Page 8 of Never Alone
I turned to Noah and pulled him into a hug. He came willingly, the way he always did. I held on for a second longer than I needed to.
"Let me see your hand."
He held it out. There was a small split in the skin across his middle knuckle, the kind a kid would get from punching another kid in the face. Not bad. It would heal in a week.
"I'm sorry, Mom."
"What happened?"
"I—"
He took a breath. His hands were back in his lap.
"Aiden was being mean to Penny. He was—he kept calling her—he kept saying things about her dad. He was making hercry, and he wouldn't stop. Mrs. Park was on the other side of the playground, and she didn't see. I told him to stop, and he didn't stop. So I?—"
He paused.
"So you hit him?"
"Yes."
I looked at him. Guilt and fear, and underneath both, the quiet conviction of a kid who knew he'd done something good.
"Are you mad?" he said.
"No. I'm not mad. I'm worried."
"About what?"
"About you."
He looked up at me. Scared. Guilty.
"You did the right thing. But you also hurt someone. And it's against the rules at school to hit people, no matter what they did first."
"So was I just supposed to watch Aiden make Penny cry like that?"
It stopped me for a second.
The image of a boy in a parking lot, sixteen years old, eyes meeting mine, flashed in my mind.
I'm sorry, Natalie.
I shook it off.
"No. You were supposed to do the right thing. And you did." I cupped his cheek. "I'm proud of you."
"Thanks, Mom."
"But you still have to face the consequences."
"That's not fair."
I sighed. "Yeah. It's not."
I looked at him for a second. He was nine, turning ten in a few months. He'd just hit a kid for hurting a girl who couldn't defend herself, and he'd told me about it without lying. He wasgoing to grow up into someone. The kind of someone was getting clearer.
"Come on. Let's go get some ice cream."
