After School Read online

and so was a year younger than the other sophomores and worse yet, looked young for his age, despite his height. He never had a chance against an oversized bully. She opened her eyes again and saw Caleb staring up at the dusk sky.

  “Why now?” She turned his head to look him in the eyes. “He’s been bugging you for months, but he’s never done anything like this before.”

  “I went to the teachers about it the other day and they said they’d suspend him. After school that day, he approached me and told me that I’d regret being a coward and telling a teacher. He was so mad. I could tell. I think he was going to miss a big game because he was suspended. He said his team would lose without him. I think I heard they did too. That must be why he was waiting for me today. He probably would’ve beat me up then but there were too many people around then and so I was able to walk away.” Caleb began to cry.

  Dayana couldn’t take seeing him like this. “Hey, don’t give him the satisfaction. This is what he wants. Once the ambulance gets here, they can take you to the hospital and we’ll get you fixed up. You’ll be okay.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not okay. I won’t ever be okay again.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me, Caleb?” She scanned his battered body, paying particular attention to the blood pooled underneath him. It seemed quite extensive even for Caleb’s visible wounds. Was there a wound hidden under the scraps of clothing remaining on his body? She felt her eyes drawing to his abdomen. The blood had to have been coming from there. Then she noticed the awkward way that Caleb was seated on the bench. She placed her hands over her mouth. The truth smacked into her with a relentless force. She’d assumed his clothes were just ripped off to humiliate him. In all the confusion of seeing Caleb so bloodied, she’d never considered that Garret was capable of a deeper violation. She felt fury building up inside of her. Who could do that to somebody as kind and sweet as Caleb?

  “Oh God! Caleb, no!” She wrapped her arms protectively around him. “Did he . . . did he force you to do something?” Heavy breaths prevented her from uttering the horrible word.

  Caleb tensed up but didn’t pull away.

  She loosened her grip to avoid making him uncomfortable. “He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t want to.”

  Caleb stared straight ahead. “He said that telling on him was something a sissy would do. He wanted to show me how to be a man.” His fists tightened. “There was an empty beer bottle on the ground. He picked it up and told me that even the bottle was more of a man than me, and that he’d show me why.”

  A chill shot up Dayana’s spine. She angrily gripped the bench.

  Dayana could see the sweat forming on his neck as he recalled what happened. “Caleb, I’m so sorry.” She cupped his hand in hers. “Somebody should’ve been able to stop this. Someone should’ve seen. I should’ve seen. I was here studying. How could this happen and nobody see it?” She felt a breath escape. “If I had left a little bit earlier, maybe I would’ve heard you scream and I could’ve stopped it.” She looked at how far the street was from the courts. There was no way anybody could’ve seen. Garret must’ve known that.

  He looked her in the eyes. “You can’t help me anymore. Nobody can help me.” His words sounded so empty to her. They were totally devoid of the care that usually filled his voice.

  Dayana moved closer to him. “You have to let me at least try.” His eyes looked so lifeless as she stared into them. It cut her deeply to see what he’d been reduced to in the hours since she’d last seen him.

  Caleb lowered his folded arms to his lap. “It’s so cold,” he said, more to himself than to her.

  Dayana scanned him head to toe. His almost naked body was shivering. She then looked at her watch. Almost five o’clock. It’d been over five minutes since she’d called for help. They’d be there any minute. After all the humiliation Caleb had already suffered, he deserved at least some amount of dignity.

  She shot a glance at the court. “Are your clothes still in there?”

  He nodded. “But they got torn up. They’ll never stay on me now.”

  “Even if there are a lot of holes, it’ll be better than going outside like this. You’ll freeze to death. I’ll go get them. ”

  She took a few steps back, keeping her eyes carefully trained on Caleb as she dashed to the basketball court. It was hard to see more than a few feet in front of her with the field lights turned off. She felt around until she found his jacket, undershirt, pants, and sneakers on the ground in a pile under one of the hoops. Even with minimal light, she could see that they were blood-splattered. “How could that bastard do this?” She kneeled down and gathered them in her arms. Caleb was right. They were unusable – the undershirt was torn in two, the jacket’s sleeves were ripped off, and the pants were splitting at the seam.

