my surprise, though, Taco bounces up like one of those inflatable boxing toys and squares up. He wipes his mouth, a few drops of blood dripping down his jaw as his eyes narrow to slits. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for a while to kick your ass.”
“Same here, you bitch.”
He scoffs and lunges at me, catching my chin. I hear my name, but I’m in the zone. I refuse to allow this dude to think he can lay hands on Ally. I throw a punch that he dodges, but I still hit the side of his neck. I throw my left first and get him square in the middle of his throat. He gasps for breath and backs off a bit. His eyes are on fire, but I know mine match. He flings his body at me fully and knocks me back into the grass, landing on top of me. It knocks the air out of me, and then he punches me in the eye.
And fuck, it hurts. Lights go off, and I swear, it feels like he poked my damn eye out with a stick. That doesn’t stop me, though, I somehow swing and get in another blow to his jaw, causing him to fall off me. I go to jump on him, but Aiden is there, pulling me up to my feet, his arms across my chest.
“Whoa there, buddy. Calm down. The campus police are here. Relax.”
Everything from that moment on is a blur. My adrenaline is flowing like crazy, I can’t see out of my left eye, and I can hardly breathe. I gasp for breath, and soon I’m being questioned by a police officer as I hold my eye. “He said you threw the first punch.”
I nod. “I did.”
“Yes, he did. But he assaulted me and sexually assaulted my cousin,” Ally says, and my good eye widens.
Together, Aiden and I both say, “What?”
Aiden whips his head to where the cops are with Taco, and now, I’m holding him back. Which is very hard with one hand since I’m still trying to make sure my left eye stays in my head. “You motherfucker, your ass is mine!”
Taco laughs, flipping him the bird. “Yeah, I bet it is. You love ass just like your faggot brother, you bitch!”
The cops try to settle everything down, but emotions are high. Our cop, his name is Murphy, sets me with a look. “Do you need medical attention?”
I nod, feeling sorry for myself. “If I say yes, does that mean I lost the fight?”
Murphy looks bored while Aiden scoffs. “Dude, you didn’t lose. It was a tie…that I’ll break!” he says, yelling the last part.
Murphy now sets Aiden with a look. “Do you want to go to jail?”
Aiden backs down as Murphy looks to me. “Go to the ambulance. And you, what’s your name?”
Ally pats her chest as she wraps her arm around Angie. “I’m Allison Titov, and this is Angela Paxton. We want to press charges against him.”
Angie looks terrified, but then Aiden is there, hugging her close to his body as another cop guides me to the ambulance. I don’t hear anything else as I’m being taken care of. I worry for Ally and Angie. I’m also livid about what happened to Angie, but it makes sense. She really had been acting as if something happened that night, and if I had known it was Taco, I would have kicked his ass earlier. I can’t even fathom how he could have hurt Angie—or even more, grabbed Ally by the neck. It doesn’t seem to register. Sure, he’s a fucker, but I never saw him as a threat to two women I care about very much. Soon, though, I can’t think of any of that because the verdict is in, and I need to go to the hospital.
I’m feeling more and more that I may have lost the fight.
The Force may not be present inside me when I need it the most.
When the EMT explained he thought I may have split my cornea, my dorky, weak-stomach self passed out.
The more time that passes, the more I realize I’m not the fighting type.
I bruise like a peach. Shit, I’m more like Ross Geller than I thought.
Because of my little episode, they have me under observation, and the beeping of my heart monitor is driving me fucking crazy. I don’t know why, it means I’m alive, but I know that since I can see out of my right eye as I watch the Jets