Page 3 of Off Sides

She sniffs and straightens her spine, refusing to let anyone but me see her crumble. She wipes her face, turns to face him, and pops her hip.

“Making sure my brother was okay?” she sasses him and Matt snorts a laugh into my chest before standing up and wiping his own face.

“Go to class.”

She grabs her stuff and with one more glance at Matt, she leaves.

“Come on, Matt, we have to call your mom.” Mr. Phillips doesn’t sound any more excited about this than we are.

“He needs stitches.”

Mr. Phillips stops and looks between us, concern pulling his eyebrows together.

“Stitches?”

“Evan cut him.” I lift the arm in question and the gauze I put on is already starting to leak.

“Oh!” The teacher rushes forward and grabs Matt, rushing him to the office and the school nurse more than likely. I follow behind them. Evan is nowhere to be seen and Josh is sitting on a chair.

“You okay, man?” he asks Matt, then gets up and follows us when he sees the blood dripping down his arm.

Guilt churns my stomach until I’m ready to throw up but there’s nothing to come out. I want to punch something, pace, scream, but I can’t. I have to hold it together because that’s my job. Everyone is allowed to break but me. Never me.

Being the oldest means I have to keep it together when I want to fall apart. Char and Matt look to me to stand strong during the hard times but no one is ever there when I need it.

The nurse forces me and Josh out of the room and the vice principal, Mr. Clouse, calls me into his office to call my mom.

I tell Mr. Clouse the number to her cellphone and wait while he dials and puts her on speakerphone.

“Hello?” Mom sounds tired when she answers. She’s almost done with her shift and this is day five in a row of twelve-hour shifts.

“Mrs. Carpenter, this is Mr. Clouse from Hillsbury High School.”

She sighs and I can picture her shoulders dropping.

“I’m assuming you have Mathew in your office?”

“He is up here being treated by the nurse. Unfortunately, he needs medical attention that we can’t provide. We can either have him taken via ambulance or you can come get him but it appears that he needs stitches.”

She’s quiet for a beat.

“Stitches? For what? What happened?” she demands, the exhaustion of a few minutes ago replaced with fear.

“He got into a fight with another student who had a knife. Matt got cut on his arm.”

Movement outside the door of the office pulls my attention and I watch as two police officers come in and move past the door.

Is Evan going to be arrested?

“I’m on my way, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” my mother says and hangs up.

Mr. Clouse looks at me with his arms clasped on his desk.

“Is he going to be suspended?” I chew on my thumbnail even though it’s so short it’s bleeding and sore.

“Yes,” he sighs.

My head floods with schedules and how I’m going to get everywhere I need to, like practice and school, while Matt is at home. I don’t trust him enough to be left unattended for that long. He’ll get bored and leave the house, find trouble, and probably get arrested.

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