Free Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven

you to justify what happened out there…”
    He’s a snake charmer, this one, but lucky for me, Principal Wasserman isn’t a fool. She cuts him off and turns to me. “I’d like to hear what precipitated the punch in the mouth.”
    My dad goes, “You punched him?”
    As evidence, Jack points to his face.
    I say, “He grabbed me.”
    “Technically, I hugged her.”
    “It wasn’t a hug. It was a grab.”
    Principal Wasserman goes, “Why did you grab her, Jack?”
    “Because I was being an idiot. I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t trying to scare her. Wasn’t trying to bully her. I wish I had a better reason, believe me.” His eyes are going,
You will forgive me. You will forget this ever happened. You will love me as all the others do.
    “Did you feel threatened, Libby?”
    “I didn’t feel great, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    “But did you feel threatened? Sexually?”
    Oh my God.
    “No. Just humiliated.”
    Even more so now, thanks.
    “Because we don’t take sexual assault lightly.”
    Jack’s mother leans forward in her chair. “Principal Wasserman, I’m an attorney, and I’m as concerned as you are—if not more so—about what’s transpired here today, but until we—”
    Principal Wasserman says again, “I want to hear from Jack and Libby.”
    Next to me, I can feel the life go out of this boy. I glance over at him, and he looks like a shell, like someone came along and sucked away every ounce of his blood. For whatever moronic reason he grabbed me, I know he didn’t mean it
like that.
    So I say, “It wasn’t sexual. At all. I never felt threatened in that way.”
    “But you hit him.”
    “Not because I felt assaulted.”
    “Why did you hit him, then?”
    “Because he grabbed me in a totally nonsexual but still really annoying and humiliating way.”
    The principal folds her hands on her desk. Her eyes are fixed on us like she’d turn us to stone, if only she could. “Fighting on school property is a serious charge. So is vandalism.” And it takes me a minute. She holds up a scan of a photograph, which I don’t need to look at because I already know what’s there. She says to Jack, “Do you know anything about this?”
    He leans forward to study the picture. Sits back again, shaking his head. “No, ma’am, I do not.”
Ma’am.
    My dad leans in. “Let me see that, please.”
    As he takes the piece of paper, Principal Wasserman says, “I’m afraid someone has defaced one of our school bathrooms with derogatory comments about your daughter. I assure you it is going to be dealt with. I don’t take something like this lightly either.” She looks at Jack again. His mom looks at him. My dad looks at him, his jaw tensing so much I’m worried it will crack in half.
    I will myself to become invisible. I shut my eyes, as if this might help. When I open them again, I’m still in the chair and everyone is staring at me. I say, “Sorry?”
    My dad waves the scan. “Do you know who did this?”
    I want to say no. Absolutely not.
    “Libbs?”
    Here’s my choice—I can lie and say no. I can tell them Jack did it. Or I can tell the truth.
    “Yes.”
    “Yes, you know who did it?”
    “Yes.”
    Everyone waits.
    “It was me.”
    It takes them a minute.
    The boy whistles.
    His mom says, “Jack.”
    “Sorry. But.” He whistles again.
    Principal Wasserman’s face has fallen, and I can imagine her sitting down with her husband tonight, telling him how kids have changed, how we break her heart, how it’s a good thing she’s almost retired because she doesn’t know that she can do this much longer.
    My dad says, “Why, Libby?”
    And maybe it’s the way he says “Libby” instead of “Libbs,” but for some stupid reason, I’m about to cry. “Because someone was going to write it.”
    And suddenly I feel naked, like I might as well be laid out on a dissecting table, insides exposed to the world. There’s no way I can ever explain to anyone other than my dad the