It's Jaelena

Chapter Two

AROUND FIVE YEARS AFTER LENA'S DEATH, I SAT IN FRONT OF MY COLLEGE'S PRINCIPAL, HORRIFIED BY THE NEWS I WAS HEARING.

"Expelled?" I gaped at Principal Rowe. "I can't be expelled! I...I haven't done anything, I'm only failing three classes, and I haven't broken any major laws! You can't expel me!"

"I'm sorry, Paige," said Principal Rowe in an unapologetic voice, "but you have done something. Many things, in fact. Last year I let your behavior slide. I assumed that, since it was your first year in college, you were still adjusting. But this year...it's your second year already, and you're still acting troublesome. I can't let this go on. You're nineteen. Legally an adult. It's time you start learning how to act your age. You need to learn that actions have consequences."

"I do act like an adult," I insisted. "And I don't want to be expelled. I haven't done anything really bad. Nothing unforgivable, I mean."

"Unforgivable?" Principal Rowe barked a sharp laugh. "Paige, in the adult world, every mistake you make is unforgivable. Up to now you've been spoiled and pampered. Up to now you've been given the benefit of the doubt by everyone you've harmed. But it's time for that to end. You are not the queen of the world, and I am not going to make the same mistakes I did last year. I am not going to let everything slide."

I sucked in a sharp breath. I am not going to make the same mistakes. I am not going to let everything slide. Those words echoed in my brain on a daily basis. Those words haunted me at night.

Why? Because they were the last words my best friend said to me before she died. Technically, they were in her suicide note, in a section that wasn't addressed to me, but still.

Principal Rowe, though, didn't know that Jaelena Summers had killed herself and left behind a long note addressing the individuals she had known best. He didn't know that, in her mother's section, Lena had written those very sentences--I am not going to make the same mistakes. I am not going to let everything slide. He looked at me and saw the stricken look in my eyes, and he took advantage of that opportunity and dug his claws into me.

"Not used to being scolded, are you?" taunted Principal Rowe, and I found myself wondering how much trouble I'd be in if I gouged out his eyes. "Well, too bad. You better suck it up and pack your bags. I don't care what pity act you put on, my decision will not be reversed. Go back to your precious mommy and daddy, why don't you?"

Okay, that was it. That was the final straw.

I pushed my chair back and stood up. Then I leaned towards Principal Rowe, towards that face I loathed with all my heart... 

...and spat in it.

I stalked towards the door and shouted over my shoulder, "That was for Lena!" because, truth be told, that was something Lena would have done.