“InshAllah, I’ll be accepted to Opus and won’t have to deal with it for long. In any case, I’m visiting you in June.”
“Really?” Amal exclaims. “Oh my God. Okay. I’m booking your and Baba’s flights right now.”
“Wait!” I say, laughing. “Don’t you want to check with Baba first?”
“Fine. But I’m calling your asshole principal.”
I groan. “What good will that do?”
“It’ll make me feel better,” she says fiercely. “He can take his stupid monocle and shove it up—”
“Oookay, that’s enough.” I glance at the clock. It’s nearly time to go to school. My phone lights with a text from Audrey, and I smile. “I should get dressed. I’ll tell you how it goes.”
“I’ll tellyouhow it goes,” she replies, and then her voice softens. “I love you. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
I don’t want to cry. Not now.
“You’re here now.”
Baba noticed my black eye during the weekend. I didn’t have it in me to tell him the truth yet. Telling Amal was more than enough for me, so I said I hit a pole while walking. He didn’t look like he believed me, but didn’t press any further.
For the rest of the weekend, I spend my time healing bit by bit and getting my thoughts together. Still going to school knowing Jamie won’t be there feels different. He sent me a message apologizing for going to sleep on me on Friday, and I told him I recorded his snoring for blackmailing purposes.
Jamie:wait I’ll send you a higher quality snoring dot mp3 audio tonight
It makes me laugh.
There are fewer reporters by the school today, which is still good. Even one is enough.
But when I approach the gate so the security guard, a burly man in his fifties with an oversize newsboy hat, will let me in, he stops me. “You’re wanted at the principal’s office.”
He darts furtive looks at the reporters, worried whether they heard him or not.
I nod. This makes my life easier.
The school is in a somber mood, not much of the usual loud chatter that I heard the first morning here. Could be the looming AP exams, could be what happened yesterday.
As soon as the administrator sees me, she gestures for me to knock on Dr. Mérieux’s office door.
“Come in,” he says, sounding tired.
His expression doesn’t change when he sees me, and he gestures for me to sit. His office still looks like it always did. The old books, the mahogany shelves.
“I’m sure you know why I called you,” he begins.
I feel nothing of the anxiety or fear from when I was first here. I don’t feel like a lamb sitting in front of a lion. There’s no embarrassment or shame at my nuisance of an existence. And I know this feeling will come and go in waves. But for now, I hold on to it.
I am brave.
“Yes,” I say in a clear voice. “Because of the price Mason and Adrian paid for what they did to me.”
I didn’t bother applying foundation to my black eye this morning.
His gaze flickers to it, and a sliver of trepidation flashes on his expression.
“You didn’t report it.” He folds his hands in front of him. “So you must pardon me if I have trouble believing you.”
I shrug. “I’ve reported the other stuff they did, and you didn’t believe me. So why should I report this one?”
