Aggressive Me, Passive You

Chapter One

EDITED

Chapter One - Detention or The Buddy Club

          I returned to the grueling place I liked to call school after my one weeks worth of suspension. School resembled a prison and I knew what one looked like. I visited one multiple times to see my uncle in jail. I was always close to my uncle because I looked up to him as a father figure. My dad was no good. He knew I existed and he paid child support, but he was never there for me growing up. I was just another black girl with daddy issues—as most people would say. I was not implying that all black girls did not have a loving father, I just happened to be one of the unlucky ones who did not. He never wished me a happy birthday, he never gave me Christmas presents, and he never called to check up on me. My uncle and my mother filled that void for me as much as they could. I was slowly learning to come to terms with it, but it still hurt to think about.

I was a junior in high school, and I knew nothing would change. I was going to prosper into a woman one day and I would gladly boast about how my low-life father contributed to that in no way.

I walked to my first hour class, knowing that I was going to be the topic of the hour. I liked being the center of attention, even if it was because of a fight that I had a week ago. I basically stomped to my class, not wanting to go. I never paid attention because my mind constantly drifted to things other than the lesson the teacher was teaching.

I was not in my first hour class for a good ten minutes, before I got sent to the principal's office. I had to admit that I was a bit afraid of what I was going down there for—and I usually was not scared of anything. I was almost positive that I did not do anything within the fifteen minutes I had been at school. I literally walked to my class and that was it.

Walking into the office, I sat in the familiar green chairs by the door. My foot could not stop tapping the floor, shaking my whole body. What was I in here for? I was trying to have a clean slate for the rest of the school year. In the office last week—before I got suspended—the principal (Mr. Todd) explained that I had one more slip up before I would be sent to an alternative school for kids with bad behavior.

"Who are you here to see, dear?" The secretary smiled sweetly at me.

"Mr. Todd."

"Aniya Wells?"

I nodded my head and she told me to go in his office where he would be waiting for me.

"Well, if it isn't Miss Wells! How 'ya doing?"

Mr. Todd was too enthusiastic for me. Believe it or not, out of the countless of times I had gotten into trouble, he never gave up on me. He always told me he saw something in me. He said that I could be whatever I wanted to be, if I put my mind to it. He knew my whole family situation and he cut me some slack sometimes, but he could not save me all the time. It was almost as if he actually cared.

"I'm good." I pursed my lips and sat down in the seat across from him. "What about you?"

"I'm amazing." He clasped his hands together and leaned forward on his desk. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Nope, I was hopin' you could tell me, 'cause I don't know." I shrugged my shoulders and he chuckled. I didn't see anything funny, I was being serious. I really didn't know why I was in his office this early in the morning, and also my first day back after the suspension.

"Your mom didn't tell you?" He furrowed his eyebrows.

"No, she doesn't tell me anything." I shook my head.

"Well, to help you with your problems, I've assigned you to a Buddy."

No.

No.

No.

He signed me up to the whack program for troubled students. I was bad, but come on, I didn't need anybody else snooping in my life to help solve my problems. I wasn't going to do it—nope. I didn't want to do it and he couldn't make me. Him or my mama couldn't make me go to The Buddy Club; I would rather go to an alternative school before I joined a program full of entitled, rich kids who thought they were better than everyone else. The students in that club did not care about anyone's problems, they just wanted something to look good on their college applications.

"No, Mr. Todd! I'm not doin' that stupid program. I refuse to." I huffed, shaking my head.

"Hear me out," he held his hands up, "the only other option is to give you detention for the rest of the first semester. That's two hours, five days a week for five months, you choose. You're lucky alternative school isn't an option. One more slip up, and you're gone."

Damn, five months of two hours of detention, when I could be doing better things. I was stuck in a sticky situation. I could take the path of detention or I could take the other offer and get stuck with some rich, preppy kid for the rest of the school year. I had never despised that girl so much. If only I had not gotten into that fight.

"And my mama agreed to this?" I quizzed.

"Yeah, she thinks it'll be good for you."

"I'm sure she does." I snickered.

"So, what'll be? Detention for five months or are you getting a Buddy."

"I guess I'll get a Buddy." I quietly said, looking at his desk.

"A Buddy it is then! I want you to go to the library after school, that's where they meet. The librarian will ask you for your name and ID number, then she'll partner you up."

"Okay."

"Alright, and they will notify me if you don't show up. Then you'll have no choice but to go to detention."

Little did I know that I was getting myself into something that would cause an emotional rest of the year.