“We were at recess,” she says. “I was playing jump rope with my friend Sabrina. She’s in third grade, but today we had recess at the same time.”
The little girl behind Livy shifts, but she doesn’t come out from behind her.
“Anyway,” Livy continues, her voice getting sharper, “Eric and his stupid face kept calling her an alien and saying she needed to go back to her own land because she was eating all his American food and playing on his American ground.”
My stomach twists.
“We tried to ignore him,” she says, her eyes filling with angry tears now. “But he wouldn’t stop, Mama. He kept saying horrible, mean things to her, and it was making her so sad.”
I glance at Sabrina.
Her little chin wobbles, and she looks down at the floor.
Then Livy’s arms drop, but her hands curl into fists at her sides.
“Then, and this is the part that really made me mad, he spit in her face.”
Every bit of air leaves my lungs.
“He got so close to her,” Livy says, her voice shaking harder now, “and then he spit on her. So I pulled her behind me, and I shoved his stupid face to the ground.”
The principal shifts behind me, but I don’t take my eyes off my daughter.
“I’m not sorry either, Mama,” Livy says, lifting her chin higher. “I’m not sorry his elbow hit the ground so hard it started bleeding. He was mean, and he deserved it.”
For a moment, I can’t speak.
Because as a mother, I know I’m supposed to tell her violence is never the answer.
But as a human being?
I have to take a second to make sure the proud smile trying to crawl onto my face stays buried where the principal can’t see it.
“That was very brave of you,” I tell Livy honestly. “Defending your friend was the right thing to do.”
“Violence is not tolerated at this school,” the woman behind me says. “No matter the reason. What your daughter did wasuncalled for. She did not have to put her hands on that boy for any reason whatsoever. Your daughter is expelled.”
“I disagree,” a deep, accented voice says.
The words roll through the room like thunder wrapped in silk.
Standing, I turn to put a face to the voice, only to freeze.
A man stands in the doorway, his shoulders nearly as wide as the frame, the sharp lines of an expensive black suit doing absolutely nothing to soften the danger pouring off him. If anything, the tailored fabric only makes him look more powerful. More controlled.
More untouchable.
His dark hair is long enough to be slicked back into a neat tie at the base of his neck, and a short beard frames his jaw.
His eyes are dark.
Not brown, exactly.
Darker than that.
The kind of dark that makes a person feel like he sees too much and forgets nothing.
And right now, every bit of that terrifying focus is aimed at the principal.
