Charlotte
Imarch down to Reyes’s office and I don't slow down until I'm standing in front of his closed door, knocking loudly.
“Come in.”
He's behind his desk when I push the door open, reading something he doesn't bother looking up from right away. When he finally does glance up and sees it's me, something shifts in his expression.
“Ms. Hayes.”
“I need to talk to you about Ryder Kane.”
“I figured you might.” He sets down his pen, folding his hands on the desk. “I don't think there's much left to discuss.”
“There's plenty left to discuss, because whatever you were told about yesterday isn't what happened. I was there. I was standing right next to him the entire time.”
“That's not what I was told.”
“Then someone is lying. Mason interrupted the class, said some genuinely cruel things to me in front of the other students, and I pulled him into the hallway to talk to him privately.
Ryder was working nearby, heard part of it, and stepped in because Mason wasn't listening to me.
He talked to him. Calmly. By the end of it Mason apologized to me and went back to class.
That's the entire exchange. Nobody threatened anybody.”
“As I said, that's not what I heard.”
“From who?”
“I have several sources.”
“Several sources,” I repeat, because the phrase is so vague it's almost funny. “Can you name one of them?”
“I'm not obligated to disclose that information to you.”
“Convenient.”
“This conversation isn't going to change the outcome, Ms. Hayes. I'd suggest you get to your classroom before the bell rings.”
I want to keep arguing, but I know from experience that nothing productive happens in a conversation with someone who has already decided he's won it.
I turn and walk out, hands curled into fists at my sides. I don't have proof. I don't have anything beyond my own word against whatever version of events Reyes has already decided to believe, and my word clearly isn't worth much to him.
There has to be something. Some way to actually make him listen instead of just tolerating me long enough to get me out of his office.
I almost make it to my classroom when I glance up at the ceiling. There's a small camera mounted in the corner, angled to cover most of the hallway.
I stop cold. The realization lands in my stomach like a stone. This is where the conversation with Mason happened. Somebody has actual footage of that conversation. Actual video, timestamped, showing exactly what happened and exactly what didn't.
Reyes would have access to it. He didn't need several sources.
He probably watched the whole thing happen in real time, or pulled the footage the moment the complaint came in, if there even was one, and he knows perfectly well that nothing in that hallway looked like intimidation.
He's not confused about what happened. He's choosing to pretend it happened differently, because the version where Ryder threatened a student is the version that lets him get rid of him.
Anger climbs hot and fast up the back of my neck, and I don't even notice the first students filtering past me until one of them says my name twice.
“Ms. Hayes? You okay?”
“I will be. Go in and take your seat, please.”
Later that morning, Mason lingers after the bell.
“Ms. Hayes,” he says, hovering near my desk while the rest of the class files out. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“That guy yesterday. In the hallway. Is he your boyfriend or something?”
The question catches me off guard enough that I laugh before I can stop myself. “That's not something we can talk about, Mason.”
“He's pretty cool, though. For, like, an adult.”
“Yeah, he is.”
Mason nods, apparently satisfied, and turns to leave. That's when the idea hits me.
“Mason, wait.”
He turns back.
“Would you be willing to tell Coach Reyes what actually happened yesterday? Only if you're comfortable with it. Just the truth, from your perspective, about what Ryder said to you.”
Something shifts in his eyes and it’s so jarring that it tells me everything before he even opens his mouth.
“I really don't want to talk to Coach Reyes.”
“Why not?”
“You don't know?” He says it like the question itself is naive. “Coach Reyes hates me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before you started teaching here, I tried out for football.
Made varsity, even, which never happens for freshmen, and I was good.
Like, actually good. Then halfway through the season he kicked me off the team.
Told everyone I'd been caught vandalizing the equipment shed.
I never touched that shed. I wasn't even at school that weekend, I was at my cousin's in Washington, and I told him that, and he didn't care.
Said the evidence was clear enough for him.
My mom tried to fight it and he just kept saying his decision was final and that's that.
I never got to play again. Nobody believed me over him.
Why would they? He's the vice principal.”
Fury settles in my gut. This isn't the first time. This is a pattern. A kid punished for something he didn't do, on nothing but Reyes's word, with no one willing to push back.
“Mason, I believe you.”
He looks at me, startled, like he wasn't expecting that response from anyone, let alone a teacher.
“You don't have to talk to him. I would never ask you to do something that puts you in a bad position, especially with a man who's already shown you he'll use his power against kids he's decided he doesn't like. But thank you for telling me this. It actually helps.”
“Helps how?”
“I'm still figuring that part out. Go on to your next class.”
Something in his expression loosens before he ducks out into the hallway, and I sit there at my desk for a long moment after he's gone, feeling the last of my restraint burn away.
I walk straight down to Reyes’s office, adrenaline carrying me the entire way. I don't bother knocking before I push his door open.
He looks up, annoyance flashing across his face. “Ms. Hayes, I already told you this conversation is over.”
“I don't think you want it to be.”
“Excuse me?”
“You have several sources,” I say, closing the door behind me.
“Except you don't, do you? You have security footage, and you're the vice principal, which means you have access to it. You watched exactly what happened yesterday, and you decided to pretend it looked like something else. Why don’t you pull the tapes?”
“This conversation is over, or you're going to have a much bigger problem than a contractor losing his job.”
“Oh, I think you want to listen to what I have to say.
Because I know exactly what happened to Mason Delgado last year.
Kicked off the football team for a crime he didn't commit, based entirely on your word, with no actual evidence and no real investigation.
I'm guessing he's not the only one. I'm guessing if I started asking around, I'd find a pattern.
Kids nobody's inclined to believe over a vice principal, getting punished for things they didn't do whenever it's convenient for you.”
His face doesn't move, but something in his eyes does, a flicker of genuine alarm he can't quite smooth over fast enough.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“I think you do. It's interesting, actually. The school I taught at in Brooklyn had a situation a lot like this one. An administrator abused his power for years, and everyone was too afraid to say anything. Nothing happened for a long time. Nothing at all. Until a few of us went to the local paper with what we knew.”
“I fail to see how that's relevant.”
“It's relevant because once the story ran, more kids came forward.
More parents. Things that had been buried for years came out all at once, because it turns out once one person is brave enough to say something out loud, everybody else who's been sitting on their own version of the same story finally feels safe enough to speak up too.
I really don't think you want me to pull that thread here.
We're not living in an era where these things get swept under a rug anymore.
Kids have social media accounts with more followers than this entire town has residents.
Parents talk to each other, and to reporters, and to school boards.
You'd be surprised how fast something like this can spiral once it starts.
And once it does, there's no controlling how it ends.
You could lose a lot more than one contractor's access to a job site.”
The silence that follows stretches long enough that I can hear the clock ticking on his wall.
“Fine. Fine. You want your boyfriend back on this job, fine. I'll call over, get the owner to bring him back on.”
I nod, but not in gratitude so much as satisfaction.
“This doesn't mean I'm wrong about him,” he says.
“No. It means you got caught being wrong about him, which is a very different thing.”
He doesn’t answer, just picks up his pen and returns his attention to whatever’s on his desk. I can’t help the satisfied smile that pulls at my mouth as I let myself out.