The Ripple Effect

Wrong to Right

Daniel Wright woke up via the sound of his obnoxious alarm as usual. He dreaded waking up on this morning of all mornings, especially after what happened with Acacia the previous day after school. He didn't have time to think about what would happen today in the midst of his high school drama, so he simply welcomed the day and began preparing for it. First, as usual was to get dressed. After this, Daniel would go eat a breakfast his mother would occasionally make for him before brushing his teeth and getting his backpack to leave for the bus in time.

On the bus, Daniel sat in silence. He thought about nothing, did nothing, and talked to no one. He simply sat in his seat next to the window admiring the suburban neighborhoods covered in frost with a dead mind and a dead thought pattern. He, of course, wasn't dead; he felt dead. The day before, half of his mind was curious as to what Acacia had really wanted to tell him and why he hadn't given her a proper explanation as to why he was going to be busy. Of course, the way he handled it in the moment he was confronted didn't help him much either. However, in the moment he was in now, he didn't care for what anything or anyone was going to say or do to him. This was more of a matter of morals and curiosity than a matter of lying.

Lying was far from something new to Daniel. He considered himself an expert liar at times seeing all the things he was able to dismiss with a lie that would never be uncovered. Other times, however, he messed up from time to time and this time he had messed up in this setting in a way that was the last way he wanted to mess up. The trust of Acacia Taylor was far from the trust of someone he wanted to betray. For some reason or another, he valued his relationship with her. She seemed to look up to him and it was something that Daniel felt honoured by. He had no doubt that the prior admiration had now been turned into a hatred of sorts, and for that he hated himself.

Daniel arrived at school right on time as usual and waded through the sea of his classmates to which he didn't know the names of and when he finally managed to exit the long yellow mobile prison, he began walking to his first class. However, on the way to his first class a voice rang over the intercoms that were scattered across the campus, "Daniel Wright to the front office, please."

Daniel was mildly confused as to why the school would call him in, let alone this early, but he complied and began making his way to the front office regardless of his confusion. When he arrived, the secretary told him to wait in a nearby room. In the room there was a long wooden table with several chairs surrounding it. Not long after Daniel took a seat, his counselor and a few other representatives from the school came in and sat at the opposite side of the table.

"Is there any reason in particular as to why I was called in today?" Daniel asked, politely.

"Yes," his counselor began, "Daniel, lately you haven't been showing up to class.

"Come again?" Daniel said, feeling opposed to what he was just told, Daniel was so far under the assumption that he had perfect attendance. He couldn't recall any day he had ever left school early, been late to a class, or had to skip days.

"According to your biology teacher, you didn't show up to class yesterday and with that absence added, you've been absent from biology for fourteen times in total now," the woman explained.

"That can't be right," Daniel countered, "I haven't been absent a single day this year so far."

"Your records prove otherwise."

"Then my records are wrong," Daniel argued, beginning to get riled up over the accusation, "You can ask my parents, even! I've yet to miss a single day of school!"

"Daniel, calm down," one of the representatives urged, "We've come in to talk to you about why you might have missed lately."

"That discussion won't be necessary," Daniel shot.