Fine Line

chapter eight

Not Yet A Knight

"I can wait for you if you'd like, if you're dad's not picking you up," Kat offered.

"No, it's fine. I can walk home, it's like thirty minutes."

"It will be dark by the time detention is over. Just let my dad drop you off on our way back."

"Kat, you're dad is already waiting for you. It would be rude to ask him to wait. I will be fine."

"She's right, Val," Austin intervened from behind as he caught up to us.

"I'm a big girl, I can walk home by myself."

"I don't think that rapists or kidnappers are really going to care whether or not you're a big girl. Just accept the offer."

The three of us made it out of the main doors together, not losing each other in the rushing crowd of teenagers around us. I would need to walk back through there in a moment's time to get to the detention room. "Fine, you clearly aren't going to listen. Ring me when you leave, please," Kat reasoned.

"I will," I promised. "Now I really need to get to detention, we know how they react when you're late for it."

"Speaking of which, where is your detention buddy?" Austin inquired.

"I don't think he came today. At least he wasn't in science. But, seriously, I gotta go," I reminded them again, retreating as I said it so that they would not be able to keep me any longer. I waved goodbye to them before turning around to make my way to the room I have been made quite familiar with these last few weeks.

The coach had noticed my absence when class had started on Wednesday, and someone hadn't feared to mention that Jaden had taken me out of class and hadn't returned since. So, Jaden and I had three days' worth of detentions: Friday, Monday and Tuesday. It would have begun on Thursday if it weren't for teacher training at the end of the school day.

But, whilst he had been here yesterday for the information, Jaden had yet to make an appearance today, and so I was going to be alone in detention, again. And it was once again his fault I was in.

In previous years, I had hardly had any detentions. Probably four in my whole school career, and that was never due to my behaviour. This year, however, I had a different reputation going for me. Seven detentions and we were only six weeks into term.

There were three other people, not including the chaperone, already sitting in different areas of the room when I walked through the blue door. A dark haired girl with her head on the desk, an older boy staring out of the window at the crowd of people walking away from the grounds, and a younger boy with bright blonde hair talking away to the teacher who didn't appear too happy about his chatting away to her.

"Name?" the woman asked. She knew who I was, she was the chaperone of my last detentions.

"Well who else are you waiting to attend? Maybe take a guess?" I answered as I took a seat at the closest table near the door.

"Valerie Daniels then," the woman, whose name I still did not know, replied dryly.

"You got it."

She grunted and went back to whatever she was doing and ignoring the boy annoying her. It didn't seem as though she liked either of us. And so I sat in silence for the most part of the hour, staring at the wall in front of me and just waiting for time to finally end. Or at least have the clock hit four so that I could go home.

There was nothing to do here. I had no homework that needed doing, we weren't allowed on phones, and I didn't want to talk to anyone in this room with me, nor would it help my case to do so. The whole aspect of detention was boring, it just felt worse today.