Anger Issues

fifty nine

Austin

We both froze in place, immediately sighing. "Fuck," I muttered, turning on my heel.

We walked down to the Principal's office, waiting in the small room while he was on the phone.

Within a minute of silence, the door opened.

"Come in," he said, holding it open for us. Walking in, he nudged towards the seats in front of his desk.

"Did we do something wrong?" I asked. "I have multiple things to discuss," he began.

"First off, it's come to my attention that you two have been skipping a few classes," he said. Jess and I had no response.

"Is that correct?" He asked. "N-not anytime recently, Mr. Princeton," Jess said. "But you have," he said. We nodded.

He sighed. "Do you know how that's affecting your grades?" He asked. "You're being marked absent in these classes. If this keeps up, it'll affect your graduation rate next year," he added.

My heart skipped a beat, and I was sure Jess' skipped two. Neither of us thought about graduation, not a single thought.

I shook my head. "I wasn't aware," I said. "Now you are. My only solution is to give you detention, but I have two options," he said.

We nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"Three weeks, every day after school until 4:30," he said. "Or, a whole month, Saturdays only, from 7 to 12," he said.

I sighed. Both seemed horrible, and honestly, quite unreasonable.

I looked at Jess, only to see her already looking at me. "I think I'd rather do Saturdays for a month," I said. Five hours for four days.. unreasonable, but better than an hour and a half every day for three weeks.

"Yeah," Jess agreed. "Alright, then," he nodded, grabbing his pad of pink paper. He scribbled onto a couples pages, handing them to us.

"You'll start this Saturday," he said. "No excuses. If you miss one, you get two more," he said.

We nodded in understanding, hoping to leave, but hearing more.

"Now, on the other hand, we want you two to open up our assembly in two weeks from now. It's been told that you're both good dancers, and we think it would be nice to see it. If you do it, maybe I'll cut off a week," he offered.

"You can also add anyone if you'd like," he said. "Yeah, we'll do it," Jess immediately agreed. "Perfect," he said. "That's all. But seriously, don't take this as a joke," he held up the pad of pink paper once more.

"If you're here already, then don't leave without a legal reason," he added. Nodding with our papers in hand, we left the room.

Jessica

"Bullshit," Austin sighed, a safe distance away from the office. "Let's be real, we've done it too often to not have gotten caught by now," I said.

He shook his head, clenching his jaw. "It's fine," I said, softly putting my hand on his shoulder.

He said nothing as we walked back to class. As soon as I walked in, the bell rang, luckily.

After school, I met Austin back at the car. He was clearly still upset over getting detention, but wasn't as angry as before.

"Are you alright?" I softly asked, breaking the silence. "Yeah, sorry," he nodded. "It's fine, babe. It's only a few days," I said.

He shook his head. "Five fucking hours every week just because we skipped, what, like, twice?" He asked.

I was taken back by his sudden anger. He was doing so well lately, I forgot how it felt when he was mad.

I quickly gained control, again, though. Softly putting my hand over his, he already knew he had to calm down.

"I'm sorry," he said, putting his other hand against his forehead. "It's alright," I softly said.

It felt like my bad luck, and all the shit happening to me, was somehow reflecting onto Austin's life. He was stressed about me all the time, and if he got in trouble, it was because of me. I hated the feeling of knowing what I was doing to the people around me.

I just wanted it to go away.