The ceiling seemed much farther away than it should have been.
She heard a few startled voices, followed by the hollow sound of a volleyball bouncing across the court.
Then everything became strangely quiet.
She was aware of blood against her fingers.
Aware that her nose hurt.
Aware that something uncomfortable was spreading behind her forehead.
And beneath all of it was a single bewildered thought.
Why did she do that?
Hazel had walked away.
She hadn’t insulted Sloane.
She hadn’t challenged her.
She hadn’t even raised her voice.
Yet somehow, Sloane had decided that an apology and a quiet retreat weren’t enough.
Coach Reese rushed across the gym.
She had seen enough to understand that something serious had happened, and her face showed immediate concern as she knelt beside Hazel.
“Don’t get up yet.
Stay with me.”
Hazel tried to answer, but her voice caught.
She blinked several times, hoping the dizziness would pass.
Coach Reese kept her attention focused on the injured girl.
She asked Hazel to remain still and tried to determine whether she could respond clearly.
Hazel could hear the teacher speaking, but concentrating on the words required more effort than usual.
A growing pressure behind her forehead made the lights seem painfully bright.
Across the court, Sloane stood with her arms folded.
She hadn’t moved to assist.
She hadn’t asked if Hazel was all right.
Instead, she looked toward Coach Reese and adopted an expression of irritation.
“It’s volleyball, Coach.
People get hit.”
Coach Reese turned her head.
“You weren’t playing a point.”
Sloane’s response came immediately.
“She was in my way.”
“That doesn’t make this okay.”
The firmness in Coach Reese’s voice brought another wave of silence over the students.
It wasn’t an ordinary exchange between a teacher and an athlete.
It was a direct challenge to the explanation Sloane had already begun constructing.
Hazel heard the words through the throbbing pain in her head.
She wanted to say that she had been walking away.
That Sloane had waited until her back was turned.
That Brooke had warned her not to throw the ball.
But her body was demanding all her attention.
She remained seated on the hardwood, keeping her hands close to her face as Coach Reese called the school nurse.
The teacher instructed another student to keep everyone back and give Hazel space.
Around them, the gymnasium felt unnaturally still.
Some of the students looked frightened.
Others seemed uncertain what they were supposed to do.
Hazel wondered whether any of them would tell the truth if someone asked.
She knew what they had seen.
The question was whether they would be willing to admit it.
Her eyes moved toward the players near the equipment cart.
Brooke was among them.
Hazel remembered hearing a warning just before the impact, though the sound had seemed distant and confusing at the time.
She wanted to believe Brooke would speak.
But she also knew how much influence Sloane held over the volleyball team.
The two girls who had previously complained were no longer part of the program.
That fact had not escaped anyone’s attention.
Hazel’s chest tightened.
For the first time, she was afraid the injury itself might become less important than the story Sloane intended to tell about it.
The thought was almost unbearable.
She had worked too hard to regain her strength to be injured and then blamed for what happened.
She had spent months learning to trust her body again.
Now she was lying on a gym floor because someone had decided to make her the target of an unnecessary strike.
And the girl responsible was already calling it an accident.
Hazel pressed her eyes closed for a moment.
She could hear Coach Reese speaking to the nurse over the phone.
The surrounding students had begun to whisper.
Sloane remained nearby.
Hazel didn’t know whether anyone would eventually speak on her behalf.
But as she opened her eyes, her attention drifted toward the gymnasium entrance.
And there, mounted high above the doorway, she noticed something small and black.
A security camera.
Hazel remembered the camera because she had seen it installed the previous year.
Equipment had disappeared from the gym’s storage room, and the school district had responded by improving the surveillance system.
Older cameras covered parts of the hallways, but the new gymnasium camera had a particularly useful position.
From its elevated location above the entrance, it overlooked the central court and a substantial portion of the surrounding practice area.
There were no large objects blocking its view of the place where the confrontation had occurred.
Hazel had never paid much attention to it.
On ordinary days, she barely noticed that it was there.
