FRIENDS

KHARI (3:37 p.m.)

The principal led me into his office where, another man was sitting in a chair legs crossed. He wore a gray suit, and filled the somewhat small office with the smell of his cologne. The principal took his seat ad I sat in the only available seat left in the room at an angle where I faced the both of them while they faced me. "Khari this is Mr. Hasan. He's the head principal at BSTA."
I got a straight shiver down my spine, this was it, this was where my new start...well started. I shook his hand. "Well its very nice to meet you sir."

"I wish I could say the same to you." He said.

Wait hold up what he say?

"I'm here regarding your submission that you sent to our school."

"Oh well what's wrong with it, I think my portfolio, really expresses me as an artist." I said smiling, but I seemed to be the only one in a cheery mood. Even the principal couldn't fully look into my eyes for a long interval. Something was wrong. "Is there an issue?'' I said nervously giggling hoping that it would hide the fact that I was terrified right now.

Mr. Calvin the principal, dug for something on his desk. It was an envelope. "This is unacceptable." He said sliding it over to my side of his desk. I picked it up and started to flip through it, and everything looked fine until I saw the last picture, the one that I had painted with of my friends and I. On it was a huge graffiti penis. I almost wanted to cry. Any artist understands what its like to see their work destroyed. I almost couldn't breathe. "Mr. Calvin and Hasan you have to believe me when I tell you that I didn't do this."

"Who else could've done it. You thought you were making some sort of statement here?" He said standing.

I had to catch my breathe a bit before continuing. "Statement? No Mr. Calvin I swear-"

"This isn't the type of behavior that we want to see at our school." Mr. Hasan said, with his nose in the air.

"Next your gonna say that it wasn't you who plastered these around the school.'' He held up multiple copies of the picture in his hand. " You're just lucky that I came early and took these down before school started mister.

"I would never. " I pleaded. Which seemed to go to deaf ears. "That wasn't me."

"Then who did it?"

"I don't know." I said realizing that I was babbling on and on. Begging for this to not tarnish my opportunities.

"If it wasn't clear at this point, I'm telling you now, your application has been declined." Mr. Hasan said.

"And I'm sorry to inform you Mr. Brown but, you are expelled from this point on. You are no longer aloud on the grounds of S.T.E.M. high school. I will permit you to being able to go to tonights dance because you've purchased a ticket and I'm being really generous. You may go." He handed me a yellow slip of paper and shooed me.

Have you ever heard the moment that your life was over, well I had. It kinda sounded like a ringing noise but with static. It was as if the soul had been stolen from me like some scary movie. But in the movies they had gotten happy endings. I wanted nothing more than to leave S.T.E.M. and now that I was banned from it, I wanted to yell, kick, scream and fight. I was frozen in time but still moving. My legs picked me up and carried me out of the office but I was still stuck here in this state of being soulless.
I walked out of the office where I had been sent too many times freshman year. Past the hallway where I had first met my best friends. Past the door that had opened and welcomed me to one of the craziest high school years the I had ever had. Past the place that had banshed me from its halls.
I had been rejected by a place that had a sign the said welcome. The school had rejected me. From the way the hall normally had a warm interior but now they were ice cold, or the way you could feel a sense of family here, and I was cut from the family photo. David and I had been cut out of our second homes. Although he stopped answering my texts. Even the rejected, rejected me

And I realized (too late) that S.T.E.M. was and has always been my dream school.

This was the start to the end of my life.