7. Juliet #2
Though the words are phrased as a question, it’s clear Principal Long doesn’t intend for them to be.
They’re a command and Ms. Beck knows it.
She dips her head and murmurs an agreement, but as she’s passing the corner of the desk nearest me, her chin lifts and the look she sends me is filled with exactly the same thing I gave her earlier—animosity and hatred.
Neither Long nor I speak as Ms. Beck leaves the office, but both of us note when she doesn’t shut the door entirely. With a sigh, Long reaches up and pinches the bridge of her brow.
“I’m sorry, Miss Donovan, do you mind closing the door all the way?”
I’m out of my seat and at the door in an instant, flattening a hand against the wood and shoving it until the click sounds.
“Thank you.”
I don’t offer a response as I take my seat and cross my arms over my chest. “So,” I begin. “What’s this really about?” Now that it’s just the two of us, the anxiety that lingers beneath my skin eases somewhat. Not entirely, but enough that it doesn’t sound like I’m wheezing for breath in my ears.
Long drops her hand back down to her desk and then flips open the folder with my name on it. “Ms. Beck’s unfortunate methods of communicating with students aside, I’ve asked you to come here to discuss her report.”
“Report?” My gaze snaps from her face down to the papers that spill out of the manila-colored file. “You never said there would be a report on me after I went to her.”
Brown eyes flick up to meet mine for a moment. She picks up one of the pages before her. “It’s standard procedure for students who seem to have a hard time adjusting to?—”
“I don’t need to adjust to high school life,” I say, cutting her off. “I’ll be out of here in a few short months.” Hopefully, I’ll be out of Silverwood too.
“Your circumstances are a bit unique and, yes, I understand that because of your age, you are considered a legal adult. The fact remains that you are a student under my care, and I take that very seriously.”
Cory trusts Principal Long, I remind myself, and of all of the supposed adults in my life—Cory was the first one to give a shit about me and give me a chance when everyone else hated my guts.
If anything, giving Principal Long the benefit of the doubt shouldn’t be too hard.
Yet, the longer I sit in this chair, watching as she scans page after page, the more my heartbeat thunders against my chest.
“Just say it.” I uncross my arms and lean forward. “What are those papers?” It’s hard to read them upside down, but as my eyes eat up the perfectly printed words, I catch a few words here and there.
…anger management issues…
…hostile behavior…
…authority issues…
…danger to herself and others…
I grit my teeth. What the fuck was that bitch writing about me?
Long drops the papers down and closes the folder again before steepling her fingers over the top of the folder. My gaze lifts back to hers and locks.
“Ms. Beck is worried that you may need more mental health assistance than she’s able to provide you with here at the school.”
“ What? ” The word bursts from me, unbidden.
“Morpheus Calloway has contacted me with some deep concerns that he has for you and your well-being.”
“My well-being is none of his fucking business,” I snap. “He’s not my father and he’s not even my real uncle!”
Principal Long’s eyes harden. “Watch your language, please.”
My breaths come faster. In and out. In and out.
The walls lean inward, growing closer. Like a trapped mouse locked in a labyrinth, I can picture Morpheus Calloway standing over this room in a white lab coat and a cruel cartoonish smile on his face.
He might be gone, but his presence remains behind, cloaking everything around me in his scent, his power.
“Juliet.” I can’t breathe.
“Juliet.” Is the ceiling lower? It looks lower. It’s coming down on top of me.
He’s going to get what he wants. He’ll get everything he fucking wants. He always does.
“Juliet!” I jolt, nearly toppling out of my chair as twin hands latch on to my shoulders and shake me back into the present.
Principal Long’s wide, brown eyes and fuzzy curls swaying out of the bun she has at the back of her head come back into view as she stands before me. A whimper builds in the back of my throat and by force of will alone, I shove it down, burying it where I do everything that hurts me. Deep.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “Should I call the nurse?”
“No.” Panting, I bend over, waving away her hands as I suck in air through my nose and slowly release it through my mouth.
“No, I’m okay.” I hope the words aren’t a lie, but even if they are, I’m not going to admit it.
Not here. Silverwood Public is enemy territory.
No one here will see my weaknesses. I can’t let them.
Sitting back against the seat, I repeat the breathing routine until Principal Long seems to think I’m a bit better.
Enough, at least, to retake her own chair across from me.
She slides a box of tissues closer and I eye them dubiously before pointedly ignoring their presence and returning my attention to her.
“You said you called me here to ask me some questions.” Not a question, but she answers it as if it is.
“I did.”
“Ask them.”
The two of us stare at each other for a beat, but to my surprise, she doesn’t immediately dive into a set of clinical inquiries that might tell her whether or not those words in Ms. Beck’s report —the word is foul even in my head—have any substance.
Instead, she lays a palm flat on the folder and watches me.
The clock on the wall ticks past the next period and the bell rings.
Distantly, the sound of doors opening and students spilling out into the main hall a few feet away from her door on the other side of the front office waiting area echo back to us.
When those noises have drifted off into nothing, and still she hasn’t said a thing, I give up the pretense of waiting for her any longer.
“Please.” I urge as much respect as I can into my tone.
Principal Long has never been anything but professional with me.
She does her job regardless of the scandal staining my family.
She’s never given me worse treatment and has, in fact, stood up to other teachers who haven’t been able to keep their opinions to themselves.
Respect is earned, and this woman has done everything to earn mine. I find it’s not hard to give when the other person deserves it.
