The cafeteria reacted instantly, not with concern but with laughter that erupted loud and bright, the kind that feeds on surprise and spreads because no one wants to be the only person not laughing. My stomach dropped so fast it felt like I’d missed a step on a staircase. I knew that pause in his movement as he stayed on one knee, head lowered, breathing through the flare of pain shooting up his leg, but to everyone else he was just a clumsy old guy who had provided free entertainment between bites of pizza and fries.
Then came the voice I had learned to dread. “Somebody call the retirement home, they lost one,” Tyler Dawson called from the center table, where athletes and loud kids ruled lunchtime like it was their kingdom. More laughter.
Louder now. Phones lifting. Screens pointed.
I stood frozen, shame and fear tangling inside me, hating myself for the first instinct that rose up — not to help, not to defend, but to pretend I wasn’t connected to the man on the floor. And then my dad looked up. Not at the crowd.
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