SOMEONE IS WATCHING
1418 Words
He found me at the side entrance
.
Not like he was waiting exactly... just there when I came around the corner. Crew Holloway sat on the low concrete wall with his camera bag between his feet and his film camera in his hands, turning it over and over like it helped him think. He looked up when he heard my footsteps.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
I stopped and looked at him. Crew sitting outside a side door most people didn’t even use meant he’d been paying attention to my routes. It should’ve felt weird, but somehow it didn’t.
“You got a minute?” he asked.
I checked the time on my phone. Dax wouldn’t be done with practice until six, so I had time.
“Sure,” I said.
He stayed sitting. I leaned against the wall next to him, not quite sitting, just there. The afternoon was cold... that sharp November kind that didn’t mess around. I pulled my sleeves down over my hands.
Crew looked at the camera, turned it once more, then set it on his bag and met my eyes.
“She’s escalating,” he said.
No warm-up. No hey I wanted to talk or this might not be my business, he just straight to it, like he didn’t want to waste my time.
I kept my face neutral. “I know.”
“Whatever she thinks she knows about your situation,” he went on, “she’s gonna use it. That’s how she operates. She collects stuff, waits for the perfect moment, then drops it.” He looked at me carefully. “She’s been watching you closer than usual this week. I’ve noticed.”
“I’ve noticed too.”
“So you get it.”
“I said I have it handled.”
He went quiet for a second, not like he believed me. More like he was figuring out how to say the next part.
He reached up and touched the camera strap around his neck...that reflex thing he did when he was thinking. “I’ve been photographing this school for two years.”
I looked at him.
“Started sophomore year. Just hallways, people, the way things look when nobody’s putting on a show.” He glanced down at the camera. “I’ve watched her do this to three other people before you.” He said it plain, no drama, just facts. “Naomi Park... she transferred junior year. Sam Brierley, some kid who left before Christmas freshman year. And a girl who used to be in Brynn’s squad two years ago. She made the mistake of being more popular than Brynn for a few weeks.”
I didn’t say anything.
“It always gets worse,” he said. “There’s always this point where it feels like it’s leveling off, like okay, I can handle this much. Then something shifts and it ramps up.” He paused. “The cafeteria thing? That was the shift.”
The tray, the milk, the video. All those shares.
“She’d been doing the hallway stuff, the little comments,” Crew continued. “But the cafeteria was big, public and recorded. She escalated because she could, because it worked, and because nobody stopped her.” He looked at me steady. “Now she knows she can go bigger.”
I stared at the concrete between my feet.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said. And he really didn’t sound like he was. Just laying it out straight. “I just want you to know someone’s paying attention.”
I looked up at him.
He looked right back.
Crew with his sandy hair and that easy face that wasn’t smiling right now. The guy who carried his camera everywhere and had apparently been documenting this school for two years like it was some quiet confession. He looked at me like he was trying to understand, not like he felt sorry for me.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why are you paying attention? You’re Dax’s best friend. You’re… in their world. You don’t have to notice me.”
He actually thought about it, like the question mattered.
“I have a sister,” he said finally. “Two years younger. I keep thinking… if it was her walking through these halls every day dealing with this. I’d want someone to notice.” He looked at the camera again. “I’d want someone to see her.”
I stayed quiet for a second.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“Okay. Someone’s paying attention.” I picked up my bag. “I still have it handled.”
He almost smiled. “Sure.”
“I do.”
“I believe you,” he said, in a tone that meant he was still deciding.
I started walking, then stopped and turned back. “Those three other people... Naomi, Sam, the girl in the squad. What happened to them?”
He met my eyes. “Naomi transferred. Sam left and I don’t know where he went. The squad girl… she’s still here. She just made herself invisible. Stopped taking up space, sits in the back of every class, doesn’t talk, doesn’t raise her hand. Turned herself into furniture and Brynn left her alone.”
I nodded.
I walked home.
Dax was back by six-fifteen, earlier than usual, still in his practice gear when he came through the door. I was in the kitchen with Willa in her high chair doing the dinner battle... tonight she was all about peas, hated carrots, and was deeply suspicious of the chicken.
“How was practice?” I asked, not looking up from the pea situation.
“Fine.” He dropped his bag, came over to the counter, and looked at Willa and the rejected carrots. “She on strike again?”
“Just the carrots, we’re team pea tonight.”
“She was team carrot on Monday.”
“She’s flexible,” I said. “A free thinker.”
He almost smiled. Got himself some water and leaned against the counter.
I put another pea on Willa’s tray. She picked it up and studied it like it was super important.
“Crew talked to me today,” I said.
His glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“After school,” I added. “He found me at the side entrance.”
Dax set the glass down. “What did he say.”
Not really a question. More like he already knew the territory and wasn’t sure he wanted it confirmed.
“He said Brynn’s escalating. That whatever she thinks she knows about my situation, she’ll use it.” I kept my eyes on Willa and the peas. “He said he’s been watching her do this for two years and it always gets worse before anyone steps in.”
Silence.
“He said someone’s paying attention.” I looked up at Dax. “He meant himself.”
Dax’s jaw tightened.
I watched it happen... that specific tension he got when he was holding something back. He looked at the counter, then Willa, then somewhere past my shoulder.
“Crew doesn’t know anything,” he said.
“He knows enough.”
Dax looked at me.
I looked at him.
We stayed like that... his jaw tight, my face steady, the kitchen full of all the things we kept almost saying and then not saying. The same stuck conversation we kept circling.
Willa banged her spoon on her tray. Hard. Once, twice, three times, like she was calling order in the meeting.
We both looked at her, she looked between us, then at Dax, then at me, and banged the spoon again like she’d made her ruling.
Something shifted in Dax’s face. The tightness stayed, but something else slipped in... something almost soft.
He looked away first.
Picked up his water and drank.
“I’ve got film study,” he said.
“Okay.”
He pushed off the counter, touched the top of Willa’s head on his way past... quick and automatic, total dad move. Then he headed upstairs.
I stood there listening to his footsteps, his door closing, and the low start of game film through the ceiling.
Willa offered me a pea.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it.
She went back to her dinner, satisfied that she’d fixed everything.
I wished I had even half her confidence.
- Writer
