I had assumed it was another one of his humiliating jokes.
But now I understood that there had been something more deliberate behind it.
Money.
Not once.
Not just mine.
Again and again.
I looked at the sandy-haired boy.
“Other students?”
He nodded.
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
He hesitated.
Brandon moved sharply.
“Stop talking.”
The boy glanced at him.
Then back at me.
“More than you think.”
A murmur moved through the crowd.
Several students turned toward one another.
Someone near the school sign lowered a phone and whispered something to a friend.
The atmosphere had changed completely.
People were no longer watching to see whether Brandon could make me beg.
They were listening to find out what else he had done.
And Brandon seemed to understand that every word was making it harder for him to regain control.
“He’s lying,” Brandon said.
Nobody answered.
He looked around.
“You seriously believe this?”
The sandy-haired boy lowered his head for a moment.
Then he looked up.
“I’m not lying.”
Brandon pointed at him.
“You were there.”
“I know.”
“You took money, too.”
The boy nodded.
“Yes.”
Brandon seemed surprised by the admission.
He had probably expected his friend to deny everything.
Instead, the boy accepted it.
That made his next words even harder to ignore.
“You told us to do it.”
Brandon’s face tightened.
“I didn’t make you do anything.”
The boy looked down at his hands.
“I should’ve refused.”
He paused.
Then he raised his eyes.
“But you kept telling us who to take it from.”
The other friend shifted uncomfortably.
Brandon looked at him.
“Tell him he’s lying.”
The boy in the dark sweatshirt didn’t answer.
Brandon’s voice grew sharper.
“Tell him!”
Still nothing.
I watched the second friend stare at the ground.
He seemed caught between fear of Brandon and the growing realization that the crowd had heard too much for silence to make everything disappear.
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Finally, he looked up.
His voice was barely audible.
“He isn’t lying.”
Brandon stared.
I could almost see the moment he understood.
His two friends weren’t going to defend him.
The people who had laughed beside him were now telling the students exactly what had been happening.
He turned toward the crowd.
“You’re all acting like this is some huge thing.”
No one laughed.
“It’s five bucks!”
A student near the front spoke before I could.
“It’s not just five bucks.”
Brandon turned toward the voice.
The student didn’t move away.
The sandy-haired boy looked at me again.
“I’m sorry.”
I studied his face.
He looked as uncomfortable as I had felt when Brandon first demanded that I kneel.
But there was an important difference.
He had chosen to speak.
And now he was choosing not to take it back.
I wanted to believe him.
But part of me was still afraid that Brandon would somehow turn the whole situation around.
He had a way of making everyone else feel responsible for his behavior.
I had seen him do it to me.
When I asked for my money, I was disrespectful.
When I refused to kneel, I was difficult.
When I tried to leave, I was walking away while he was speaking.
When I avoided his fist, I was apparently challenging him.
What would he say now?
Would he accuse his friends of betraying him?
Would he claim the students had misunderstood?
Would he insist that everything had been a joke?
He tried all three.
“You two are unbelievable,” he snapped.
The sandy-haired boy didn’t answer.
Brandon turned toward the students.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Nobody spoke.
“It was a joke.”
I looked at the storm drain.
A joke.
That was what he wanted to call it.
The stolen bill was still somewhere beneath the street.
My ride home was still gone.
The humiliation had been real.
The fear had been real.
And the other students he had apparently targeted had lost actual money.
I looked back at him.
“It wasn’t funny.”
Brandon opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
For once, he didn’t have an immediate insult ready.
The sandy-haired boy spoke again.
“He knows it wasn’t funny.”
Brandon turned.
“Shut up.”
“No.”
There was that word again.
Small.
Simple.
But it no longer sounded impossible.
The boy reached into his pocket.
Brandon’s attention followed his hand.
“What are you doing?”
The boy pulled out his phone.
For a moment, he just held it.
I could see the hesitation in his face.
Then he looked toward the watching students.
And finally, he said the words that seemed to frighten Brandon more than anything else.
“And I have messages that prove it.”
Brandon went completely still.
That was the first thing I noticed.
His shoulders stopped moving.
His hands opened slightly.
