Forever & Always

Chapter 17

Once again, I found myself surrounded by the smell of tuna fish again in Dr. White's office. The source was still unknown to me, but with the scratches on my neck and on my legs starting to burn a little, I was even more uncomfortable with the smell this second time around. I shifted uneasily in my chair. This was it. The one thing I promised myself I wouldn't do and that without words, I somewhat promised to my mom. I would think the last thing she would want after all of the shit she went through, plus the stressors of starting a new job, would be to pick up her child from the principal's office for kicking the shit out of someone. Oops. 

Dr. White sighed, still staring at both me and Annie, who he had strategically placed apart from each other and with a tiny coffee table in between our two chairs. As if that would stop me, lol. 

"I have so many things I would like to say to the two of you right now, but let's start with the obvious one," he said, the tone of disappointment clear in his voice. Not that his disappointment meant jack shit to me. It was my mother's disappointment that was going to hurt like a motherfucker. 

He turned to look at me square on. "I thought we went over this this morning that we weren't going to have a problem like this," he said, disgruntled. "I made it quite clear that this issue should have been handled outside of school and that there would be no continuation of this problem here today in the building. And yet," he gestured to the both of us with a sweeping of his hand, "here we are." 

"Sir," I started, although he wasn't the fucking Duke of Cambridge, so I don't know why I went so formal, "if I may, the issue was settled outside of school. If you look at the tapes of the cameras in the cafeteria, you will see that this lovely lady sitting to my left, who might need to see a therapist when she's done here today, instigated the entire thing, and I wasn't even directly involved in it when the problem first arose." 

Annie started to but in, but she was stopped by Dr. White holding his hand up to shut her up. "Unfortunately, there are no tapes for us to review, Miss Jackson." 

I sat up straight. "Then, pardon my French, sir, but what the hell are the cameras in the cafeteria for? There's, like, one in every corner of the room?" 

I couldn't believe there weren't tapes! High schools across the country are always using security cameras as scare tactics, telling kids that anything they do in the hallway gets caught on camera and they will have proof of any wrongdoings if anyone tries to pull anything. And yet, when something actually goes down, they're not working? 

"We haven't had those cameras up and running since middle of the way through last year," he explained, with a slight smirk, which annoyed me further, because there goes any physical proof to back up my story besides witness testimony. "They are very expensive to replace, so we chose to put the funds elsewhere. However, that is not the point here." 

Um, yeah, it kind of fucking is! How the hell are you going to believe me that I'm not the one that wanted to cause a problem today if you can't see for yourself what went down?! BRUH!

"Dr. White, I'm not going to stand for this," Annie piped up, sounding just as shrill as she did in the cafeteria. 

"You're not standing for anything, you're sitting," I whispered cooly to her, which got me glares from both of them. I held my hands up in defense. Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just trying to lighten the mood in here. Drama queens. 

"I am being framed for something that I had very little part in, until the end, when I had to defend myself," she whined, sounding more pretentious than anything else. Dr. White rolled his eyes. 

"Oh, give me a break, Miss Richards," he groaned. "This is not the first time you've been in here because you've had a problem with another student. It doesn't take a trained school psychologist to recognize the common denominator here."