Senior Year

♡ sixteen ♡

"So Miss Harden, I hear you are having issues with both staff and students in the building, is this correct?" My assistant principal, Mrs. Lakes asked as she glanced around the table which multiple people say around.

I sighed, "Yes, Mrs. Lakes."

After Wyatt and I had been able to catch up in sleep, we went to my mom about the issue and together we decided it would be a good idea to call the administration at the school to set up a meeting that included: myself, Wyatt, my mom, all of our assistant principal's and our principal, and some of our friends waiting in the hallway to be called in to be witnesses to the way students and staff had treated me. As much as I hated conflict, I knew Wyatt and my mom were right and we had to do something about the issue before it continued on any longer.

"What has been happening?" She asked, even though she already knew the answers.

"My peers are harassing me and spreading false narratives about my life and my teachers have unfortunately been allowing my grades to suffer as a result of having a baby," I informed her.

"Are there any specific students?' she asked.

I glanced over at Wyatt and bit my lip, this felt more like an interrogation to me than a meeting to solve the problems at hand.

"There are two girls in particular, named Kelsey Nicholson and Hailey Harrison. They have personally targeted Kennedy on multiple occasions and left her in tears after the fact," Wyatt spoke up when he noticed I was too nervous to speak up.

"Is this true, Kennedy?" She asked me.

I nodded, "Yes, both of the girls confronted me at a football game accusing me of public nudity and sleeping around and yesterday I was accused again of sleeping around by Hailey and she physically grabbed me in an attempt to turn me back around when I wished to leave the conversation."

"And what about your teachers?"

"All of my teachers have been dropping my grades for miniscule things lately, some of which who have never cared about such things before or don't take the same amount of points off for every student. Mrs. Hessler in particular gave me a C on an essay I turned in a day late, telling me that it being late was unacceptable, while another student I know turned his in around the same time and didn't get any points taken off."

"Thank you, Kennedy, we will now speak to your mother separately, so you and Mr. Chandler can exit the room and join your peers in the hallway," Mrs. Lake smiled at me.

I thanked her before Wyatt and I headed into the hallway to meet with our friends.

"You okay?" Arden asked as I sat down beside her.

I shook my head as I took my baby from her arms, unfortunately today was one of the days my mom was watching Noah, so we had to bring him to the school with us. At least we were tucked in a corner of the office where students couldn't bother us. I rested Noah's head in my shoulder and leaned my cheek against his head.

"It seemed like they were trying to get her to slip up and say something didn't actually happen because they just wanted her to repeat all the information we gave them yesterday," Wyatt sighed, his hand sweeping through his hair.

"What happens if they don't do anything about it?" James asked.

"We file a lawsuit against the school claiming defamation by students and staff and bias caused by the defamation," I mumbled.

"You can't be taking on two court cases at the same time Ken, no offense, but you don't have the time or energy for that," Grayson ordered.

"Well it's either that or I don't graduate because I failed out of English," I snapped at him.