He looked at my computer.
“Still working on that little science project?”
I closed the design window.
“Yeah.”
His eyes moved toward the hallway.
Then back to me.
“You need to learn when to mind your own business.”
I frowned.
“I am minding my own business.”
He stepped closer.
For once, he didn’t smile.
“Then keep doing that.”
He left before I could answer.
I sat motionless for several seconds.
Why had his father been talking about a list?
And why had Travis reacted as though finding me in the library was a threat?
I told myself not to invent explanations.
Maybe they were discussing football.
Maybe I’d misheard.
Maybe the entire exchange had nothing to do with me.
But later that evening, I remembered something from my first week at Westbrook.
The strange look Travis had given Mason when I said my last name.
I began wondering whether the bullying had started for a reason neither of them had ever explained.
The next morning, I received an email from the school district.
It concerned a statement I had submitted several months earlier.
The email confirmed that a scheduled student safety review would proceed and that I might be asked to clarify what I had witnessed.
I read it three times.
Then I closed my laptop.
The incident involved a freshman football player named Jamie Collins.
Jamie had been hospitalized during a summer conditioning session shortly before the school year began.
I had been at Westbrook that day because Mom was helping me complete my transfer paperwork.
While passing the practice field, I had noticed several players running drills in the afternoon heat.
One of them had collapsed near the bleachers.
I saw students calling for help.
I also saw Coach Bennett arguing with an assistant about whether the practice should continue.
I couldn’t hear everything they said.
But I remembered the coach waving toward the field and shouting that someone should get the boy inside before parents started arriving.
A school nurse eventually reached Jamie.
Emergency services were called.
Later, rumors spread that Jamie had simply failed to hydrate properly.
Others claimed he’d ignored instructions.
But I had seen the water station standing behind a locked equipment gate.
I hadn’t known what to do with that information.
Dad did.
When I told him about it that evening, he asked me to write down exactly what I’d seen.
“Only what you know,” he said.
“Not what you think happened.
Not what someone told you afterward.”
So I wrote a statement.
No accusations.
No dramatic language.
Just what I had witnessed.
I submitted it through the district’s official safety reporting channel.
For several weeks, nothing happened.
Then, somehow, my name began circulating among the football players.
Travis’s behavior grew noticeably worse.
I never understood how he’d learned about my involvement.
I had assumed the report would remain confidential.
Now, reading the district’s new email, I felt an old uneasiness return.
The safety review was approaching.
And Travis had become increasingly determined to provoke me.
For the first time, I wondered whether he wanted something more specific than my embarrassment.
Maybe he wanted me angry.
Maybe he wanted me to react.
Maybe he wanted everyone to see me do something that could be used against me.
I couldn’t prove any of it.
But the possibility stayed with me.
Three days before the cafeteria incident, Leah found me sitting behind the auditorium during lunch.
I had started eating there because the backstage corridor was quiet and almost nobody used it during the day.
She stood over me with her hands on her hips.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding.”
“I’m not hiding.”
She looked at the sandwich in my hand.
“You’re eating lunch behind a stack of folding chairs.”
“It’s peaceful.”
“Noah.”
In sight.
She sat beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “Travis is getting worse.”
I looked at her.
“He’s always like that.”
“No.
Not like this.”
She pulled out her phone.
On the screen was a screenshot of a message from someone on the football team.
Most of the names had been covered, but one sentence remained visible.
Friday lunch.
Make sure your cameras are ready.
I stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“A friend.”
“Who?”
“Someone who doesn’t want to get involved.”
I almost smiled at the bitter familiarity of that sentence.
Leah continued.
“They’re planning something.”
“Maybe it’s not about me.”
She gave me a look.
“Do you actually believe that?”
I didn’t.
But admitting it felt like handing Travis another victory.
Leah touched my arm.
“Please tell someone.”
“I already have.”
“Then tell someone else.”
I looked away.
“What do you want me to do?
Spend every day in the principal’s office?”
