The Secret

The Principals Office

**Ełaine (Rëds) POV**

"Are you crazy??! What the hell is wrong with you??!" My parents had been screaming at me for 10 minutes now. My principal left to give us privacy. As pissed as I was I couldn't blame him. I was just lucky he liked me and knew Cherry well enough to know I was the real victim here. "Oh Ełaine.....you know you're like a daughter to me however I can't just pretend I didn't walk in on you about to assault another student." He sighed at me. "Look I'm sorry. I lost my temper and let her get to me.....it won't happen again." I hated seeing him disappointed in me. He was a great guy and made school bearable. One of the few people I'd miss around here besides Mrs.Beck. "Don't worry Ełaine I'll keep it off your record and I won't suspend you—" He said. "Woooo!" I cut him off, happy I wouldn't lose time with my baby and friends........or have to hear my parents mouths. "Not so fast Ełaine. For that to happen you MUST apologize to Cherry." He said calmly. I sighed but agreed. "UGH—why am I here." Cherry sneered at the secretary and rolled her eyes when she saw me sitting in the principals office. "Ohhhh I get it. You want to try and apologize so I don't sue the ass off you and this school huh?!" She smirked at me and I took a deep breathe to keep myself from ripping her head off. I stood up while swallowing my pride and walked towards her; she jumped back......scaredy cat. "Look....I'm sorry for getting rough with you. It wasn't cool and I hope you can forgive me." I said as I held my hand out to shake hers. She scoffed and smacked my hand away. The principal saw the fire ignite in me and got in between us. "Elaine.....have a seat." He spoke calmly and I just stood there. "Now Ełaine. Please." I sat down as he escorted Cherry out of the room and heard them yelling back and forth. Cherry started it and I knew the principal well enough to know he hated yelling, didn't matter where it came from or what the reason was, outside of an emergency he felt yelling was unnecessary and immature; I completely agreed with him. "Elaine I'll be dealing with Cherry for a while so if you could please call your parents. I'm sorry but it's regulation." He said. I hated that I had to but I understood and decided not to push my luck.

That's how I ended up here; here being on the phone with my parents well they screamed at me for.......20 minutes now. This was impressive for them. "Maybe I should just come home! You obviously need some adult supervision." My mother said. I stiffened at the thought. They always treated me like a child yet my younger siblings were treated like royalty and adults. Even tho both were younger and irresponsible. I was an emotionless with extreme anger issues (I'd gotten better with controlling them tho), trauma filled fuck up; but I also had morals, smarts and was loyal to a fault, and I kept my trauma to myself. I found it to be a burden but no reason to push it on others. I was also what people called the "Therapy Friend" so that's just some basics of me. I was very much the caregiver type, it was just natural for me but enough about me and back to the problem. My dad was surprisingly fighting against my mother coming home. "Honey is that really necessary? Whose going to be with Stacey if you go home??" My dad said. They treated her like she was made of glass while simultaneously being superior to everyone around her yet treated me like an infant. It was very exhausting. "Mom that's not necessary. I'm perfectly fine. You and Stace should enjoy camp." I said. I doubted she'd actually listen but it couldn't hurt to try. She sighed heavily over the phone. "Are you sure Ełaine?" I can always come home." She was expecting me to say yes but she was barking up the wrong tree. "No mom. I'm good." I said clenching my teeth; I was missing my date and this conversation was starting to get exhausting.

"Well we won't keep you. Is lunch still going on?" My mom asked. I thought they weren't keeping me? Sigh. "Yes mother. Although ive missed most of it." I said. "Well if you hadn't been slamming people into things you wouldn't be here!" My father said; suddenly deciding he wants to be a parent again. I just sighed and rolled my eyes again, before I could respond the principal came back in. "I'm sorry Ełaine but I have other students I must see." Principal Eric said. "I apologize as well for interrupting Mr and Mrs Stone." He said. "It's quite alright we didn't mean to occupy your office for so long. We appreciate you letting us know because we know Elaine would not have." My father said. I scoffed at the BS he was spewing especially after they made me sit here for 30 minutes listening to their "concerns". I said good bye to my parents and then thanked Principal Eric. "You're a lifesaver!" I exclaimed. If not for him I might have missed my entire date. "Well too be quite frank I got tired of hearing it too." He laughed but I could tell underneath the joke that he could see just how exhausting my parents were. "Now hurry off before you miss this date of yours" He said. "How did you?....." I started to ask. "You know what later I'm late!" I said as I giggled and ran off. Oh my god....I giggled?? I was definitely going to have to watch myself. This boy was starting to get to me...... I looked at my phone to see I had about 50 messages from Matthew alone and about 10-20 from the rest of the gang......not to mention the group chat which had about 40+ new messages. I decided to just run to the cafeteria and apologize once I got there. Off I went!