  She then looked over and noticed a dark silhouette at the corner of the court. Confused, she went to investigate. She recoiled and backed up.

  Garret lay dead at the corner of the court. His eyes and mouth were half-open and blood had pooled around him. The handle of a small blade protruded from his neck.

  She gasped for air a moment. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. Even a bully like Garret looked pitiful with blood oozing from his lifeless body. She placed her hands over her mouth and muttered a barely audible, “Oh my God!”

  She pushed herself to her feet and dashed out of the court, dropping the clothes. Caleb was still seated nervously on the bench.

  She ran to him and kneeled down to eye level with him. “Caleb, Garret’s still in there. I think he’s dead.” She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Caleb, you have to tell me what happened. If there’s an ambulance coming, they’re probably going to send police to investigate what happened. They’re going to find him.”

  Caleb looked away. “I don’t remember exactly what happened. I just remember that he wouldn’t stop. He just wouldn’t stop. . .I only wanted him to stop doing it. Then he did. I thought it was over, but then he took out the knife and held it to my throat. He told me that he was going to cut off my balls and take them as a prize. He said they didn’t do me any good anyway. He was laughing at me. And then I just thought of somebody finding me dead and naked without my…” He sobbed. “That’s how everyone would always remember me. A lot of people get bullied. You just blend in. And I guess when he attacked me, I thought I deserved it for not being strong enough to fight back.”

  “Caleb.” She put her arm around him. “Never think you deserved this.”

  “I couldn’t ever stop him before. I thought maybe I was just paying the price for being a wimp. But that knife looked so sharp. I don’t think he thought it would kill me. He wanted me to suffer with living through it. But I knew I’d bleed to death if he cut me. I didn’t want everyone at school to always think of what he did to me when they remembered me. The papers, the news, they’d all make sure nobody ever forgot what a loser I was by telling people how I died for weeks. I couldn’t let him do it. So I pushed him off of me. I was shocked that he actually went back. He dropped the knife and I remembering picking it up. He looked up at me and said that I looked like such a girl holding that knife. He said that I didn’t have the balls to use it and started laughing at me. He said I looked so stupid. I just couldn’t take him laughing anymore. I was so tired of his laughing. So I shoved the blade into his throat and he finally stopped. I never saw him look so shocked. Then I got up and I grabbed whatever clothes I could and walked out. It was so hard to move and I thought I was going to fall but you found me.”

  Dayana shivered as she stared into Caleb’s eyes. She looked for signs of guilt but she wasn’t sure if she could see any. Could she even blame Caleb if he was glad that he’d done it? After what Garret did to him, she could understand perfectly why he’d do it. Still, she couldn’t picture Caleb going after anything with a knife. Her stomach turned even more thinking about what it must’ve taken to push him to it. She wondered how all of this could’ve happened so close to the school and yet nobody
saw a thing? She looked over at Caleb. He looked so broken. She worried about what he would do if left alone.

  The sound of the ambulance siren blared into the silence.

  Dayana could hear the paramedics’ voices. She grabbed Caleb’s hand. “The ambulance is here.”

  “Are you going to tell them what I did?” He sighed and closed his eyes. “They’re going to ask you to tell them everything, you know.”

  Dayana froze. Caleb’s story replayed in her head. She wondered if she could trust it. She never took the time to know Caleb but from what she did see, he seemed honest. She had seen Garret harass him many times and his visible injuries seemed to back up his story. On the other hand, he had spelled out what he did so clearly. Justified or not, Caleb killed somebody. She closed her eyes and rubbed her brow and prayed for some sort of guidance until the warring thoughts in her head broke for one side or the other.

  “I’m going to tell them…” She exhaled and turned to look him in the eyes. “That I saw Garret attacking you and then I saw you defend yourself.”

  “But that’s a lie.”

  “It’s only half a lie. Maybe I didn’t see it, but as far as I’m concerned, you did what you did in self-defense. Garret would have killed you if you didn’t. I refuse to let you be punished for