Scattering Lilac Ashes

Chapter Fifty-Three

Lila decided that her best bet was to talk to her Dad privately. Whilst her Mum's English was fine, Lila wasn't quite confident that she could get all her points across without her Mum running away with a misunderstanding.

After dinner, she asked whether she could talk to her Dad in the home office. Lila's Mum glanced at them, but seemed generally uninterested, given the kissing scene playing out before her eyes on the TV in the latest Filipino drama.

"Sounds excellent," her Dad replied, heaving himself to his feet immediately as Lila's Mum squealed and pointed at the screen. Clare joined in the squealing, and it seemed like her Dad couldn't escape fast enough.

Lila's Dad led her to the office, which was far more modest than Asher's parents' study. It was the first room near the front door, overlooking the copious amounts of banana trees Lila's Mum was currently cultivating in the front yard. In this office, there were two desks, like Asher's parents', but Lila's Dad's desk was buried under an avalanche of obscure paperwork. The side that belonged to Lila's Mum was much tidier, with several accounting books and an abacus sitting before a desktop computer from roughly a decade ago.

Lila's Dad closed the door behind them and gestured for her to sit at her Mum's desk.

"What's going on?" he asked gently as he took his own seat.

"I... um... it's hard to explain," Lila said quietly. Every time she tried to think of how to explain it to her Dad since receiving the letter from Mr Morrison, no words came to her. She was truly flying by the seat of her pants with this one.

"Okay," Lila's Dad replied before waiting patiently for Lila to continue. She took a deep breath and pulled the letter out of her school blazer.

"I'd been wondering why you were still wearing that thing," her Dad laughed as he took the envelope. His eyebrow twitched as he saw the school insignia on the front, but opened it without comment. He was silent as he read the contents, though his face seemed to grow angrier with each passing line. He looked up once he finished, before pulling out his phone.

"Monday, 4pm. I can do that," he muttered to himself as he tapped on his phone a couple times.

"W-What did the letter say?" Lila asked, nervously twiddling her thumbs. She couldn't look at her Dad properly.

"That a student had been bullying you severely," he replied simply, folding the letter back up and handing it to Lila. "You can read it if you want."

"M-Maybe later," Lila stammered, gingerly putting it back in her blazer as though it were an explosive.

"I won't tell your mother," he said with a heavy sigh. "But I'd like to know from your perspective before I meet with your Headmaster. Otherwise, I might do something unsavoury."

"Okay," Lila replied, taking a long, deep breath before continuing. "There was a girl at school who had a crush on Asher-"

"Asher's the boy you've been seeing, correct?"

"I-I'm not seeing him in, like, a dating way," Lila explained quickly, looking up at her Dad. He didn't seem to be taking the piss, so she clarified. "But, yeah, he's the guy I've been hanging out with recently. He... had a girlfriend."

"I remember that part," Lila's Dad nodded.

"But, well, it turned out that the girl who liked Asher, um, her name's Piper... she'd been stalking him. Like, proper stalking him. Like, hanging outside his house and taking photos and taking things of his. So when I started hanging out with him more, I guess I got targeted. Piper tried to get Asher's girlfriend to break up with him because of rumours Piper was spreading about me. Things like I was trying to get with Asher. Which I wasn't. Anyway, um, she's expelled now. But the Headmaster said he needs to talk to our parents about it all."