24. Juliet
24
JULIET
“ Y ou want to tell me why you attacked that student, Miss Donovan?” Principal Long has mastered the art of the disapproving scowl. Despite her relative youth for a principal, her face is a mask of deep lines and narrowed slits for eyes.
I shrug. “I was defending myself.”
“Hmmm.” The sound that escapes her makes it clear she’s not buying my story—even if it is the truth. A moment passes and then another. Silence fills the office and I have to smile because I know what she’s doing. It’s something my father always preached about. People feel uncomfortable in silence, and if you let them sit long enough they’ll weave enough rope to hang themselves just by talking. I’m not uncomfortable in silence—not anymore. I find peace in the silence of the world because it’s certainly not silent in my head.
Principal Long disrupts the quiet in the room first. Leaning forward as her chair creaks, she clasps her hands together on the edge of the desk that separates us. "Grief is hard for everyone,” she states.
I close my eyes and inhale deeply, trying not to allow myself to act on the annoyance those words bring out in me. "I'm not grieving," I reply, opening my eyes and fixing her with a bored look. "No one's dead."
Yet.
I’d wanted to though. I’d wanted to burn her skin off. Scar her for life, maybe even slit her throat. The power I’d wielded over her had been a drug, and now that I’m coming back down from the high, I realize how dangerously close I’d gotten to the point of no return.
It would be my luck that a Scorpion King had pulled me back from the edge.
Had I always been this way or is this what happens when everyone abandons you and you find yourself in the gutter, struggling for survival?
"There are other types of loss, Juliet," Long says.
On a good day, I don't like it when people look at me with sympathy. Even if it's kindness that spawns the emotion, it feels far too close to pity for me to feel even remotely comfortable with it. Considering Principal Long had been on a wrathful war path up until we crossed the threshold of her office not but two minutes ago, this is too much of a one-eighty for me.
Sitting back in the thinly cushioned and frayed chair that's positioned before her desk, I crack my neck to one side, stretching the muscles there. "What's the verdict?" I ask. "What's my punishment?"
Expulsion? Suspension? Being strung up by the angry townspeople and beaten with the business end of a bat?
Ironically, that last option doesn't scare me as much as it once might have. Pain is an emotion. It's a sensation. Right now, I feel like anything would be preferable to this icy numbness that's crept up my insides and flooded my veins.
Long sighs and props her elbows up on the edge of her desk, steepling her fingers together before she leans down and rests her chin on them. Her eyes are too knowing, too compassionate. They make me feel like bugs are crawling up my spine and all over me, but always in places I know I won't be able to reach. No scratching can make the sensation go away. She sighs, the sound an echo of her disappointed expression. “I don’t know yet,” she admits.
Fuck. That can’t be good.
"Of course, you'll return to ISS for the rest of the week," she continues, reaching forward and ripping a tissue from the box stationed on the corner of her desk.
She offers it to me and I glare at her, but take it anyway. I'm not going to fucking cry, but I use the offering anyway, balling the material in my fist and crushing it, wishing that it were a good stress ball.
"I understand that things aren't easy for you here at school and I know you've got other things going on, but what you did today can’t happen again.” I nod my agreement. What I almost did today can’t be repeated—certainly not in public. Nolan was right. If I’m going to lose control like that, then it needs to be somewhere out of the public eye. I need to have plausible deniability.
“Being out of control isn't good for your mental health," Principal Long says.
I almost smile at that comment as I loosen my hold on the tissue and then flatten it out on my thigh. Staring at the white, gauzy material, I slowly and methodically begin to rip it into lines, up and down, up and down. Despite what Principal Long may think, I wasn't out of control today. It was the opposite. I haven't felt that in control of myself in a long time.
Riiip. Riiip. Riiip.
"I want you to have regular sessions with our counselor here at school too. She's trained in more than preparing students for what happens after school. She's a licensed therapist."
I snort. "You think therapy is going to help me figure out my fucked-up life?"
"I think you're on a very dangerous path, Juliet," Long replies, eyeing me. “Your whole world has shifted in a very short span of time. You’ve gone from relying on friends and family to…” She drifts off.
“To not having any friends or family?” I guess aloud, arching a brow in her direction.
Her lips press together briefly before she starts talking again. "Something needs to change or you'll find yourself in trouble when the real world hits."
My hands still over the ripped tissues in my lap. "The real world has already hit me.” It hit me months ago on my eighteenth birthday when I lost everything. Literally. No home. No parents. No boyfriend. No friends. No money.
The old Juliet Donovan died that night and sometimes I think I’d have been better off if I’d died with her.
“I’m already in trouble,” I murmur.
Not with myself but with this fucking town. Silverwood is a wound. A festering, ugly, puss-seeping wound full of bacteria and infection. I don't want to cure it. I just want to get out.
"This isn't a suggestion or a recommendation." Long's eyes harden as she makes her decision. She lifts her head away from her steepled fingers and lets her hands fall. "This will be part of your punishment—counseling with Mrs. Beck. Now, where'd you get the lighter? Are you smoking?"
I shake my head. "I don’t smoke.” It’s not a lie, but there’s no point telling the principal it was someone else’s addiction that gave me the weapon. Long hums in the back of her throat, narrowing her eyes on me as I go back to ripping the tissue paper. The strips turn into tiny squares.
