“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 naïve. An ungrateful, naïve 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.
