FATHER ALWAYS SMILING

Chapter 42 ~~~~~

I looked at him again, with a knowing look and flatly asked. "Do you believe me now?"

The principal didn't say anything, only turned back to the crowd of people and saw how everyone else looked at him, eyes and expressions filled with rage as they wanted to hurt him badly, but before that could happen another person spoke up, a voice I recognized.

"Stop, unless you want to get arrested alongside him!"

It was the woman from before, the two detectives that came to our home when Lauren went missing. And... the lady detective who came to my house when my mom disappeared.

* * *

Things happened quickly after that, the principal was arrested and brought to the police station, and my Dad and I were too, not arrested, but the two detectives wanted to ask me things about what happened, like before after the attack Elain had from Nick when trying to protect me.

The lady detective asked me about what I had said when they came to the school, about the principal and the teachers that might have known, that word bugged me.

Might.

As if saying they didn't know, when a number of the teachers did, they just didn't care about the kids, like the principal.

I even gave the detectives a list of names of those who knew, those who weren't aware, and those who suspected and were threatened by the principal to keep silent or lose their job and probably couldn't teach. To the kids that were hurt by Nick and included if they had moved away or were still here. Very few kids had stayed.

The lady detective sighed; I think she went by Song? She was looking disappointed at me before saying. "Look, kid, I'm not mad, but if you had something like this before you should have said something sooner, talked to someone."

I looked her right in the eye. "I did."

She looked uncomfortable but didn't seem to take my word. A look I've seen before. "I know, but what I mean to say is, you should have talked to the police, they would have listened."

"Like you did when my Mom hurt my Dad?" she reacted to that with a scowl, while the other man who worked with her looked sad. It wasn't on them, I knew that, but I wanted to prove my point, that this stuff, trying to get others to listen and take it seriously wasn't easy. It never was, and it made it all the worse. "It's only until I was hurt you wouldn't believe it, how is that any different from this? A lot of the kids that were hurt by Nick didn't want to say anything because they were scared and afraid, afraid that they wouldn't be believed. That's why I went around trying to get evidence so that those who refused to listen would actually believe it. Mia's the only one who decided to work with me to get him to stop. The others were either too scared or moved away."

She leaned back in her chair, looking at me then at my Dad and back to me. "Then why not your Dad? Why not tell him? Did you think he wouldn't believe you?"

My Dad who sat next to me, merely looked at me with a faint smile, it's not that I didn't trust him, he was my Dad, after all, I knew he'd believe me. It was what I didn't want him to do that might cause all of what Nick did to disappear that I wanted to avoid. "What would your parents have done if it were you? How do you think they'd react, or if it was your kid, what would you have done?" I asked this so I wouldn't outright call my Dad a murderer. Even though I knew he was one.

"Beat him to an inch of his life, probably." The other detective said under his breath, it was super soft, but I could hear it, and I knew my Dad could too, given how his smile twitched in response.

"You know exactly what you'd do, police or not. Why do people ask those questions, thinking it's easy to answer when they know it's not?" I asked but didn't wait for an answer, I merely changed the topic slightly. "Are the principal and teachers going to be in trouble?"