"Is there a principal available? I have a student here with her mom that needs to talk to someone."
The secretary put the phone down and smiled at us. "She'll just be a moment."
I shifted nervously from one foot to another and stared down at the lined paper in my hands. It was covered front and back with my wiggly handwriting and contained the names and grade of every person my ex had lied to and the dates that each occurrence happened.
The office door swung open and one of my high school's four assistant principals greeted us with a smile.
"Hi, I'm Mrs. P. If you'll follow me, we can go back to my office."
I stepped through the doorway and gazed around the room, realizing that this was the only time I'd ever been behind the front desk.
My mom and I followed Mrs. P to her office. We sat down at her desk and I began to explain everything that had happened in the past week.
"Ok..." she began after listening closely. "I'm gonna need you to write all of that down so we have a statement from you."
"I actually already did," I said, handing over the paper that I'd brought. "Is this ok?"
She took it from me and looked closely at it.
"This is perfect. I'll put this in your file. Now, if you'll give me just a minute, I'm gonna go see if I can find Mrs. M. I usually just handle the freshmen, but she's in charge of seniors so she might be a bit more helpful in your case."
I sat in my chair nervously as she stood and walked out the door behind me. Neither my mom or I said anything as we listened to the muffled voices from down the hall.
After a few minutes, Mrs. P came back in, followed by another woman.
"Hi, I'm Mrs. M," she introduced herself, shaking our hands before sitting on the edge of the desk. "So I heard about these problems you're having and we've got a few things we can do."
I listened intently, ready for this all to finally be over.
"I'm going to call W into my office on Monday and have a talk with them. Basically I'll just let them know to leave you alone and to stop talking about you to other people. That should be the end of it there."
"And if it's not?" My mom questioned.
"If the behavior consists for a longer period of time after we've talked to them, what we can do is issue a cease and desist," she explained.
Cease and desist? I'd never heard that phrase before.
"Essentially what that is, is a document stating that they are no longer allowed to have any contact with you or about you while on school property. The school will make sure to enforce it and if they break it... well then we're looking at having to get the police involved."
My eyes widened. Police?! Holy shit! There's no way things could get THAT bad!
"Does that sound ok to you?" Mrs. M asked.
My mom and I made eye contact.
"Yes, that's perfect!" She replied as I nodded.
"Alright perfect!" She stood up. "Now, you're in the color guard right? Are you doing anything this weekend?"
"Yeah," I told her, "we have a competition tomorrow."
"Well make sure to bring us home a trophy then!" She smiled.
As usual, we did get a first place trophy.
YOU ARE READING
Look What You Made Me Do
Sachbücher"Don't tell anybody about this." "If you just ignore it, it'll stop." "There's nothing I can do to help you." And so I did everything I was told. I shut up. I put on a brave face. I followed all the rules. But that was the past and it's not who I am...
