And I couldn’t move forward without making the pressure against my arms worse.
I looked past Brant toward the main walkway.
There were people everywhere.
Parents.
Walkers.
A maintenance worker riding a mower near the baseball diamonds.
Someone had to see.
Someone had to understand that this wasn’t a harmless argument between teenagers.
But the maintenance worker took one look in our direction and turned his mower toward the empty fields.
Brant noticed where I was looking.
“See?” he said quietly.
He leaned closer.
I could smell the spearmint gum on his breath.
“You don’t talk back to us.”
Then he drove his knee into my stomach.
The impact knocked the breath out of me.
My body folded forward.
For a terrifying moment, I couldn’t draw air into my lungs.
Lucas released me, and I dropped onto the damp gravel beside the pavilion bench.
I curled onto my side, pressing my arms against my ribs.
The park seemed to move farther away.
I could hear shoes scraping against gravel, someone laughing, and the faint squeak of the playground swings.
But I couldn’t make my body sit upright.
“Look at her,” Tyler said.
His phone moved closer to my face.
“Look at the tough new girl now.”
I tried to inhale.
Nothing.
I tried again.
A shallow breath finally reached my chest.
It hurt.
Brant stepped back, straightening his varsity jacket as though he had finished some minor inconvenience.
He looked down at me with the casual satisfaction of someone who believed he had proved his point.
“Don’t ever walk through this park again unless you’re ready to hand over whatever we ask for.”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
My cheek rested against the cold gravel as I fought to steady my breathing.
Tyler was still recording.
The others were still laughing.
And all around us, the ordinary afternoon continued.
A child called for her mother.
A bicycle bell rang somewhere beyond the trees.
A dog barked near the outer walking loop.
For the first time since moving to this neighborhood, I understood something about the place that nobody had bothered to tell me.
People here knew exactly what Brant was capable of.
They were simply more afraid of his father than they were concerned about what happened to me.
I pushed one trembling hand against the gravel.
I wasn’t going to stay down forever.
But before I could lift myself, Tyler crouched closer with his phone.
And what he said next made me realize that the humiliation wasn’t finished.
Tyler crouched beside me, holding his phone so close that I could see my own reflection on the screen.
My hair was tangled against my cheek. Dust covered the sleeve of my jacket, and one side of my backpack lay open, its torn zipper exposing the sketchbooks scattered across the gravel.
He smiled at the camera.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Tell everyone how terrible we are.”
I tried to push myself up.
My stomach tightened painfully, and I immediately dropped my hand back onto the ground.
Tyler laughed.
“What’s wrong? You were pretty confident a minute ago.”
“Leave her alone,” someone said.
The voice came from behind the pavilion.
For a moment, I thought I had imagined it.
Brant turned his head.
A man in a faded blue maintenance uniform stood near the path leading toward the tennis courts. He was probably in his late fifties, with gray hair beneath a baseball cap and a pair of work gloves tucked into his back pocket.
He held a small toolbox.
I recognized him as the maintenance worker who had been operating the mower earlier.
Brant gave him an irritated look.
“Did you say something?”
The man hesitated.
“I said you’ve made enough noise. People are trying to enjoy the park.”
Tyler stood up, laughing.
“Then tell them to go somewhere else.”
The maintenance worker looked at me.
His expression changed when he noticed that I was still struggling to breathe.
“You need to let her get up,” he said.
Brant stepped between us.
“She’s fine.”
“She doesn’t look fine.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Then mind your business.”
The older man tightened his jaw.
For a few seconds, neither spoke.
I wanted to tell him that I needed help.
I wanted to ask him to call an ambulance.
But my throat felt tight, and the pain in my stomach made every word difficult.
Then Brant turned toward his friends.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
Tyler lowered his phone but didn’t stop recording.
Mason kicked one of my sketchbooks toward the drainage ditch.
Lucas laughed.
As they walked away, Brant looked over his shoulder.
“Remember what I told you. Three streets away or thirty streets away, it doesn’t matter. This neighborhood belongs to us.”
They disappeared around the tennis courts.