“I’ll talk to our counselor and arrange for your meetings with her. She should be ready for you to start by the time you leave ISS. You can decide when you see her. That's your decision to make, but you will see her.” She glares across the desk at me as if her expression can force me into compliance.
“One missed session"—she stops and holds up a single finger—"just one and we'll have a problem. You could go to jail for what you pulled today—not juvie but jail .” She repeats the word and the intended effect strikes home. My heartbeat stutters and my hands fall still. “It was dangerous,” she continues. “You threatened another student."
"She shouldn't have started what she couldn't finish." The words, despite sounding tough, fall flat. She’s right. Fighting in school is one thing, but I am eighteen now and if they wanted to, those bitches could press charges. Maybe they don’t know that yet, but how long will it take for them to figure it out?
Long's fuzzy ponytail waves against the back of her head as she shakes it back and forth. Leaning over to the big, boxy computer set to the side of her desk, she types something on the wired keyboard. “The counselor will reach out and discuss what time you two can meet regularly when she’s ready," Principal Long says, ignoring my statement.
My eyes linger on the computer. In quiet places like the principal’s office, the differences between Silverwood Public and Silverwood Prep become so obvious that it’s difficult to ignore. The Prep Academy had been built within the last fifteen years. Everything from the desks to the computers used by both teachers and students was updated yearly. Principal Long’s computer looks like it’s been here since the nineties. There’s even a curve to the front monitor and when she types. I close my eyes and my hands still over the shredded mess in my lap. There’s no point in noticing these differences. My custom laptop had been left behind along with my several thousand dollar wardrobe when my father had been carted off to jail. The rest … doesn’t matter.
The sharp click-clack of Principal Long's keyboard stabs into my ears like ice picks, pulling me back when she speaks again. "Alright, the email is sent," she announces. "I'm going to walk you to your locker where you can gather the rest of your things and then you'll go to ISS for the rest of the day."
I frown and glance down and around, realizing I'd dropped my backpack in the hallway when everything was happening, but—oh—there it is. Someone must have gathered it for me and set it just inside Principal Long's office door. I don't even remember hearing it open, but I'm relieved to see it there. I get up along with her and reach for the strap before realizing that standing had sent a rain of ripped little tissues to the floor. With a groan, I bend down and gather them all up, tossing them in a nearby waste paper basket before meeting her at the door.
"Just one more question, Juliet," Long says, her tone lowering as her hand hovers over the doorknob.
"What?"
She looks back, eyes settling on my face. "Have you heard from your mother or talked to your father since everything happened?"
My spine goes rigid as I quickly adjust my backpack strap over one shoulder and look away from the penetrating look she's giving me.
"No," I grit out. "My mom dipped the second she could. She knows as well as I do that no one in town would've been kind to her had she stayed." It was just too bad she hadn't thought to take her daughter with her. Selfish bitch. "And I have no plans to talk to my dad after everything he did."
"He's still your father," Long says. "Life is already hard enough when you feel so alone. I know he's being held in a prison that's only a few hours away. You might consider visiting him."
I cut a hand through the air. "I don't want to talk about my parents," I snap. "So drop it."
Principal Long's hand falls away from the doorknob and she turns completely, pivoting to face me as she folds her arms. The stretch of the gray pantsuit she's wearing makes her look severe even when her fuzzy curls stick out all over at the back of her head, held in place by the thinnest of hairbands.
"You could've stayed with Morpheus Calloway," she states. It's not a question, so I don't respond. I do, however, take a healthy step away from her and give her the evil eye, waiting to see what else she'll say. For a while, the two of us just stare at each other.
Silence permeates the room, broken occasionally by a ringing phone outside in the front office. The sound of the office secretary's voice, her words muffled by the thin walls that desperately need an upgrade, fills the room along with the buzzing of ancient electronics.
Finally, Principal Long asks her real question. "Why didn't you?" Her head tilts to the side. "Your life could have remained virtually the same had you stayed with Morpheus Calloway. He's a kind man. I know he offered to pay for your prep school tuition and even help you get into the college of your choice." She unfolds her arms to wave around her office. "Why would you give all of that up and come here?"
Because I couldn't trust that it wouldn't all go away again. Because Morpheus isn’t my father and he’s not my uncle—not really. They were business partners, friends. Not blood. Morpheus Calloway isn’t my blood, but even if he was—I still wouldn’t trust him. If my own mother couldn’t hack it in this town for her own daughter, then why the fuck would someone who has no responsibility for me do so.
I eye her for a moment, the words on the tip of my tongue. Hefting my backpack higher on my shoulder, I step past her and reach for the door. Just before I turn the knob, though, I pause and the words escape. "When everything you've ever known is ripped away from you and all of the people you've trusted turn their backs on you, there's no such thing as trust anymore. The only person I can rely on now is myself. If I'd stayed with Mr. Calloway, I would have just been pretending like everything didn't happen, but it did. I'm not my mother.” A mother who is, no doubt, off somewhere at the bottom of a bottle, acting like her husband isn't in jail and her daughter isn't half-starving in a town full of piranhas. “I'm not going to close my eyes to the truth,” I tell her.
Not again.