“Lance, the sheriff would like to have a word with you in the hall.” Lance’s stomach threatened to release the meager meal of stale toast he had consumed for breakfast. Without looking at anyone else or acknowledging what Mrs. Murphy had said, Lance rose from his seat and walked numbly over to the thick oak door that was partially open.
Sheriff Dodd waited a few feet outside the door, his hands hanging at his sides, and for the first time Lance realized he wasn’t wearing his uniform. Instead he had on relaxed jeans with a black button-up shirt that had the Elinex County Sheriff’s insignia on the left breast pocket. His face was stone-like and he stood motionless as Lance clicked the heavy door shut behind him. The hallway of the first floor was empty and silent but for the murmurings of other teachers behind closed doors of several classrooms and the occasional exclamation of a child too eager to answer a question.
“How are you, Lance?” The sheriff stayed where he was and did not kneel before him as he had in the driveway several months ago. Lance was glad. The tension in the air was already rising, and he didn’t want the sheriff to move closer to him and press any answers from him that he couldn’t divulge. Mustn’t divulge.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
Lance nodded and looked at the pattern in the carpet at his feet. There were coils of red ivy mixed with black backgrounds. He wished the ivy would come to life and pull him down. Down into the darkness where he wouldn’t have to answer questions or look forward to a long bus ride home, to the fists that would eventually meet him like old friends.
“Listen, son, I know what’s going on at your house. I know your daddy hits you. I know he hit your mom. I want to help you. I can bring you somewhere safe. You just have to tell me that you want help, that’s all. Just say the word.” The sheriff’s eyes were pleading now, full of concern. His eyebrows were drawn together and wrinkled up in the middle, as though they had collided and were smashed into a different shape.
Lance felt words rising up within him again. Words that were like poison, like the drugs Sheriff Dodd had just talked about in the classroom, loathing and vile things that only wanted to come out. Lance could imagine gagging as he tried to get his tongue to form them; he could see himself vomiting them on the red ivy at his feet. He could see the sheriff nodding and leading him away to an office somewhere, and then to a house that held other kids like him. He could see his father coming to pick him up and the sheriff avoiding his gaze as he was led away, his father’s hand already crushing and breaking the bones in his fingers. He could see a pale moon hanging over the low and dark curve of the Mississippi. His father straining to hold something on the riverbank under the flowing brown waters. He could see his face under the current, his mouth open in a scream and his eyes wide.
Lance lurched forward, his legs turning to jelly beneath him, and the sheriff caught him before he fell to the floor. Lance blinked and drew in a deep breath as he looked into the sheriff’s face. Without thinking, he shook his head sharply from side to side and looked away, ashamed of nearly passing out in front of the older man. The sheriff’s hands gripped his shoulders, holding Lance there while the sheriff studied him further.
Before he could pull away or stop him, the sheriff reached up and tugged the collar of Lance’s shirt away from the white skin of his neck and shoulder. The sheriff’s eyes lost their dull look of concern and slowly began to gleam with a light of their own when he saw the edge of the bruise that crept up from Lance’s collarbone.
The sheriff released his hold on Lance and turned from him as he stalked away down the hall, his feet thudding down, crushing the red ivy. Lance put his hand on the wall to steady himself and tried to call out as the sheriff swung around a corner and disappeared out of sight.