“This isn’t the right time to bring this up, or maybe it is, but my mom wants to take you and your sisters to lunch this weekend. I don’t know how comfortable you’d feel talking to her about what’s going on with Landon, but she may give you someinsight. I mean, she raised my brother and me, and I’m sure we were hell on legs.”
He glanced over to see that had pulled a smile from her, and she nodded slowly. He figured he could text her his mother’s contact information later that evening.
They pulled in front of the school, and Rohan watched Jalen take a deep breath before opening the door. “I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”
“Take your time,” he responded. He watched her close the door and head towards the school entrance.
????????????
Jalen stepped into the school building, heading to the office. She had attended school there herself and gone to as many of the teens’ progress conferences as her schedule would allow. So, she was very familiar with the layout.
She was just about to enter the reception area when she was stopped by a teenager. He was taller than she was, but he had such a baby face that there was no way he was a staff member.
“Hi. Um, you wouldn’t be Jalen, would you?”
“I am,” she answered. “Do I know you?” she then questioned, and the teenager shook his head.
“No, I’m Max. Landon and I went to the movies together a few weeks back.”
“I see,” Jalen responded. “I assume you’re the boy she was spending all of her time on the phone with before she got grounded.”
“I was sometimes, but not all the time. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Jalen raised a brow at him but gestured for him to continue. “Landon’s been talking to a man.”
“What?” she asked; her brows furrowed.
“I don’t know how she met him, or who he is, but that’s who she’s been talking to. She and I are just friends. When we went to the movies, she wanted to meet him, but I didn’t feel comfortable with her doing it. So, I told her I wanted to come and be, I don’t know, a buffer. I felt better when I found out Kodi would go as well, but Landon was pissed. Even more so because he had to cancel.”
Jalen stared at him for a moment as she attempted to process everything that he’d said. “Kodi told me you tried to kiss Landon, but you’re telling me it wasn’t a date. You went because you…”
“I was scared for her, and I wasn’t trying to kiss her. I was telling her it was a good thing he didn’t show up because he was probably some creeper, but Kodi walked up, and I didn’t want to seem suspicious whispering and whatnot.”
She could feel a headache starting behind her eyes, and she was beyond pissed. Not only had her little sister gone out and met some man, but she’d put herself and Kodi in danger by trying to go meet him.
Somewhere in Jalen, she felt as if it were partially her fault. She tried to monitor what her sisters got into, except for Kodi, but it was admittedly hard with her hours and going to school.
“I know I probably should have told Kodi then, after that, but Landon promised me she wouldn’t contact him anymore. I believed her. Except, I’ve been letting her use my phone while we’re at school, and today she forgot to erase the messages when she gave it back to me after gym. It’s the last class we have together. I saw she was planning on skipping the rest of school to meet him. I…told the vice principal she planned on skipping. But I felt you needed to know this. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.”
“Thank you, Max. For being a good friend, because were you not, you wouldn’t have wanted to go with her to keep her safe, and you wouldn’t be here talking to me now.”
Max nodded. “I should get back to class.”
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 sevendays. However, I realize that would have her coming back to school on the Friday before Christmas break, and—”
