In Between Codes

Chapter 3

She closed her eyes and remembered.

It happened a few months before they left. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. 

The streets had come alive with sound and color, as if the city itself had exhaled joy. People wore rainbow capes and glitter-covered cheeks. Music pulsed from every corner. Drag queens danced on tiny pop-up stages. Couples held hands without flinching. Children, like her, ran from booth to booth collecting stickers and pin-back buttons.

Alison still remembered the man in the unicorn suit who gave her a balloon and bowed like a prince. She had laughed so hard it made her stomach hurt.

Her dad bought her a bracelet — soft silicone, in rainbow stripes — and knelt to tie it gently around her wrist.

It was, for a while, the best day of her life.

Until it wasn't.

The first thing to change was the sound.

The music didn't stop, but the rhythm began to feel thin, like it was being swallowed. There were shouts. Not of joy, but of anger — sharp, bitter, rising in volume.

Then the police showed up. Dozens. Forming a line. Then a wall.

Then came the counter-protesters — loud and vicious, pressing against the barricades. Their signs screamed slogans she didn't understand fully but felt wrong just reading. Their faces twisted with hate.

Alison felt something new that day: fear.

"Can we go?" she asked, tugging her father's hand.

But he only placed a calm hand on her shoulder.

"We're okay. We're not doing anything wrong."

She believed him.

Until someone threw a rock.

Until a bottle broke.

Until a scream split the air — and then came the rush. A sudden, violent unraveling. Panic exploded in every direction. People shouting. Pushing. Running.

Then the sting.

Her eyes burned. Her throat seized. The air had turned into fire and smoke — invisible but everywhere. She cried out, blinded, choking. She didn't know what was happening, only that it hurt and no one around her looked happy anymore.

Someone shoved into her. Her mom pulled her close. Her dad led them down an alley.

They ran.

Not because they were afraid. But because she was.

That night she cried in the shower, curled up on the tiled floor, the water trying and failing to rinse the sting of the pepper spray from her eyes.

She was furious.

Later, wrapped in a towel, her voice raw from crying, she finally asked what had been boiling inside her since they got home: "Why didn't we leave when we had the chance? Why did you stay when it got scary? Why would you do that to me?"

Her dad didn't flinch. He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed and looked at her with eyes that weren't angry — just heavy. Tired. Sad. But steady.

"Because running is how the bad guys win." His voice was calm. Unshakable.

"Those people today — the ones being loud, wearing colors, holding hands — they weren't hurting anyone. They were celebrating who they are. And when people are punished or attacked just for existing, that's not just unfair, Alison. That's wrong."