Breaking Rules Read Free

wasn’t going to say a word, he suddenly opened his mouth and licked his bottom lip.
    “Were you texting just now ?”
    “ Excuse me?”
    “When you hit me,” he said, raising his voice , “you were on your phone, weren’t you?”
    “I was only checking —”
    “You could’ve killed me!”
    “Yeah, I get that,” I said. I took another step toward him, but he backed away. I noticed with his step that he had limped, and it almost seemed as though he had to drag his left leg with him as he moved. My heart grew heavier as I watched him struggle to make it back to the sidewalk.
    “You’re hurt, ” I said quietly and mostly to myself.
    “ Imagine that.” The thick mockery in his voice rattled me as he limped away.
    “ Give me a second.” I turned back to my car to get my phone. As soon as I had my back to him, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Trying to keep my nerves from coming through my voice, I said, “I’ll call an ambulance.”
    “Yeah, don’t bother. I think you’ve done enough.”
    “ Don’t be ridiculous,” I hissed at him. “You’re hurt, and you need to see a doctor.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “ You’re not fine !”
    “I’m great.”
    “You’re limping!”
    “So what?” he snapped, and I jumped as he turned back to me with a pointed finger. “There is no excuse for what just happened here.”
    “ Yeah, no joke,” I said. “You were standing in the middle of the road!”
    “And you weren’t paying attention!”
    “ Okay, dude, listen,” I said, “I don’t know what to say.” I clenched my teeth. “What happened here was not my fault. Now, I can call for help—”
    “I don’t want your help,” he said , dropping his hand. “Just go.”
    “ Are you serious?”
    “ Go,” he said, turning to walk away. “And here’s a grand idea: put your phone away before you kill someone.”
    I stood and watched him for a minute, feeling my chest rise and fall a little heavier with every, broken breath. The man kept limping away, slowly making his way back through the park gates and farther from the road. He disappeared down a side-path a few seconds later, and I turned back to my car.
    What was I supposed to do? Call the police? Call Dad? I had to let someone know, right? Keeping it quiet could seriously come back and bite me in the butt. But what if it didn’t? Could I just get in my car and pretend it had never happened?
    At a complete loss as to what I should do, I slid into the driver’s seat and dropped my phone into my purse. I buckled my seat belt, started the engine, and with the heavy weight of a guilty conscience, I put the car into drive.
    “Rule number ten,” I said quietly to myself as I slowly pulled away. “Keep moving forward.”
     

    I didn’t exceed thirty-five miles an hour the rest of the way, although part of me wanted nothing more than to gun it. I was torn between my fear of hitting another pedestrian and being followed by the psychopath I’d just left injured back at the park. I would be lying to say that there wasn’t a tiny part of me that feared he had just gone back into the park to get his own car, only so that he could follow me, wait until I got out of mine, and then  get his revenge by running me down. Some people were just vengeful that way.
    I was relieved when I finally arrived at school and happy that I didn ’t have to weave in and out of dozens of cars to get to my spot. I was used to fighting an endless line of traffic as my fellow classmates scrambled into the lot each morning, but there were very few cars parked near the school entrance when I arrived.
    A creature of habit, I parked in my assigned , weekday spot. I dropped my head against the steering wheel and rested there for a few minutes.
    I stretched my neck from side to side. With closed eyes, a few deep breaths, and a slow count to ten, I managed to slowly calm my nerves, collect my thoughts, and pull myself back into a volunteer-mindset.
    Guided by my ten