My shoes were old enough that I could feel uneven pavement through the soles.
I had worn them for so long that I knew exactly where they rubbed against my heel.
Usually, I ignored it.
I wasn’t ashamed of worn shoes.
I was ashamed of how helpless I felt standing in front of a boy who considered my only bus fare worthless.
I wondered whether Brandon had ever walked six miles because he didn’t have money for transportation.
Advertisement
Hotel advertisement 8
Probably not.
But I didn’t really know.
And the more I thought about it, the more I understood that the answer didn’t matter.
A person didn’t have to experience every hardship to understand that stealing from someone was wrong.
He only had to care.
Brandon didn’t seem interested in caring.
He was watching me study the road, and the amusement had returned to his face.
“Where you going?”
“Home.”
“Walking?”
I didn’t respond.
He laughed.
“That’s a long walk, isn’t it?”
I looked back at him.
“You know it is.”
He shrugged.
“Should’ve thought about that before being difficult.”
I felt a sharp pressure behind my eyes.
Not because I wanted to cry over five dollars.
Because he was talking as though I had caused the problem.
As though refusing to kneel was a mistake.
As though losing my money was a reasonable punishment for having a little pride.
I had spent years learning to be careful with things.
My clothes.
My backpack.
My notebooks.
The small amounts of cash I occasionally carried.
If something broke, I couldn’t always replace it.
If something went missing, I couldn’t assume another one would appear.
I had learned to fold money neatly, to check my pockets, and to think before spending even a dollar.
None of those habits mattered when someone decided he could simply take what I had.
“Please,” I said.
“Just leave me alone.”
Brandon tilted his head.
“Now you’re asking me to leave you alone?”
“Yes.”
“You were just talking pretty big a minute ago.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“Sure sounded like it.”
I looked at him.
“Why can’t you just stop?”
He stepped closer.
“Why can’t you just listen?”
It felt as though we were having two completely different conversations.
I was trying to explain that I needed my money.
He was trying to establish that I needed his permission to speak.
The longer it continued, the less either of us seemed able to reach the other.
I didn’t have the words to make him understand.
And Brandon wasn’t looking for understanding anyway.
He wanted obedience.
The sandy-haired boy finally moved.
It was only a small step, but I noticed because he had been standing still for so long.
“Brandon,” he said quietly.
Brandon glanced at him.
“What?”
The boy looked toward the school entrance.
“People are watching.”
Brandon gave a short laugh.
“Yeah.
I know.”
The boy hesitated.
“I just mean—”
“What?”
He stopped.
Brandon turned more fully toward him.
“You got something to say?”
For a moment, I thought the boy might answer.
His mouth opened slightly.
Then he looked at the students holding phones and shook his head.
“No.”
“Then don’t interrupt.”
The boy lowered his eyes.
Brandon turned back toward me with a satisfied expression.
“See what I mean?”
I didn’t answer.
But something important had happened.
The boy had tried to speak.
He hadn’t defended me, and he hadn’t told Brandon to return the money.
He hadn’t even said that throwing it into the drain was wrong.
Still, for a brief second, he had interrupted.
And Brandon had treated that interruption like a challenge.
I began to understand why the two boys usually seemed so eager to agree with him.
It wasn’t simply that they enjoyed the same jokes.
Brandon expected loyalty to mean silence.
He seemed to believe that being his friend required accepting whatever he decided to do.
The sandy-haired boy had backed down.
But he was no longer laughing.
I wondered whether anyone else had noticed.
A pair of students walked past the outer edge of the crowd.
One slowed down when she saw Brandon standing in front of me.
Her friend caught her attention and nodded toward the gates.
They continued walking.
I watched them leave.
For a second, I envied them.
They were free to keep moving.
They could decide not to become involved.
They could go home and spend the evening thinking about something other than a boy who had stolen their bus fare.
I couldn’t.
Brandon followed my gaze.
“You looking for somebody to save you?”
“No.”
“Then why do you keep looking around?”
I didn’t have an answer that would satisfy him.
I wanted an adult to appear.
I wanted someone to notice the phones and the gathering students and come over to ask what was happening.
