“He did. I mean, my uncle did. My dad isn’t around. He can’t sign it.” I point to Brock’s signature, which just looks like a squiggly line. “See? Right there.”
She sighs. “I’ll need to get Principal Edwards’s approval to accept your uncle’s signatures in place of your father’s.” She looks at his office door, which is closed. “He has meetings today. I don’t know when I’ll be able to ask him about this.”
“Principal Edwards knows about my dad. He’ll be fine with it.”
“I’ll still need to check with him before I process this.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I mutter, yanking my backpack over my shoulder.
She adds the form to a stack of papers and goes to the back room. At this rate, I’ll graduate before getting my ID.
The door to the principal’s office opens halfway, then closes to just a crack.
“Go to class,” Principal Edward says. “We’ll discuss it later.”
“I want to discuss itnow!” a girl says, raising her voice. It kind of sounds like Kristen, although it’s hard to tell because I’ve never heard her yell like that.
“If you don’t get your temper under control, I’ll be calling your mother.”
“Go ahead! I love pissing off my mom!”
“Get to class,” he says, opening the door.
I quickly turn and leave, walking fast down the hall. When I turn back, I see Kristen leaving the office. So it was definitely her. I can’t believe she raised her voice like that with the principal.
My morning classes are boring, and my mind keeps wandering to Jackson and what he did to me this morning. I can’t wait to see him tonight. Shayla had me worried about him with that talk we had earlier but I’m over that now. If he were as bad as she described, I wouldn’t feel so good when I’m around him. I’d sense something was wrong. But I don’t feel that way at all. I feel great when I’m with him.
At the end of the day, I go outside to wait for Trystan to drive me home. He’s always one of the last people to leave. I don’t know what takes him so long.
“Rumor.” Kristen walks up to me with a big smile on her face. “Could we talk?”
“Um, yeah, okay,” I say, wondering if Jackson texted her and told her to invite me to the game. I hope he didn’t. I really don’t want to go with her.
“Let’s get away from the door.” She motions me to follow her.
We go off to the side, under a large shade tree.
“What is it?” I ask, hoisting my backpack higher up on my shoulder.
“I feel the need to make something clear.”
“Yeah? What?”
Her eyes lock on mine. “Jackson is off limits.”
“Says who?”
“Who do you think?” she spits out.
“You said you two aren’t dating.”
“He’s still mine. Andonlymine.”
“I think Jackson would disagree. He said whatever he had going on with you is over.”
“He lied.” She smirks. “Do you really think a millionaire bad boy that’s hot as sin and could have any girl he wants would choose some nobody who just showed up here?”
“I think he’d choose a girl he likes, no matter where she came from.”
