The chair beneath you is the same red as the blood on your knuckles. Your foot taps restlessly beneath the large oak desk of your principal. Mr. Clemmons is a graying man in his fifties, and you have likely given him most of his white hairs over the years. His eyes pierce yours; you’ve practically memorized the rain-gray of them by now.
He tells you he’s called your mother, and you hold back a flinch. Your mother coming here means she has to leave her job at the restaurant, and the last time that happened her manager docked her pay. You both spent two weeks living on cups of ramen and rationed peanut-butter sandwiches; she gave you the bigger rations.
“How are you going to explain this one?” Mr. Clemmons asks, and you look down at your lap, grimacing. There’s nothing you can say to her to soften the blow. Your mom won’t care what the other guy said; she’ll only care that you were stupid enough to take the bait. She won’t care that he taunted you or baited you with a watch worth, quote, “more than your father’s coffin,” only that you broke the kid’s nose.
Mr. Clemmons rubs his temple between two fingers. “I should expel you for this.”
“So why don’t you?” you snap, and immediately regret the words as he levels you with a glare. You look away and mutter a begrudging, “Sorry.”
He scoffs. “Your mother was my student, you know.” Your gaze stays firmly planted on the wall behind his head. “I know how hard she works now, and I’m trying not to put any more stress on her than she needs. But you’re not doing much to help, and any more of this and my hands will be tied. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Of course you do. You may be a straight-C-and-D-student, but you’re not entirely an idiot. You know how close you are to being kicked. A part of you is tempted to tell him to just get it over with; there’s no point in finishing school. Your mom didn’t, and she’s… fine. Enough. But you’ve seen her carefully counting and recounting the small stack of bills she’s saved for your college fund one night, as though she’ll ever use it.
It’s then that she walks through the door. Your stomach drops when you see her: frazzled hair, bags under her eyes, lips pursed in a line. Too late, you tuck your blood-stained hands beneath your legs. Her eyes narrow, and she meets your gaze but says nothing before she turns to Mr. Clemmons. The two of them talk, but all you can do is stare at her.
She’s never been this quiet to you. Even last time, when you slammed a freshman’s head into a locker for spewing crap he shouldn’t have, she at least said something—“Why?”. You clammed up; she didn’t need to know. Still, everyone at school knows how she’s only sixteen years older than you, and most aren’t afraid to throw that in your face.
This time, she hasn’t said a word. She’s hardly even looked at you. And twenty minutes later, after Mr. Clemmons told her you’d be suspended for thirteen days, after the car doors close and leave a ringing in their wake, there’s a tension in her shoulders and a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.
You whisper “I’m sorry” and are met with silence. So you turn to the window, resting your forehead on the cool glass. You close your eyes and say nothing more.
In three months, the two of you are going to snap. You are going to repeat the angry, bitter words of the kids at school to her face. You’re going to add your own, voice the thoughts you’ve only ever had late at night, when your lumpy mattress and pounding heart make it impossible to sleep. You’re going to hurt her, but your voice will crack at her desperately-hidden tears. So you’ll leave. You won’t know where you’re going, only that you have to get out, if only for a few hours.
It’ll be sunset when you finally head home. You’ll pass the cemetery, as you always do, and see your mother sitting with her back to your dad’s headstone, staring at the sky and unbothered by the cold. In the dim light, you’ll see drying tear streaks down her cheeks. You’ll pause, because she doesn’t break, not your mother; not when her high school boyfriend left when he got the news, not when the man who stuck around and raised you died in that car crash, and certainly not when her son is being an annoying little shit. Yet there she’ll be, and you won’t know how to handle it. So you’ll go home. Sit on the ancient armchair in your living room, put your head in your hands, and wait. When she finally returns, you’ll apologize—an actual, genuine apology with tears she hasn’t seen in months. She’ll hear you out, and when you’re done she’ll pull you into a hug and murmur “I just want you to be okay” as she brushes her lips to your forehead.
So you’ll try. For her, you’ll try to be okay.
Right now, you don’t know any of that. The silence stales in the car, and when you get home you go to your room without a word. Five minutes later, you hear the door click shut behind her as she returns to the restaurant. You last another ten before your restlessness drives you to the door. It’s not like you know where you’re headed. Nowhere good, probably, but a flash of white makes you still. Your eyes find the bandages she’s left on the kitchen table—bandages for your knuckles. Your breath stutters out of your chest, leaving something hollow behind.
After a moment, you pick up the bandages and clean the blood from your hands with only the quiet as company.
Ali Adams is a college freshman who plans to study Creative Writing and Data Science. She loves writing of all kinds and hopes to be a full-time author in the future.