Chapter 2 - Two Different Stories
The first officer separated us beside a display of scholarship photographs.
Tatum sat on a folding chair with an ice pack pressed to her cheek.
She cried without disturbing the mascara under her other eye.
“I was trying to catch the fountain,” she told Officer Ramirez.
“Then Dorinda went crazy.”
“You pushed it,” I said.
Ramirez lifted a hand.
“I'll hear your statement in a minute, ma'am.”
Dahlia stood twenty feet away, wrapped in a university blanket.
Chocolate had dried in streaks down the front of her dress.
She wouldn't look at me.
The dean's assistant asked everyone to clear the room while maintenance photographed the damage.
A custodian slipped on the wet floor and caught the edge of a table.
For the first time, I understood how much worse the scene could have been.
Ramirez asked me whether I had struck Tatum.
I could have described the shove first.
Instead, I said, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she did it on purpose.”
“That doesn't give you permission to hit her.”
I hated hearing it.
I also knew he was right.
Across the room, Severin kept whispering to his wife.
Tatum reached into his jacket pocket and removed his phone as naturally as if it belonged to her.
She typed with quick, steady thumbs.
A student photographer named Harper approached Dahlia.
“I got the fountain in my wide shot,” she said.
“Before it fell, too.”
Tatum's head turned sharply.
“Delete it,” she called.
“People can get hurt by videos taken out of context.”
Harper didn't move.
Officer Ramirez requested the file for the incident report.
Meanwhile, another video had already been posted online.
Someone showed me a screen with a frozen image of my fist at Tatum's face.
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The caption read: ELDERLY MOM ATTACKS CATERER AT GRADUATION.
When I looked up, Tatum was watching me over the edge of her ice pack.
