And that’s when I… well, I want to say slap him in the face, but my hands had reflexively already fisted when he told me to take a look at myself, and instead of swinging at him, I jab at him.
The result is me punching him directly in the nose. A spray of blood is instant, as is his howl of anguish.
“Call the police, Denise!” he shouts. “This little bitch just assaulted me!”
I run out of his office before he can grab me and do god knows what under the guise of self-defense. To my joy, Jake didn’t go to class. He’s standing in the foyer looking confused as I burst out of the principal’s office with the man himself in tow, bleeding heavily down his wet, semi-see-through shirt.
“Jake! We’re leaving! Now!”
I grab my little brother and run.
“What did you do?” He’s laughing as we take the steps down from the school two and three at a time.
“I hit him,” I say, panting. “It was wrong and you really shouldn’t hit people but sometimes…”
As luck would have it, a bus is pulling up on the corner just as we reach it. Sometimes, god really does show you that he’s on your side. We jump on, tap our cards, and the bus is away before anybody can follow us.
“Did you break his nose?” Jake is excited.
“I don’t know, buddy. Probably. Maybe.”
He grins at me. “Definitely,” he says. “I’m so proud.”
“Don’t be. We’re both going to be in trouble. I’m going to take you home, okay? And then I’m going to…”
“What?”
My mind is spinning. They’ve definitely called the police, and I am definitely going to be in trouble. But I have to look after Jake first. I’ll worry about what might or might not happen to me later. But if the police are looking for us…
“Let’s go to the water park,” I say.
“What?”
“Yeah.”
I have money. A lot of it. My stalker didn’t confiscate the funds. I can take Jake home at the end of the day and we can both face the music then, but for the rest of today, we’re going to have fun.
And we do. It’s the best day either one of us have had in a very long time. We get cotton candy and we watch it melt in the water like confused raccoons, and we go on rides, and we buy ponchos that don’t do fuck all to stop us from getting wet and for a few hours I forget about all the bad things going on in the world, and to me specifically.
“I am so glad I got kicked out of school!”
“Don’t be,” I say. “You know we’re both… massively screwed.”
Jake laughs. “I don’t care anymore,” he says. “I was starting to feel like nothing good would ever happen, and then you broke the principal’s nose, and we went here to Slippy’s and I know there’re still good things that can happen in the world.”
That’s about the saddest thing I have ever heard. What makes it a bit worse is the fact that I know what he means because I feel the same way. I’ve been having an intense time lately, but calling it good would be a stretch even I can’t make. Today is the first day in ages everything has gone my way, in the sense that I did whatever the hell I wanted and got whatever I wanted.
My phone rings just as a cloud passes over the sun and a cool breeze picks up. It’s been a brilliant day, but it’s coming to an end, and I have to accept that.
“Mom?”
“Where is Jake, and why are the police here?”
Fuck.
“Jake’s with me, Mom. He’s safe. I took him with me. Didn’t want to leave him unattended.”
“Bracken bit one of the officers,” she says. “Can you get back here as soon as possible?”
