted the Statue of Liberty as a Muslim woman? Like a threat? I mean, how stupid can you be? As if we wouldn’t know it was you?”
I don’t hear half the things she’s saying. Blood thunders in my ears, and I’m shaking.
“Hello?” she says when I’ve been quiet for a while. “Can you hear me?”
She says it slowly like I’m someone who doesn’t understand English.
I don’t think I’ve hated many people in my life. Hate is all-consuming, and grief has drained the life out of me. But I do hate Nicole.
Suddenly she shoves me back so hard, I nearly trip trying to steady myself. I guess my staying silent infuriates her more than anything. The door opens, and I see Jenny slipping out. But then Nicole grabs my bag, yanking it out of my hand, and throws it to the other side of the classroom.
“You won’t need to study after this school expels you,” she spits out. “Not even community colleges will take you.”
“Are you okay?” I say, breathing heavily and tapping my forehead. “Like in here?”
This makes her face turn red, and she lunges at me, but I jam my elbow into her shoulder, and she hisses out in pain.
“You bitch,” she snarls, and I’m astounded at what I’ve done. This might get me kicked out of Braxton, but at this moment, I don’t care.
The door opens again, and, for a brief moment, I think a professor is here to save me. But it’s not a professor. My heart drops when I see Mason and Adrian.
I move backward to grab my bag, but Adrian beats me to it and holds it far away from me.
“We passed Jenny looking a bit upset. What happened?” Mason asks.
“She hit me,” Nicole snaps, rubbing her shoulder like I’ve sliced it open with a knife.
“Of course she did,” Mason says, and then he settles his gaze on me. “Don’t you have an eye for an eye in your Quran? I mean, there should be justice here, right?”
Ice-cold water washes over my nerves.
“Is it bruised, Nicole?” Mason asks, and she rolls down the collar of her shirt.
“It’s beginning to,” she says, even though there’s nothing on her skin. “It’s red.”
“Eye for an eye,” Mason says, advancing on me, and I back away, my mouth stuck, my voice gone. Of course this would happen. The fact that there were no consequences before has made them even bolder.
I’m terrified, and I feel my bones shaking, but I can’t move.
There’s nowhere to run. I can’t even scream.
The fear is so potent, it becomes painful.
And all I can think of is Mama. They sense my fear even if my expression is blank.
They smell it in the air, and it excites them.
This feels like a scene out of a movie, but I know how common this violence can be.
How easily people can fall into it. There are countless stories with much darker endings.
I think I might have tried to run because now someone is holding my hands behind my back.
I think it’s Adrian. My stomach lurches at him touching me again, but I don’t have time to fully process it when Mason jabs his elbow into my shoulder.
It’s a concentrated stab of pain, jolting all over my arm.
I feel it like shock waves radiating over and over.
I bite my tongue, not letting myself scream out.
“Your turn, Nicole.” He steps back. “Until it bruises. That’s only fair. Right, Jihad?”
Her smile is vicious, elated at humiliating me. At the support she has from her friends. And just like what happened to Mama, no one steps forward. No one says this is wrong. No one stands up for me.
Nicole digs her elbow into my arm over and over again until I cry out. Sweat beads on my forehead, dripping down my cheeks. Adrian has tightened his hold, and I think my arms are about to snap off. I don’t look at Alexis, not wanting to see her expression. Hatred is all I feel.
“All good?” Mason asks Nicole. “Do you feel like justice was delivered?”
Nicole hums, eyeing me up and down. “I don’t think she got the message, though.”
“I agree,” he says, and holds my chin, jerking my head up. “Maybe a reminder?”
When they’re done and gone, I’m on the floor, my hands shaking and my nose dripping blood into a small puddle in front of me. Pinching my nose with one hand, I reach for my bag with the other, hiccuping and trying to breathe in, trying not to cry.
My blood smears along the front of the bag, but it’s barely visible against the black color. I fumble with the zippers, trying to remember where I placed my pack of tissues. I find them on the third try, squeezed between my books, and this time, the blood does stain the notebooks.
She punched me hard in the face until I bled, until my right eye felt raw.
They all stood and watched, and Mason made me look into the camera and smile.
My stomach heaves, and I want to scrub that memory out of my mind. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think that he has a picture of me humiliated like this.
The last period bell rang twenty minutes ago. There’s no way I’m walking out of the room looking like this.
I use up my last tissue to wipe away the puddle of blood, but it’s not enough, so I use the end part of my hijab.
I will not leave a mark of my pain here.
My legs tremble when I stand, and I grab my bag.
I don’t go to the bathroom. I don’t want to see how I look.
To see what they did. I just want to go home.
I walk quickly but not fast enough. A couple of students in the hallway do a double take when they see me.
A tissue pressed to my nose, a swollen eye perhaps, looking like I just escaped hell.
If the picture Mason took of me is spreading throughout the school, I don’t want to be here.
He took it knowing he’d get away with what they did.
A trophy of me in that position. Audrey warned me it would get worse.
Jabs that became more vicious, that turned into my hijab being stolen, that mutated into physical assaults.
The natural progression of bullying that feeds off passivity.
When I reach the stairs of the first floor, a hand holds my arm, and I look up to see Jamie, staring down at me with a horrified look. “What happened?”
Oh God, not again.
I press the tissue harder against my mouth, trying to get out of his grip. I just want to leave.
The color drains from his face. “Was it Nicole?”
My jaw is too heavy and bruised to talk without bursting into tears, and I’m barely keeping it together. With my last iota of strength, I jerk out of his grasp and run down the stairs and out of the school.
Back home, I inspect the damage. Thankfully, New York isn’t a stranger to eccentric people, so no one asks me about the bruised eye and the bloodied nose on my way home. I wish I was able to hide my face a bit better, because I think I’ve enforced some stereotypes.
The blood has stopped flowing, but there’s a smattering of a blooming purple around my nose and upward to my right eye. I’m going to have a black eye. Tentatively, I raise my hand to touch my nose, praying it’s not broken. Relief weakens my muscles when I find it’s not.
I take a shower, letting the water run as hot as I can bear it. When I get out, my skin is blotchy and red, but it’s soothing. I’m glad my hair is shorter now. Less to deal with.
I flop down onto my bed, exhausted to the bone and at a loss on what to do.
Do I stop going to school?
What do I do?
School is ending soon. Finals are coming up.
I can do this.
I can do this. I am brave. I am Jihad.
My breath shudders out of me, racking my lungs like a ghost running its finger along my ribs.
There are no tears in me. I may have cried when Nicole punched me, but I can’t remember.
The tears may have mixed with the blood.
I try to cry now, try to let out this pent-up anger inside me.
This volcano burning me alive, this earthquake destroying the fragile hope I built, this tsunami drowning me on land. But my tear ducts are dry.