The word spread faster than Ari could understand it.
He returned to school a week after the incident, escorted by his mother, her hand tight around his wrist as if anchoring him might prevent something else from breaking loose. The hallway felt different now—narrower, louder, charged with attention that prickled against his skin.
Whispers followed him.
Not loud enough to confront. Not quiet enough to miss.
"That's him."
"Be careful."
"He's the one who—"
Ari kept his head down, shoulders hunched, trying to make himself smaller. Every sound felt amplified by the knowledge that people were watching him differently now. Chairs scraped louder. Laughter cut sharper. Even silence felt hostile, expectant.
In class, the teacher paused when Ari entered. Just for a moment. Just long enough for everyone to notice.
"Ari, take the seat near my desk," she said.
The front row.
Isolation disguised as supervision.
The boy he had shoved sat on the opposite side of the room, arm bandaged more for display than necessity. He did not look at Ari. That hurt more than anger would have.
Ari tried to focus on his work, but the paper blurred. His hands trembled, the pencil slipping between his fingers. When he rocked slightly in his chair—an old habit, unconscious—the teacher cleared her throat sharply.
"Ari. Sit still."
He froze.
At recess, no one approached him. The usual chaos of running bodies and shouting voices flowed around him like water around a stone. Children clustered together instinctively, leaving a clear space around where Ari stood.
He was alone.
A group of boys glanced at him, then quickly looked away. One of them whispered something, and the others laughed nervously—not with humor, but relief that the joke wasn't directed at them.
Ari pressed his hands together, nails digging into his palms, trying to hold himself in place.
By lunch, the word had hardened.
Problematic.
He heard it when a teacher spoke to another adult near the door. Heard it when a monitor sighed as he passed. Heard it in the way his name was spoken now—carefully, as if it carried risk.
"Ari needs to be monitored."
"Ari has a history."
"We should separate him from the others."
Separated.
At the table, he ate quickly, barely tasting the food, eyes darting constantly. Every movement around him felt like a threat. His chest stayed tight, breath shallow, as if bracing for another impact.
He wanted to explain.
He wanted to tell them that the noise had hurt, that his body had moved before his thoughts could stop it. That he hadn't meant to scare anyone.
But explanations required calm. And calm was a luxury he didn't have.
By the end of the day, Ari felt hollowed out. The pressure inside him had not disappeared—it had been contained, forced down, compressed by fear.
As his mother picked him up, he slid into the car without speaking. She glanced at him, worry etched deep into her face.
"How was it?" she asked softly.
Ari stared out the window. "Fine," he said.
The word tasted wrong.
That night, lying in bed, Ari replayed the day in fragments—faces turning away, voices lowering, the space that had opened around him like a warning line.
He understood something with painful clarity.
He was no longer just a child who struggled.
He was a problem.
And problems, he was learning, were meant to be contained.