“Jake, go to class,” I tell him.
“But…”
“Go to class,” I repeat.
He gets up and he goes.
Then I find the principal’s office, which is not hard because it’s presumably the door behind the desk with the wordPrincipalwritten on it.
“You can’t go back there!” the secretary says. But I can go back there, and I do.
I open the door without knocking, because I’m already breaking social norms and I figure one more won’t hurt.
The principal looks up from his laptop in shock and slams it closed far too quickly for a man who is doing appropriate activities. I see his face twist up as he prepares to yell at me, and then he realizes he’s looking at a college coed, and his expression softens.
This man is in his fifties, soft around the middle and probably inside the skull. He’s wearing a yellowed shirt that I don’t think started out that way.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m Jake Brown’s sister,” I tell him. “And I had to skip class this morning to come and pick him up. But when I got here, he told me that he’d been assaulted. Again.”
“Well…”
“I just told my brother to go to class,” I say, interrupting whatever incredibly mediocre thought was about to emerge fromhim. “Because the notion that someone being bullied would be excluded from class is so wild as to be impossible.”
“Jake has had behavioral issues at every school he has attended. He’s clearly the problem.”
I see red. This isn’t fair. He knows it’s not fair. But he’s using Jake’s history against him, because he clearly has no intention whatsoever of helping my little brother. Jake’s going to be victimized again and again because men like this have decided he’s the problem, and they will never see anything else.
I pick up the water on the principal’s desk and throw it in his face.
“You’re wet,” I say. “So you’re clearly the ocean.”
“Get out of my office, and my school,” he says, completely ignoring my very well illustrated point. “And take your brother with you.”
“You’re going to regret this,” I say.
He is too busy brushing water off his shirt, which of course doesn’t work. A complete lack of understanding of anything probably indicates the level of education they have at this school anyway.
“Are you threatening me?”
“This time I threw the water. Next time, it might be the glass.”
I don’t really know what’s coming over me right now. Maybe I’m just fucking tired of being unable to do anything. My whole life I have done everything correctly. I’ve been polite. I’ve studied hard. I’ve tried to be good in relationships. And it’s gotten me toa point where all I have to show for it is a shitty job and a stalker I can’t do anything about.
“This is no way to convince me your brother isn’t violent. He’s clearly from a violent home. We took him in as a favor, and he immediately started causing trouble, the same way you are.” The principal stands up. He’s a big man, actually, quite beefy and probably strong in the way men always are for absolutely no reason.
“I guess this is why you don’t deal with bullies in your school,” I say. “Because you are one.”
“You are the one who burst into my office, demanded I change my mind on a serious disciplinary issue, assaulted me, and threatened to commit more assault. If anything, young lady, you are the bully.”
Oh, I hate arguments like that. He’s technically right, but he’s morally fucking wrong and he knows it. I wish I had another glass of water to throw at him. I am so tired of seeing the defeated, sad look on my brother’s face, like nobody is going to defend him and he knows it.
Mom is going to be so pissed at him for being kicked out of school again. She’s going to be pissed at me, too. Fuck. What can I do?
“You should take a good hard look at yourself,” the principal says, giving me that fucking tone that only school teachers give kids because they think they’re better than them on some fundamental level. It’s riling me up. The last few days and weeks have been a lot of me taking something and not being able to do fucking anything about it. But this asshole isn’t nearly as scary as my stalker, and I refuse to bow down to him.
“But maybe there is something you can do,” he says, closing the distance by a step. “Maybe…” He lowers his voice and speaks in a disgustingly husky whisper. “You bend your ass over that desk and let me teach that tight little pussy a lesson and I’ll let your piece of shit brother attend class for another term. Think of it as paying rent.”
