Lucas looked briefly flustered, as if he might be blamed.
But in truth, he was not worried at all.
"You fell just trying to save someone?" my father sneered, his lips curling in contempt.
He looked me up and down as if I were something filthy beneath his feet. "Are you a useless piece of trash?"
Then, my father's voice grew sharper as he pressed on, every word meant to humiliate. "I paid for you to study self-defense. Did you only learn how to fall?"
He did not care whether I was injured. All he cared about was that I had embarrassed him.
"Who knows if he really fell?" My mother suddenly cut in. "Maybe he was too scared to save her, so he pretended to fall!"
"That's absolutely despicable!"
The principal stabbed a finger in my direction, his voice ringing through the room with righteous fury.
"Is this what our school taught you?" he demanded. "To be selfish, cold-blooded, and deceitful?"
"You kept pursuing my daughter and got rejected every time," Valerie's father snarled. "You must've held a grudge, so you refused to save her!"
He kicked me again.
I hit the ground once more.
This time, Valerie's parents did not stop there. They rushed forward and began punching and kicking me without restraint.
My parents stood by coldly, watching, almost as if they were eager to join in and beat me again themselves.
Lucas laughed when he saw the scene. It seemed even he had not expected his words to work this well.
Dazed and on the verge of losing consciousness, I barely registered what was happening until a female police officer rushed in and dragged me out of the chaos.
"The case hasn't been investigated yet!" she shouted sharply. "Who gave you permission to lay hands on him?!"
"Officer, don't interfere!" my father roared. "I'm his father! He stood by and watched someone suffer. He deserves to be beaten!"
My mother immediately echoed him. "That's right. Anyone who stands by and does nothing deserves to be beaten!"
“His leg is already swollen from the fall,” the female police officer said firmly as she stepped forward to defend me. “Even if he weren’t a student, if it were me in his condition, I wouldn’t be able to save anyone either.”
“Officer, you’ve been fooled by him!” my mother immediately cut in. “He did it on purpose! He deliberately broke his leg because he didn’t want to save anyone!”