Love Just Leaves You Bruised

There is a bruise on my left shin.
A young boy ran backwards into my bicycle on the sidewalk across from the basketball court of the local park.
I had stopped to take a photo of the ice cream truck--
THE ICE CREAM TRUCK in JANUARY, FOLKS--
when SMASH, the boy rammed into me, my pedal rammed into my shin.
"Hey," I said like an authority figure.

I had seen the boy at the ice cream truck while I was getting out my phone. Two girls--age estimation 11/12--walked by the kid. One had long dark hair and was pretzel rod thin. The other girl was pretty chubby for her age. Glasses. Wearing a white spaghetti strap tank. She motioned up and down her pudgy body to the boy, "Watch out! 'Cos I'll beat you up." As far as I could tell, he hadn't done anything to provoke this girl. Maybe in school, but she almost seemed playful. The boy laughed, and she started walking menacingly back toward him. She got high off his retreat and she raised her fist at him. "I'll kick you," she said. "Take it like a man!"

Thoughts:
"Should I say something? Should I just break it up? I don't think there's real danger here, and I don't want to embarrass this girl who does't realize how unlovable she's making herself. I'd like to explain to her how polarizing and negative comments about a young boy's ability to 'take it like a man' are, but will she understand that? Will they just call ME names?"

WHAM. Boy hits bike. The girls walk on.

I take my photo, stand still for a moment, consider getting a pink panther pop, don't, bike slowly on. As I near the girls, I think about a brief word I might share with them: "Hey, girls, it's never funny or cute to be violent--even pretend violent." Or, "Why did you do that?" Or, "Respect boys. You want them to respect you." But just as I get behind them and open my mouth, the troublemaker turns around, and very hastily says, "Really sorry about that."

"It's okay," I say.

"...He just wasn't watching where he was going," she says.

"Mhmm," I say. And I continue on. She drops her shoulders a little--we both know she just tried to pin the blame for being so insecure turned rough, we both knew she needed to say sorry, we both knew "sorry" wouldn't make this bruise vanish.