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She doesn’t ask any questions, just does as I say, tucking the phone away. There is a line of worry between her eyebrows as she watches me, but she doesn't prod at me just yet. I’m humiliated that she has to be the one to reveal this to me, especially in such a public venue, but at least I’m not alone. I don’t know if I could handle it.
Noise in the cafeteria soon stops being just a faint buzz and becomes a dull roar in my ears. How can I go to class,walk through these halls, now that everyone knows what has happened to me?
“I need to get out of here,” I tell Elise, who nods, taking my arm and leading me toward the entryway. I keep my eyes fixed firmly on the floor, not wanting to see any more of the student’s faces or the judgment in their gazes.
We’ve almost made it back out into the main hall when a figure steps in front of us. With my head pointed stubbornly toward the floor, I see his feet first, and the disgusting old, tattered Vans covering them.
“Can you get out of the way?” I ask, raising my head, before I freeze at the sight of his all-too-familiar face.
The YouTuber grins at me, looking like every stereotype of a bully that there is, except he’s in university now, and it looks pathetic on him. He might get away with dragging people like me through the dirt online, but in real life it was going to be a different story.
Elise reacts first, striking forward like a snake, pointing her manicured finger inches from his face. “Who do you think you are, huh? That video is totally fucked up! Our lawyer is going to tear you to pieces.”
The infuriating smirk slips just a touch at the mention of our lawyer, but he doesn’t let it fade completely, tipping back his head to laugh. “No number of civil suits is going to change the fact that everyone now knows that your big brother here has a bit of an obsession with hookers.”
I can’t let Elise fight this fight for me, not with the way the entire cafeteria has gone silent to watch us. It’s not her bullshit to work through. I step forward in front of my sister, drawing my hunched shoulders up so I’m at my full height, tall enough to look down on the YouTuber with a sneer.
“It also doesn’t change the fact that you’re a leech that can only get attention by tearing down other people. Is it because you’re jealous, I wonder?”
He doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed, which makes me think that I’m not the first target that has confronted him about this.
“You rich assholes are the ones who fuck up, and I just cover it for the general public. It’s not like I’m out there causing you all to act the way you do. It just seems to come naturally.”
I take another step forward, but he doesn’t budge. “Why don’t you get out of here, and if you’re lucky, you won’t hear from my attorney.”
He shrugs. “Sure, buddy. Whatever you want. But can I ask you a quick favor first? The way you were so obsessed with that hooker… man. She must be an animal in the sack. Can I get her number now that you’re done with her?”
It happens in a flash, so quickly that my mind doesn’t even have time to catch up with my actions. The rage that had been simmering in me explodes, and I sink my fist into the YouTuber’s face, all the strength I have built from fencing powering my arm forward with such force that he staggers back, holding his nose, which is now leaking blood.
“What the fuck!” he exclaims, voice muffled by his hands.
It’s like a car crash from there, the sound of my own pulse lessening enough that I can finally hear the world around me again. Everyone’s conversations have reached a fever pitch, and when I turn around, shaking my hand off, I see multiple of them filming the altercation. Elise grabs my sleeve, pulling me hard toward the exit, almost at a run. We leave the YouTuber hunched over, still holding his face, and the rest of the crowd following us with their eyes or their cameras.
It isn’t until we pass through the main hallway and bust through the doors into the concourse, cold air slapping me hard, that Elise stops and whips round to face me.
“What is wrong with you?!” she hisses. “So many people recorded that, Andries! You could get thrown out of school!”
“I wasn't going to let him continue talking to me like that,” I tell her, still shaking my hand to ease the sting from the punch. It had happened so fast that I didn’t have time to do it properly, and my imperfect form was making me pay the price.
Elise looks frantic, and for a second I feel like she’s going to slap me, but she clenches her small fists and breathes out slowly, trying to compose herself. “You’re not a child, Andries,” she explains. “Nor do you have the luxury of being an unknown person. People know your face, and now people know that this thing with Roxanne is bothering you to the point that you’ll lash out with violence. It’s unacceptable.”
“Let it go, sis, it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“If you think for one minute that your reputation doesn’t affect mine, then you’re crazy. I’ll hear about this little punch of yours in class until I graduate, I’m sure. You really need to—”
“Sir. Ma’am.” A security guard for the school sidles up to us, causing Elise to stop her diatribe. “I need you both to come with me.”
“Wait,” I tell him. “She didn’t have anything to do with what just happened, she was just with me is all.”
The guard shakes his head. “The rector wants to see you both, so come on.”
My sister shoots daggers at me with her eyes as we follow the guard, clutching the straps of her bag like a lifeline. I do my best to ignore her, and the seed of guilt in my gut at having potentially gotten her in trouble. Elise might overstep her bounds sometimes, but she has still been here for me, in her own way.
As we approach the small brick office building where the school administration has their offices, I reach over to squeeze her arm. “I’ll take all the blame, don’t worry.”
She still looks pissed, but she swallows hard, and nods. It isn’t common for me to see my sister nervous, but the situation we are in makes it impossible for me to savor the moment for later sibling versus sibling insults.
The guard opens the ancient wooden door to the rector’s office for us, and we enter, heads lowered in an almost identical gesture of humility. At her desk, the rector scoffs, waving us forward.