“Please just tell me what he wants.” My words are quiet, but it’s clear I’m not talking about Ms. Beck or her report. Whatever power or authority those papers might bestow upon Morpheus Calloway, I know that Principal Long might be the only thing standing between me and freedom.
I’m not stupid. Morpheus has been trying to get me back for months. The calls and then the emails when I no longer had my phone. Then, showing up at the football games. Last Friday night. Now, this. It was a foolish notion to think I had more time to plan against him, to protect myself.
Before, my family and their money had given me some semblance of safety.
I’d had excuses for why I no longer wanted to visit my ‘Uncle Morpheus’.
Why going to my parents’ charity galas and parties no longer interested me.
My mother told people it was because of a disagreement that night, but she had to have known it was more.
She’d been the one to offer me those pills, the ones that made me forget, that let me sleep.
There is security in money, a power that goes beyond that of what you can or can’t have. Money means you have the ability to fight monsters in other ways. Now, I don’t have any of that. I don’t have anything but my body and the Scorpion Kings.
Principal Long looks down at the surface of her desk.
Each second that ticks by is another invisible cut to the surface of my skin, shredding my outsides, and no one will ever notice how the secrets I keep are painted right there on the surface.
I wear them not with pride, but with the inevitability of someone who has lost control once and refuses to let it happen ever again.
She speaks without looking up. “Mr. Calloway is concerned for your physical and mental wellbeing.” My chest seizes, but she’s not done. “With Ms. Beck’s report and on the advice of his lawyer, he believes it would be beneficial if you were to be placed in his care.”
“But I’m?—”
“Yes, you’re eighteen.” Principal Long guesses my next words; I’ve repeated them enough by now it simply feels like my immediate defense mechanism.
She raises her gaze. “However, if Mr. Calloway were to suggest to the courts that you are unable to care for yourself due to a mental illness, it is possible for the court to award him legal guardianship.”
Legal guardianship. The words slam into my head with all of the sweet gentleness of a runaway eighteen-wheeler big oil tank. It tears through all of my defenses and skids onto its side before exploding in a fiery blaze.
“He would have… guardianship?” Numb. I’m numb. Tingles dance up and down my arms.
She nods.
“I’d have to…” I swallow. “Would I have to live with him?”
Principal Long’s face tightens, but she answers my question.
“He would be required to care for you,” she states.
“That may mean something different, but in all likelihood, I would assume so. This…” Her hands spread over the top of the folder with my name again.
“This contains Ms. Beck’s reports along with some paperwork that Mr. Calloway brought to my attention today.
You could contest his request for guardianship, but, Juliet… ”
My lashes flicker as I picture Lex’s carriage house, the white doors along the side of the structure with the windows embedded into the side.
Despite how they look on the outside, I know from the inside there’s no hint that the house was anything but what Lex wanted it to be—a home.
A safe place for him. For Gio and Nolan. For me.
I want to go there right now. I want to go home.
“Is it true that you’re…” Long’s tone is odd, uneven, and disjointed. When I finally look at her face, she’s watching me with a strange sort of emotion filling her gaze. Pity? Sympathy? I blink.
“Is it true that I’m what?” I straighten my back and force my shoulders back.
“Juliet…” She pinches her mouth shut and then blows out a breath. “I understand the address on the form you originally filled out during your transfer was an apartment.”
Fuck.
“It burned down.” I say the words not because she doesn’t know—everyone in Silverwood knows everything big that happens, and the apartment fire was a big event for the local news. I say it because I know what’s coming next.
“I need to know where you’re staying now,” she says.
“I’m not homeless.”
“Good.” Her shoulders slump with relief. Had she been really worried about me? For the first time since I walked into the room, she offers me a small smile. “That’s good, Juliet. I will make sure that is noted in the report and any other paperwork.”
I nod my understanding, but it feels more like my head is separated from my body and acting independently. Principal Long starts talking again, words flowing from her lips, and I know I should listen, but the sound fades until all I can make out are the muffled sounds of her alto-sounding voice.
When another bell rings, Long cuts herself off and glances at the clock with a grimace. “I’ve kept you longer than I intended,” she says, standing.
I stand too and when she comes around the desk to open her office door, I lean down and grab my bag.
I watch my fingers close around the shoulder strap, but there’s no weight in my palm.
If there’s a strain in my forearm, I don’t notice.
My feet shuffle forward, one in front of the other.
Principal Long says something else and when she continues to stand there, staring at me, I realize she means for me to respond.
“Okay.” I’m not sure if it’s the answer she wants, but she accepts it with another dip of her chin.
“I may need to call you in again, but if you have any questions, you’re welcome to stop by my office anytime.”
One foot in front of the other, I move down the hall towards the front office. The walls stretch out in front of me, the ceiling expands, and no matter how many times I lift my foot and set it down again, the end where the door waits to the outside main corridor never seems to get any closer.
Then it opens and I halt as a familiar body barrels into the office in a mass of floral perfume and purple fabric. Roquel pauses when she sees me. For a moment, she looks disappointed but then she brightens.
“Juliet! Did you hear?” Her bright and loud voice pops the bubble and suddenly everything is too loud. Her voice. The copy machine behind the front counter. Mrs. Roger’s sniffling as she blows her nose now that she’s back from lunch. “Homecoming nominees have been announced!”
Out. I need out. I can’t be here.
Shoving past her and ignoring her gasp of dismay, I swing my backpack over my shoulder and I do what I should’ve done the second I walked into the office and saw Morpheus Calloway.
I run.