I dropped to the ground next to Win. He was dazed, his chin, his nose, his forehead bleeding. Blood was in his eyes, and he reached blindly for my hand. I thought of what Buddy had said about my father losing customers and my mother losing friends. That was not my fault. Not my business. My business was the bruised and beautiful man in front of me, hurt by my own kin.
* * *
I thought Greg should take Win to the hospital. The wound on his forehead was bleeding badly and he seemed dazed, looking through me instead of at me. I worried his cheekbone might be broken. Maybe his nose, too, the way it was gushing blood. But Greg wanted to take him back to the school. He and Chip and I managed to get him to Greg’s car and lay him across the back seat. Chip got in with him and pressed a handkerchief to the worst of his wounds. I tried to get in the front seat to go with them, but Greg barked at me.
“No! If you want to help, get Curry to take you back to the school,” he said. “Get the first-aid supplies ready. If you want to help, that’s what you can do.”
So I rode back to the school with Curry, thinking, At least Greg isn’t sending me back to the Charleses’ house. At least he’s letting me help.
Greg beat us to the school and by the time Curry and I rushed in, he and Chip were settling Win on the couch in the lounge. I ran to where Greg kept the first-aid supplies and soon he and Chip were dressing the wounds while I sat on a chair next to Win. He squeezed my hand and winced in pain. Greg made him some concoction to drink, and Win drank it down quickly, wincing at the taste or the burn, I didn’t know which.
“Don’t you think he should go to the hospital?” I asked Greg quietly as Win’s eyelids fell shut.
Greg shook his head. He sat back in his chair, hands on his knees. “Once, a few years ago,” he said quietly, his eyes on Win, “a civil rights worker I knew was beaten like this at a protest. We took him to the hospital and his attackers were waiting for him in the bushes outside the hospital doors. They jumped all of us. That fella didn’t make it.”
“My brother wouldn’t—”
“Your brother wouldn’t what, Ellie?” Greg said, anger in his voice now. “Hurt a fly? Well look what he did here.” He nodded at Win. “I don’t want him calling his friends to meet him at the hospital to finish what he started. All right? Win’ll be safer here.”
I didn’t know what Greg gave Win in that drink, but whatever it was knocked him out and I was glad he was no longer in pain. I started to get to my feet, but Greg reached over, his hand on my arm to keep me seated.
“You’re going to have to leave Flint, Ellie,” he said.
“No. Please, Greg! Let me stay.”
“I might be able to find you a place in one of the other counties outside North Carolina. I know they lost a few volunteers in Virginia, so maybe—”
“No,” I said again. “Don’t make me leave.”
Greg gazed at me, his face serious. He nodded toward Win. “I know you love him,” he said. “And I know he loves you. He told me as much. But all you can bring him is trouble. He has a good head on his shoulders, but he’s human. We’re all human. We fall in love, we lose all sense of reason.”
“I’ll end it with him,” I promised, wondering if the words were a lie even as I said them.
“You’ll tell him it’s over and he’ll talk you out of it,” Greg said. “I was young once. I know how this plays out.”
I didn’t know what to say. How to fix this. How to get what I wanted without hurting anyone.
“Curry can take you back to the Charleses’ house now and then drive you home to Round Hill in the morning,” Greg said. When I didn’t respond, he added, “If you love him, Ellie, you’ll leave him.”
I felt my eyes burn. I looked down at Win again. The face I loved, bandaged and battered. Blood was seeping through the gauze taped to his chin. I knew in my heart Greg was right. How many more beatings would he have to endure to be with me?
I looked up at Greg. “I’ll go,” I said.
Chapter 39
Curry and I barely spoke on the drive from Flint to Round Hill in the morning. He suggested I ride in the back, but I refused. I smoked one of his cigarettes, exhaling with a vengeance. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so despondent. I felt as though I was losing everything that mattered. Win, yes, of course. But all my new friends, too. The power of the protests. The song circles. The people who invited me into their homes for lemonade and conversation. The children who held my hand on the dirt road as Win and I canvassed. I wasn’t just moving from one town to another. I was moving from one world to another, and I wasn’t ready to make that move. Not at all.