Page 15 of I Did Something Bad
Something. I have to dosomething.I scratch his face with my right hand, and as my free hand falls to my side, right as I’m thinking that I should just let him do what he wants, because then at least maybe I’ll get out of this alive, I feel it: the long, thin bulge of my pen in my front pants pocket.
Without thinking, I pull out the pen and, in one smooth motion that six years of using this exact pen has trained my thumb and forefinger to do, twist the cool silver top, and stab the newly protruded tip into his ear.
“What the fuck!” he screams, letting me go completely. His eyes bulge to the side of his head where the pen is still hanging from his ear. Blood trickles down his cheek and onto his shirt. “You crazy Asian bitch! I’m going to—”
When he lunges for me, I kneel. And when I see him wobble forward, hands trying to grasp at air before clutching his chest, I summon the strength of every single barre class I’ve ever gotten up at 6A.M.to attend, wrap my arms around his calves, and lift him up and over the rail and toward the lake eight feet below like one of those mothers lifting a tractor off of their child.
But the sense of relief that I’m anticipating doesn’t drop, and it takes me several beats to realize that it’s because he hasn’t either. Despite the blood pounding in my ears, I’m aware that I don’t hear the splash I was anticipating. Still stunned, I’m trying to figure out what the fuck is happening when, through the railings, I see violent movement in the dark, something thrashing in the air. It doesn’t occur to me that the movement is his legs flailing about because the fucker has managed to hang on to the rail—this doesn’t occur to me, that is, until he grips my wrist with one sweaty palm, the act making me lurch forward, and I can see the full scene. I try to shake him off, but he digs his fingers under my watch to use it as a sort of hook. His eyes are huge, but not in a pleadingPlease save me, I’m sorryway, more in aYou crazy Asian bitch, if I’m going down, you’re coming with meway.
“Let me go!” I scream. His whole weight is pulling me lower, and although I’m already digging in my heels, I have to use my free hand to grip the rail. I want to reach over and bite his hand, but I’m worried he’ll use it as an opportunity to grab my hair and take me down with him that way.
My throat burns. I’m fighting too hard to spare a moment to shout for help. Thidar’s and Nay’s faces flash through my mind. Then my parents. Even Ben. Even Tyler.
“Khin,” comes Tyler’s low voice as my brain goes haywire. I blink, but before I can make out how my imagination came up withthat,there’s a heavy enclosing pressure around my waist, and a third hand comes out of nowhere and smacks the guy’s fingers with a large rock. He lets go and I stumble forward, but the pressure around my center tightens and stops me from falling over, too.
There is a thud before there is a splash.
I squint into the dark. With only some dim lamplight at my disposal, I can just make out the small trickle of blood already spreading out in the water.
I wait for him to scream. To splash around. To call me a fucking bitch again, but he just floats there, facedown.
My mouth makes a gasping motion, but there’s no sound.
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no. I watch in mounting horror as the half of my pen that was jutting out from his ear floats out and sinks into the murky lake water. Myfavoritepen. My favorite pen… that has my fingerprints on it. Suddenly, everyLaw & Order: SVUepisode I’ve ever watched (and I’ve watched all of them) starts replaying on fast-forward in my brain. DNA. My DNA will be under his nails. Oh my god. Maybe there’ll be a strand of hair stuck in his shirt fibers. Oh dear god, a single strand of hair is going to be my downfall. Sure, I can say that it was self-defense, but that part comes later, after live footage of me being cuffed and escorted out of my building has aired on every news channel. Somewhere out there is a no-nonsense Myanmar Olivia Benson who is going to find that hair and meticulously bag it and track—
“Khin.”
For a brief, hallucinatory moment, I wonder if that’s him talking. If maybe I’m staring at someone else’s body in the water, and the guy is actually still standing right beside me.
But it’s not him. The pressure around my torso eases, and Tylerrounds and steps in front of me, almost shielding me from the scene in the water.
Tyler. Tyler’s here. Tyler… saw what just happened.
“He was going to hurt me,” I whisper.
The words have to be dredged out but as soon as they are, I race to the rail, lean forward, and retch, my body hurling vomit like it’s physically trying to repel any traces of the past few minutes. My knees go weak and I have to grab the top wooden bar, but still I can’t stop crying and throwing up at the same time.
“I’ve got you,” says Tyler’s voice.
He reaches out, probably to hold back my hair which has come out of its ponytail, but the instant his fingers touch my back, I whirl around and scream, “Don’t touch me!”
He lifts his hand and steps back. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”
“He was going to hurt me,” I repeat.
Tyler nods. “I know.” He swallows. “I saw it. I… saw everything.”
Right. My brain tries to fill in the blanks, the piecesIdidn’t see: Tyler grabbing a rock, running over, grabbing me to keep me from falling over, hitting that guy’s hand so he’d let go.
My shocked laughter vibrates in the air as my last functioning brain cells try their best to process the information at hand. “Tyler… I think we killed someone,” I say as my mind thinks,How is this a sentence I’m actually saying?
He leans over the railing and stares at the corpse, his eyes gradually widening until they’re as gawking as possible, and then he rubs at them as if trying to scrub away the sight he’s just taken in. “Okay, let’s not panic,” he says, voice dropping. “We need to figure out what to do next. Let’s go back to the set, and we can call the authorities and explain to them what happened.”
“Which is what?” I ask, wiping my chin with the back of my hand. His head tips approximately twenty degrees to the left.
“What do you mean? The truth. That it was self-defense.”
I know what he’s saying is the legally correct thing to do, but my brain’s already in crisis management mode, and I’m trying to come at this from the perspective of a complete stranger. “Do we have proof?” I ask out loud.
