Playing Pretend

37| Playing With Fire

Crystal

The room was deafeningly quiet.

The only sound was the relentless ticking of the clock, growing louder in my ears with every passing second.

It was just me, my dad, and Principal Smith. He had told Zeno to wait outside, promising to deal with him later. I should've just called an Uber and spared him from this mess. Now, he was going to get dragged down because of me.

Principal Smith exhaled deeply. "I care about my students. Sometimes, maybe too much. I give them chances, opportunities to prove me wrong, to show they can do better. But Crystal... I've given you chance after chance to stay in this school. Yet, it's as if you don't care about anything we discussed at the start of the year."

My dad shot a confused look between the two of us. "What did you two talk about?"

Principal Smith glanced at me. "You didn't tell your father?"

I scoffed, bitterness creeping into my voice. "No. He was too drunk to care."

"Language," Principal Smith warned.

"The deal was simple," he continued, his voice steady but firm. "Crystal had to improve her grades, stop fighting, and basically just become a better student."

"And if she failed?" my dad asked, clearly on edge.

"Expulsion," Principal Smith said, his words cutting through the silence.

"Jesus, Crystal!" My dad's voice cracked with frustration.

The words tumbled out of me like a dam finally breaking, and I couldn't stop them.

"Why is everyone making me out to be this monster?! I'm not! I've tried! I fuck up one time and nobody talks to me again, I fuck up one time and I'm the bad guy, I fuck up one time and I lose my mother—GOD!" I yanked at my hair, my fingers trembling as I buried my face in my hands.

This wasn't about the expulsion anymore. It wasn't even about the fight, or the grades, or any of the crap that had piled up. This was about everything. The weight of it all—of losing her, of losing myself—crushed me in ways I couldn't explain.

My dad's voice cracked as he spoke. "She needs a therapist—Crystal, you need to go back to therapy! Principal Smith, please, don't expel my daughter. She's not normally like this."

"Normally like this?!" I could laugh, "You don't even know me, Dad! You've spent the last two years drinking! You don't know me!" My chest burned with every word, the bitterness flooding out with all the hurt I couldn't hide anymore.

"Because if you did, you'd know why I don't need to see a therapist again! All she ever did was try to put me on pills!"

I inhaled, trying to steady myself, None of it was helping.

"I don't need pills," I whispered through the cracks in my voice. "I need my mom!"

The tears came then, crashing down like a flood I couldn't hold back any longer. I cried for everything—everything I'd lost and everything I still couldn't make sense of.

Without a word, he stood up abruptly, the chair scraping sharply against the floor. I could see him fighting something—maybe his own anger, or maybe shame—but he didn't look at me. He didn't even look at Principal Smith. He just... turned and walked toward the door.

The door clicked shut, and the silence between us was deafening. My dad was gone. Just like that, without so much as a glance back. My hands were trembling, my heart a knot in my chest, and I didn't know if I wanted to scream or collapse.