Not nearly enough time had passed to get myself under control before I was called back into the office. Jack hadn’t left, and when I opened the principal’s door, there he sat.
“Have a seat, Calvin,” Woodson said, motioning to the chair next to Jack.
My heart raced, and my palms grew damp. The temperature in the room spiked. Sounds muted under the noise of air fighting to move in and out of my lungs.
Sit down? Next to that asshole? Fuck me. And fuck him too.
I glared at the side of Jack’s face as I slowly maneuvered into the chair. Like liquid, I poured myself in, straddling the chair’s arm in my attempt to make sure the only parts of me that got close to him were the absolutely necessary ones before planting my ass in the seat.
“Calvin, would you like to tell me who instigated this last prank that ruined the soccer team’s uniforms?” Woodson asked.
I could take an educated guess on who did it, but there was no way I was ratting out my team, so I shook my head in answer. “No, sir” should’ve been my response, but with Jack evaporating all the oxygenated blood trying to make its way to my brain, words weren’t happening.
He did that. Sometimes I came out swinging and fired all his hate right back at him. Then sometimes I couldn’t string words together. I told myself it was because I wasn’t really a mean person. I couldn’t take that road every time like he did, but it wasn’t always the same angry road when it came to Jack.
Anger was simple. Anger I could distance myself from, like with all the shit going on at home.AngerI could walk away from and let the moment cool down. And as soon as it did, it was over, mostly forgotten.
Not with Jack, though. Nothing felt over between us. We were on this long, continuous fight, and Jesus, I was getting tired.
“I see.” Woodson let out a long sigh and sat back in his chair as he exchanged a glance with the coaches.
“I’ve a good idea,” Coach Sullivan said. He nodded at the soccer coach as if they’d talked about it, but when he leveled his heavy-browed gaze on me, I squirmed. Seriously, this last prank hadn’t been me.
Holding a contrite expression when I didn’t care about the prank, when all I wanted to do was scoot my chair farther away from Jack, was a fucking challenge. Did it suck their uniforms were ruined? Yeah, it did, but at this point, they didn’t care who was behind it, who actually did it. They needed someone to blame, someone to make an example of.
I glanced at Jack. While I bounced my knee, he remained as still as a picture. I gripped the sides of my chair until my knuckles were white. Jack kept his hands fisted on top of his thighs, but they weren’t tight like mine. Just more to piss me off. We were in serious trouble this time, and he sat there unaffected.
“Part of the reason you boys’ve been called in here today, as I’m sure you can imagine, is the altercation that happened this morning.” Woodson looked pointedly at us, then went on. “I’ve spoken with a few students and the faculty that witnessed it, and all said the pair of you was at the heart of it.”
“I didn’t start—”
Woodson held a hand high for me to stop just as Coach Sullivan barked my name.
“We’re past the point of excuses, Calvin. The fact is, you two were seen fighting in the hallways, which is a clear violation of the student handbook.” Woodson pursed his lips and clasped his hands over his rounded belly. “And if that was all, we might not be here now.”
Shit, we were gonna get in trouble for all of it.
“School has been in session for less than two months, and we’ve already had more pranks between students than I’ve seen in my tenure here.”
I dropped my chin, sucked my lips inside my mouth, and bit hard because some of them had been funny as hell. School had a strict no-fighting policy, so we worked with what we could to keep the animosity between football and soccer growing when classes started.
Woodson droned on about the costly bickering between students and how hard the booster club would need to work to raise the money to replace them, but I perked up when he finally got back around to us.
“Now, we can’t have our star runnin’ back miss a game.” Woodson smiled at me as the soccer coach rolled his eyes. “I’m puttin’ my faith in you boys. You’ll both be gettin’ detention for the rest of the week, and you, Calvin, are restricted from practice, anything that might encourage your aggressive behavior.”
I gaped. Why was I singled out here? I glanced at Jack, not that he’d be bent out of shape on my behalf, but fuck.
“If this doesn’t stop, I’m afraid we’re gonna kick it up a beat.” Woodson glared. “Both a’yous are on an AP schedule for a reason, right?”
Dammit, he had a good point. Schools like MIT were hard to get into, and that was just where I wanted to be. Would they care about things like detention? Did they check that deep?
I glanced in Jack’s direction, never quite meeting any part of him.
“Yes, sir,” Jack and I mumbled in unison.
“That’s right. Y’all can’t really afford to get in trouble. I’d suggest you find a way to get the pranks to stop. Use the influence you have over your peers and do some good with it. The next time, it might not be detention.”
“Principal Woodson, I take my sister home on days I don’t practice,” I said. She had cheer practice about half as often as I had football practice, but the punishment was liable to mess with our routine after school.
