Page 37 of Hateful
“Who pushed him?” yells one of the senior boys, his face a mask of anger as he spins to peer into the crowd of volunteers. He has some kind of sauce on his shirt—collateral damage.
There’s no point in wondering who’s responsible for this. I already know.
I roll onto my side, and sure enough behind me stands Beck, face white as a sheet. Heath and Jasper hover several paces behind.
“Are you all right, dude?” To my surprise, the senior boy with the saucy shirt comes over to help me up. I grab his hand and struggle to my feet, wincing.
I shoot a momentary glance over at Beck, before just as quickly looking away.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
The boy nods at me and then whirls towards The Brotherhood.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” the boy demands. “Aren’t you the ones responsible for representing our school in the debate? You’ve just ruined our lunch!”
Beck’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. For once, it seems he has nothing to say. He’s not used to being confronted like this.
“And you could’ve seriously hurt Alex!” the boy continues. “You sure you’re okay?” he adds to me.
I nod. In truth, I know that if I open my mouth, I’ll start sobbing, and I can’t have that. My back hurts where I was hit, my knees are all banged up, and I think I hit my elbow on the way down—bad enough to worry about a sprain. This guy is right. Icouldhave been hurt.
My face missed the steel handle of the cart by inches.
Beck looks furious, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s surrounded by angry people who, for the first time, aren’t onhisside. He ruined their lunch, and I, a scrawny, banged-up boy, am just a victim.
Rafael seems to materialize out of nowhere. “He’s my roommate. I’ll take him to the nurse.”
“I don’t need the nurse,” I say in a low voice.
Rafael shoots me a meaningful look that I’m sure meansshut the hell up, so I do as he says and clamp my mouth shut. The senior allows Rafael to grab my arm and start supporting me gently up the slope toward the auditorium doors.
I try to bat his arm away, but Rafael leans down and hisses in my ear, “Limp, damn you. Act like you need the help, or you’ll let a perfectly good opportunity go to waste.”
So I do. I don’t really have to fake it. One of my knees hurts more than the other, so limping actually eases the pain some. I hear a professor start talking in a stern tone behind us, and Beck’s answering mumble.
Is heactuallyin trouble? Is he going to faceactualconsequences? I guess the most egregious crime you can commit here is to fuck with someone’s lunch.If I’d known that earlier, I might have found a way to shift the odds in my favor a little sooner.
Rafael leads me out of the auditorium and down the corridor toward the nurse’s office.
“We can at least get you some painkillers,” he says sympathetically. “I know that must’ve hurt.”
“Mostly it’s just my pride,” I say with a sigh.
“Well, if we get painkillers are strong enough, they’ll help with that, too.” He grins at me, and I can’t help but smile back.
“Where’s Neville?”
“Still back in the auditorium. He’s volunteering all day. Not for the extra credit,” he adds at my wondering look. “He just … wants to help.” Rafael wrinkles his nose then he slides his arm under mine so I can lean on him better. “Come on, Tiny Tim. Let’s get you to the nurse.”
I laugh a little and limp there with him.
It’s the same nurse from last year; Nurse Weber, the one who knows I’m a girl. She takes a look at my knees and wrists to see if they’ve been sprained, but from the way she’s looking at me, it isn’t my physical well-being she’s most worried about.
“Just bruised,” she tells me, stripping off her gloves. “Which is good.”
“Hey, um—do you have any bandages I could have?” I ask her, since I’m already here, after all. I cut my eyes over to Rafael, and then just as quickly away.
“Why?” She shoots a sideways glance at me as she grabs some ibuprofen out of her cabinet.
