Prologue Four Years Ago #2
Mr. Kerr sat at his desk, two files open in front of him, as he droned on about responsibility.
Rajan nodded along while sneak-reading Zach’s file upside down.
Long detention record, yeah, obviously. Suspected gang affiliation, no shit.
Family on income assistance...that was interesting, considering Zach made being rich half his personality.
He’d probably stolen that fucking lighter.
“Rajan, you burned Zach with a cigarette,” Mr. Kerr said, pulling Rajan’s attention back to him.
“That’s a very serious assault.” Rajan rolled his eyes.
He hadn’t even pressed it long enough to cause any lasting damage, but clearly Zach was going to milk it for all it was worth.
“We can only move forward if you help us. Did Zach threaten you?”
So that’s what this was about. Kerr just wanted dirt on Zach. Zach, who was even more of a pain in his ass than Rajan. Rajan shifted in his seat, wincing slightly at his aching ribs. That dickhead hit like a truck.
“Rajan?” Kerr prodded. “Why’d you hit Zach? I don’t buy that it was about cigarettes.”
Now that was something Rajan was choosing not to examine. It was nobody’s business, anyway. He and Zach had been long overdue for a fight. He half glanced at the poster on the wall, which said Zero tolerance policy for inappropriate language.
He chose his words carefully. “I hit Zach because he’s a—”
Rajan then let loose a string of words so foul that the principal’s pen fell out of his grasp and rolled off the table before he managed a response.
And what a response it was. Needless to say, the conversation was over. Rajan was sent home with two weeks’ suspension, and that was that.
When Rajan returned to school, he was even more screwed. For one, he had no clue what was going on in any of his classes anymore. And secondly: Zach was back, too.
A friend informed Rajan at lunch that Zach was planning some revenge after school with his buddies. Rajan knew instinctively that these “buddies” weren’t the school variety. He’d stirred up an already tense turf war, and now, he had exactly three hours to figure out a survival strategy.
Rajan skipped next period to make a plan. Perry was his supplier lately, so he called him first. He explained the situation, that he needed a safe ride home. But instead, Perry promised to be there to fight.
“Be ready tonight,” he said, sounding gleeful, and hung up.
Of course. Perry was probably ecstatic to have a reason to get rid of Zach—he was taking half the customers at Northridge.
Just the other day, a popular girl in his class, Chandani, had chosen Zach’s cheaper product over his.
Rajan leaned his head against the wall and cursed.
He needed a weapon. Otherwise he’d be dead meat as soon as he left school grounds. He used to drag around a baseball bat for occasions like this, but that was confiscated several fights ago...
Wait.
A teacher poked her head through a doorway and told him to go to class. He pushed off the wall and obeyed. But his mind was elsewhere—coming up with a plan.
Picking the lock of the storage room was easy, with the help of a twisted paper clip. Security at Northridge was a joke. Or maybe they didn’t think anyone would have the balls to break in there, since it was across from the admin office. Rajan stole a glance that way before slipping inside.
The tiny room was littered with random shit.
Magazine boxes, plastic tubs of gym equipment, Hula Hoops, and rolled-up posters lined the shelves.
A Swiss Army Knife, on a shelf beside a lockbox, caught his eye, and he pocketed it immediately.
The bat had to be here. This place wasn’t cleared out often—
He spotted it leaning against the farthest corner at the same time the doorknob turned.
Rajan backed away immediately, toward the wall. Nowhere to hide. He was caught. He pulled the knife out of his hoodie, not wanting it on him when they inevitably demanded he turn out his pockets.
But when the door swung open, it wasn’t a teacher. It was Simran.
Instead of putting the knife down, he froze. She blinked. And then they were staring at each other, him holding a knife, her a stack of papers.
From somewhere beyond her, Mr. Kerr’s voice sounded. “Simran, did you find the cashbox?”
Kerr’s heavy footsteps drew closer. Rajan tensed. Of course Miss Goody-Two-Shoes was running errands for the principal. He was screwed.
But Simran turned away, letting the door fall nearly closed. “I just realized, I left it in Mrs. Scott’s classroom.”
“Really?” Mr. Kerr stopped in his tracks.
“But you were here with it last. I was with you. Did you look?” His voice grew louder, as if he were trying to peek inside.
Rajan stepped out of the sliver of light and nearly bumped into a shelf—the shelf with the lockbox, the one school council used for money collection.
