Odd One Out

CHAPTER 18

Naya
Monday, October 27

"Yes sir. I understand sir. I am so incredibly sorry."

Principal Wes stared at me through his reading glasses, shaking his head for about the fifth time since I had walked into his office, before fumbling once more with the papers.

"Such a bright future you had. Almost a perfect record of no misdemeanors. I hope you understand the damage this will cause to your college applications."

I bit back the cries that were threatening to sneak out, saying a slightly broken, "Yes sir."

"Someone actually requested I expel you, but...seeing as this is an incident from last year, and seeing as you actually would have won anyways, and because you didn't access any student's personal information, I will not expel you. I will not suspend you either."

When Viktor had taken all the blame on Friday for the fight and for Jake's injury, I thought he was crazy. Stupid, even. But now, I was sitting here wishing I could get suspended. It's what I deserved.

"I will make the announcement today," he continued, "and we will crown...Miriam Russell, since she was runner-up." He looked up at me. "You would have still won by a lot, you know. You estimated it was about fifty to seventy-five fake votes, but you still could have won without those. As a result of you cheating though, you must return the crown to the school, so that we can hand it to the person who did not cheat. I expect to see the crown and sash on my desk by tomorrow morning."

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"In addition to this," he scolded, "you must serve fifty hours of community service, through the school. I know Mr. Bell needed some help with his after school tutoring program . You can talk to him, or you can help Coach Martin in the volleyball court after school, with clean up. Talk to either one of them, and have them sign this—"

He rustled out a sheet of paper, handing out to me, "—every time you complete some hours. When your fifty hours are done, you must bring back the paper to me with ALL fifty hours signed. Any questions?"

I shook my head no.

He blinked, straightening out the papers on his desk before closing the manila folder they were in. "Alright. You're free to go."

The walk back into class was surprisingly worse than the announcement Principal Wes had made to call me into his office. The worst part of the entire situation wasn't all the yelling Principal Wes had done in the beginning of our meeting, and it definitely wasn't stares that I got coming into school, or walking through school, or sitting through all those classes. The worst part was that I had said no.

Back during Junior year's Homecoming elections, I had told Laney and Gia and Rachel not to do the votes.

"Miriam got a freaking announcement in on the radio to vote for her — do you really think you'll win by just handing out flyers?"

That's what Gia had said. And so when I saw them pull out the extra ballots they had filled out, I didn't stop them because they were right — Miriam had done so much more to get her votes in, I was sure I was losing. It felt so extremely wrong in the moment, and I had told them no repeatedly. But instead of stopping them from putting the votes in the box, I walked to class.

It definitely didn't help that Rachel had been on the Homecoming Voting Committee — it had been almost too easy for them...for us to get away with it. Too simple. Miriam had been such a great sport about it too, and congratulated me and told me that I deserved every single diamond on that crown.

Much to her surprise, and much like the crown, I was as fake as every single diamond too.

Vik
Tuesday, October 28