Chapter 18 #2
Jalen watched him go for a few seconds, taking a deep breath before opening the door.
Reining in her anger, she entered the reception area and told them she was there to pick up Landon Hollis.
She waited as the receptionist picked up the phone and spoke into it.
She had barely been waiting thirty seconds when the door to the vice principal’s office opened, and the man in question stepped out.
“Ms. Hollis, can I speak with you for a moment before you take Landon home?” he inquired.
“Of course,” Jalen responded, going into the office to find her little sister sitting in one of the chairs across from the desk with her arms folded. It took everything in her power not to snatch the teenager up, especially with the information she’d just been given.
“Thank you for getting here so quickly,” Principal Easley, as his nameplate said, stated. “I wanted to speak to you for a moment about Landon’s recent behavior in class.”
Her little sister scoffed, and Jalen cut her eyes at her. It was in the teenager’s best interest, with the way Jalen’s anger and worry were battling to see which one would take precedence, that she remained quiet.
“She’s been disruptive, disrespectful, and this is the third time that she’s attempted to skip class.”
Jalen gritted her teeth together to keep from saying something she’d never said to her little sister before, especially in front of the vice principal.
“She’s also been given detentions she hasn’t shown up for.
Today’s event was just the icing on the cake, as I had already planned to contact you after school today, for a conference tomorrow.
I tried to give her some leeway because she was such a good student, but I’m afraid I have to suspend her for seven days.
However, I realize that would have her coming back to school on the Friday before Christmas break, and—”
“Oh, no. She’s coming back Friday, and I can assure you, Mr. Easley, it will be with a brand-new attitude and focus. Is there anything else?”
“No, ma’am. You’re free to take her home.”
“Thank you,” Jalen said as she rose from her seat and exited the office.
She could hear Landon’s footsteps behind her as they exited the building, and she did her damnedest to calm down before she got back into Rohan’s vehicle, but she knew it was a futile attempt.
Sliding in, she balled her fist up as she listened to Landon get into the back seat. She felt Rohan’s eyes on her.
“Hey, Landon,” he greeted as he drove off, and before the teenager could say anything, Jalen snapped.
“What has gotten into you?” she questioned, turning in her seat to look at her sister.
“Leave me alone, Jalen.”
“Leave you alone? Have you lost your fucking mind?” Jalen inquired, and she watched as Landon’s eyes widened slightly. She was sure the harshest curse word she’d ever used around any of her sisters, aside from Kodi, was hell.
“You’ve been skipping classes, trying to skip school, being disruptive, and not going to detention, which you got in the first place. Not to mention you’ve been communicating with some fucking man that you know nothing about. Where did you even meet him, and who is he?”
“You don’t know what I know,” Landon countered, bristling. “And it doesn’t matter where I met him.”
“Landon Farrah Hollis, if you do not tell me who this man is, I promise to every deity you will not like me.”
“He’s my dad!” Landon exclaimed.
“He isn’t,” Jalen immediately countered.
“You don’t know that. You don’t even know who our fathers are! You don’t care enough to even try to figure it out,” Landon accused.
“You’re right. I don’t, because if they cared, don’t you think they would have been here? Don’t you think they would have tried to help when things were hard? But they didn’t.”
“You’re wrong,” Landon told her through clenched teeth.
“And you’re na?ve. An ungrateful, na?ve brat who doesn’t realize that I could have let you go into the system.
I could have allowed us all to be separated, and you could have ended up who knows where, but I didn’t.
I am here. And now, I have to take off whatever days you’re going to be at home from work. ”
“I don’t need you staying with me like some prison guard.”
“I don’t trust you!” Jalen snapped.
Rohan reached over, placed his hand on her thigh, and she knew it was to calm her down, but it was not working.
“You’re going to give me whatever information you have on this man because I’m reporting him.”
“I won’t. So, you may as well mind your business.”
“Mind my…” Jalen nodded. “I’m going to mind yours when we get home. You thought not having that phone was hard on you? Wait until you have nothing to do but stare at the wall.”
“Whatever,” Landon grumbled.
“I should whoop your ass,” Jalen responded, turning around in her seat.
“Sure, go ahead. If you want to be just as much of a monster as our mother,” Landon remarked.
Jalen’s nostrils flared. “Pull over,” she requested, and she watched as Rohan glanced at her, but pulled off the road and into the parking lot of what looked like an electronics repair shop. “Give me your belt.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Baby, I don’t think you should—”
“Give me your belt,” Jalen repeated, cutting him off.
She watched as her boyfriend bit his bottom lip before unbuckling the belt and sliding it from the loops.
“Get out of the car,” Jalen demanded of Landon, as she grabbed the belt from Rohan and got out herself.
“What?” Landon questioned, puzzled.
Jalen pulled open the back door, grabbing Landon by the arm and pulling her from the back seat.
No sooner had the teenager gotten both feet on the ground than she was whooping her ass.
Landon squirmed after the first two licks to her ass.
Scream for Jalen to stop, after the next two, and it wasn’t until she was crying after the following three that Jalen tossed Rohan’s belt into the passenger seat.
Aware of the two people who had come out of the repair shop to watch.
“Let me make myself extremely clear,” Jalen started, gripping Landon’s chin in a hold that left no room for doubt in the words she was about to speak.
“The next time you show your ass, catch an attitude, disrespect me, or have me coming up to that school for some bullshit, I am going to wear. You. Out.” Jalen searched her little sister’s wide, tear-filled eyes. “Do I make myself clear?”
Landon sniffled. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Get in the car.”
She released her sister’s chin and climbed into the car, finding Rohan putting on his belt. She knew the two of them would have a conversation about it later because she needed to apologize to him for causing him to have to witness and deal with that.
Once she and Landon were both settled in the car, they continued on their journey to the apartment, and Jalen felt herself deflate and the wind leave her sails. She hadn’t known that giving someone an ass-whooping could be that tiring.