“That’s what I thought, too,” Simran said. “But I just remembered. When you left for your meeting, I went to Mrs. Scott’s room to get some uncounted envelopes. I think I left the cashbox on her desk.”
She sounded so sincere Rajan found himself glancing at the cashbox again to confirm it was there.
Kerr seemed convinced as well. “Oh, well, if you’re sure...”
“I am,” Simran said. “Sorry. Let’s go.”
And she closed the door firmly behind her. Click. Two pairs of footsteps faded away, and a dazed Rajan counted to thirty before picking up his bat and making his escape.
The next day, though, he was furious.
He burst into the library, the door banging against the wall so loud the librarian hissed, “Careful!” He ignored her, scanning the room. Simran sat at one of the study tables as usual.
As he made a beeline for her, Simran noticed him, too. Her eyes flicked down to his bruised jaw—the only visible evidence of what went down the night before.
He planted his hands on the table. “What the fuck do you want?”
Her eyes widened. He realized belatedly that he’d never lost his cool with her before. But he’d been thinking about this all night, and there was only one reason she would’ve done it. And it pissed him off.
“What?” Simran said. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“Bullshit. You let me leave with a knife yesterday. You could’ve let Kerr see me.
There’s no way they’d make you tutor me after that.
” He was frustrated. She’d lasted longer than all the others, and for what?
They weren’t making progress. It was a stalemate.
Why wasn’t she giving up? “What do you want? Me to be grateful? Let you talk fractions so you can get a reference letter? Or”—he laughed as the possibility occurred to him—“you want some free product, is that it?”
She just stared. It pissed him off even worse. And confused him, too, honestly. Most people would have their favour ready to ask. “Spit it out,” he snapped, “or I swear I’m going to the office right now to fess up.”
Her eyes flashed with alarm. “They’ll expel you.”
He knew that. With all his infractions lately, this’d be the last straw. But right now, it felt like the better option. He didn’t need to add her to the list of people he owed. “So?”
She looked down at the table, her expression a mask. Finally, she said, “Fine. You’re right. I do want something.”
“Which is?”
“I want you to try in our tutoring sessions. Or I’ll turn you in, and it’ll be your word versus mine.”
The knot of tension in him loosened. He sank into his seat. Threats, he understood.
Still, he was a negotiator. “I’ll try until the end of this semester. That’s it. No one will expel me for something from a semester ago, especially if they know you held on to it that long.”
Simran shook her head. “You’re underestimating Mr. Kerr’s dislike of you. We’ll go until June.”
Rajan narrowed his eyes. This fucking nerd was driving a hard bargain suddenly, for someone who only appeared to have come up with it five seconds ago. But maybe that was her game.
“I could be bluffing,” Simran added, as if guessing his thoughts. “But would it be so bad to just...try, in our sessions?”
She sounded almost hopeful. Rajan had a feeling he knew why. “Ms. Fernandez said you’ve never failed at what you do,” he said conversationally. “Guess you have that sort of rep. Don’t want me ruining it, huh?”
“That’s not true. I haven’t always succeeded.”
“Yeah? Then why’s Fernandez so up your ass?”
He didn’t really expect Simran to give an answer—it was rhetorical, really, since all the teachers were up her ass—but she did. “Once, I overheard her saying some very unflattering things about the principal. She’s been kind to me ever since. Because she’s afraid I’ll tell him otherwise.”
Rajan stared. Simran folded her hands neatly in front of her. In the ensuing silence, it felt like she was daring him to ask, Would you? And the fact that he was wondering it at all made his view of her shift slightly.
He’d thought he was in a unique position to learn the gossip in this school, like what he’d learned about Zach’s family situation recently, because he was always here after hours and between classes, doing detention and running teachers’ errands as punishment.
So naturally he overheard their casual conversations, saw the shit they left out on their desks.
But Simran did, too. Just for different reasons.
The idea of them having any similarity was disturbing. He leaned back. “Say we do it. How do I know you’ll be satisfied with my ‘trying’? Because teachers usually aren’t.”
“If you’re trying and not doing well, that’s the teacher failing, not you.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he ignored it entirely. “You’re being optimistic as hell, but fine. End of June it is.”
“And longer if you like it.”
“Longer if I—” He gaped. “You’ve got a lot of balls, you know that?”
Simran merely smiled. “Give me a pen.”
Reluctantly, he did. She opened her notebook and started writing.