savior ≫ z.m. [completed]

2

When I get to school, Principal Ward is standing by my newly assigned locker. He glares at me until I reach him. I don’t acknowledge his presence until he steps in front of my locker, blocking it.

“Excuse me Ms. Montgomery, we need to talk,” he says sternly. I sigh and look up at him. “Come with me,” he turns on his heel and heads towards the office.

I follow him down the hallway and ignore the stares and snickers coming from students in every grade.

“I wonder what she did this time,” someone whispers.

“What a freak,”

“I heard she got busted for giving alcohol to some 13-year-olds at a party,”

I close my eyes and block out the tears. My hand finds its way into my hoodie pocket and my fingers brush the sharp edge of the pencil sharpener blade I carry with me everywhere.

When we walk into the office, I notice a boy I’ve never seen in my life sitting in one of the chairs, tapping his food anxiously.

He has rich hazel eyes and his jet black hair is curled up into a quiff. He’s wearing a jeans, boots, and a black hoodie that’s rolled up, exposing his severely tattooed forearms.

I walk past him and feel his eyes follow me into Principal Ward’s office.

“Callie, you’ve missed a total of 59 school days last year,” he pauses to glare at me as if waiting to see if I had anything to say. “You know this school has a no tolerance policy for ditching,” he scolds.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble.

“That’s not going to get you anywhere. Now, based on district rules, I’ve contacted your mother to notify her you’ve been skipping classes, and as punishment, I’m not going to give you detention, but something that I think might actually help you.”

I’m starting to get scared now.

“What?” I ask quietly.

“I assume you saw that young man outside of my office. His name is Zayn Malik, and he’s an exchange student from England. He will be shadowing you for the week, and then he will receive his own schedule. For now, he will be following you to all your classes and participating. I expect you to be polite and helpful,” he says.

This is actually worse than detention.

“Can I have detention instead?” I ask.

Principal Ward stares at me for a long time before sighing.

“Callie, is there something wrong? Is something going on at home that the school needs to know about?” he asks softly.

I freeze. Principal Ward almost never calls students by their first names.

“Everything’s fine, I guess today’s just one of those days,” I lie. He looks at me doubtfully, but I assure him that everything’s fine.

“I’ll be right back, I’m just going to get Zayn,” he says, and exits the office.

My mom doesn’t care about my life, so I’m not worried about the call home. But why was he making me, of all people, help the exchange student? I’m the last person they should choose to do this.

Principal Ward comes back in with Zayn behind him, and I make eye contact with him. As soon as he sees me, he smiles politely and holds out his hand for me to shake.

“Hi, I’m Zayn,” he says with an accent to die for.

If I had that accent, I’d never shut up.

“I’m Callie,” I say, shaking his warm hand.

Principal Ward smiles approvingly at my cooperation.

“Well, first period is about to end, so Callie, why don’t you take him to second period?”

“Of course,” I fake a smile.

First day of senior year, and it’s already the worst year of high school.