a single word in the twenty or so minutes since he’d arrived on the roof, and Eli was starting to wonder if maybe there was something wrong with him. He’d been standing still for a while, but now he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and Eli perked up, excited to have someone to talk to (other than Maizey Krokic and Anwar Gomez, who’d made the garden their lock-in home the past week and too often were grossly lovey-dovey or argumentative, and would only turn their attention to Eli to try to use him to win their arguments).
“Not feeling chatty?” Eli joked. Jordi turned, looking startled, as if he hadn’t heard Eli the three other times he’d spoken, or had forgotten he was up there. “Everything okay, man?” Eli asked. “Do you want to watch a movie?” Nothing. “I was starting to think that...” He trailed off, not knowing what to say. It didn’t seem to matter. Jordi had a far-off look in his eyes.
“I’m a bulldozer, not a speed bump,” he said, so softly Eli barely heard him over the rain pounding on the glass.
He walked toward the exit, and Eli said, “What was that, mate? I missed it. The rain, you know.” God, why had he said mate? He never said mate. But Jordi ignored him again. He crossed the entirety of the roof, down the little pathway that split the tennis courts from the picnic tables and led to the exit where Eli was chained.
Once he’d reached the door, though, Jordi didn’t respond, just turned around and faced the far glass wall where he’d been standing a moment before. “Speed bump this,” Jordi said.
“Huh?” Eli said, just as Jordi started sprinting down the path toward the glass.
* * *
Jordi had no idea what would happen when he hit the glass. It would break, he figured, and he’d stand at the edge of the roof and finally have his moment. The police or firefighters or whatever would bring up the ladder, and Marisa and Peejay would lose. Jordi would end the lock-in.
Now, of course the glass was shatterproof, top-of-the-line stuff. Jordi knew this. Everyone knew this. His body didn’t much care, though. Who knew how reliably the glass would resist shattering. Who knew how often a dud pane made it out into the marketplace, where its promise of remaining intact would likely go untested. Who knew how much the constant rain weakened it, the occasional hailstorm, the earthquakes not uncommon in the region, the wind, the slow way time undid everything. Maybe the school had tried to save money and gone for a cheaper model (this was what the future lawsuit alleged).
Jordi ran, not knowing anything but that he had to throw his body at it. Marisa had done just that, thrown her body in the way, and apparently it was all going peachy fucking keen for her. People loved a protestor? This was his protest.
Eli was yelling for him to stop. Maizey Krokic and Anwar Gomez heard his pounding feet and ceased their make-out session as he passed the little bedroom they’d made for themselves beneath a picnic table.
Jordi turned his shoulder before he hit, angling his body the way action movie heroes always did when they wanted to burst through doors. Unlike them, though, Jordi merely bounced back, falling on the floor. The pain he felt was nothing like Marisa’s, though Jordi imagined it was the same. He took most of the impact in the spot where he’d gotten a tetanus booster a few days before lock-in night, perhaps adding to the pain (maybe?). He knew he was lucky to not have burst through the glass. But Jordi was mostly disappointed he hadn’t gotten his way. He didn’t care what was good for him. He just wanted to win.
He lay on the ground for a moment, in pain and on the verge of tears. Behind him, Eli yelled, “Dude, what the hell?” Then Jordi looked up at the glass that had defeated him. It seemed unaffected, but a little glimmer caught his eye.
He pulled himself slowly to his feet, wincing. Then he felt water on his cheek. Not a lot, just the finest drop, like the hint of a mist.
Jordi stared at the glass, his heartbeat already racing. It was hard to tell where the glimmer was, except if he moved his head a certain way it caught the light. Just to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing,