Darcy and her father return back to their old stomping grounds of New York City. With her, Darcy brings habits of being reclusive. She is perfectly content spending most of her time within the walls of her father's café and sees nothing wrong with t...
"Break it up! Break it up right now!" a voice added in a booming shout from down the hall. The crowd parted as Mr. Patel, a younger teacher I recognized as Chris's English teacher, came running towards the scene. I slouched into Marissa and closed my eyes in relief as I saw Tony back down under the steely tone of his teacher's words.
"Principal's office," he barked. "Now!"
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Although I was a vibrating mess of nerves, our innocence in this situation was the sword and shield I was taking into this fight against five adults looming over Chris and I in his apartment. Once the guilty and the jury arrived at the apartment, Camryn immediately sought refuge from the tension by escaping to her room and cranking up the volume on her iPad. Rebecca, Mark, Papa, Jessica, and Reece were all on various positions on the reaction scale, with Reece's nonchalance marking one end of the spectrum and Rebecca's fiery rage at the other end. I've always been told about the way disciplining Rebecca could be, and I could finally attest to how horrible it was to be on the receiving end of it – even if it was mostly directed at Chris. Despite bearing the reprimands since our trip to the principal's office, he has refused to let go of my hand. It was of little comfort, though. The cat was out of the bag, and this wasn't how I wanted everyone to find out.
"You could've been expelled!" Rebecca shouted at Chris. "Or suspended. Or broken a bone!"
"But none of the above happened, Rebecca. Look—" Reece reached over and patted Chris's cheek and then the other "— not a single bruise or scratch on that pretty face of his."
"Yeah, Mom, c'mon. Nobody was even hurt and Principal Gatzy just let us off with a warning," Chris said.
Rebecca placed her hands firmly on her hips. "A warning from a fight you still instigated."
Chris pressed his lips together as if to say "you got me there."
"It was barely a fight. If he was gonna properly fight me, he should've punched me, not shoved me."
I winced, but Reece nodded in agreement and reached over to bump fists with Chris. "That's right, little man. What an ameatur. You would've beat his ass again just like last time if it'd been a proper fight."
Rebecca's eyes bugged. Mark, who was on the disapproving but not particularly angry side of the spectrum, steered his seething wife out of strangle distance. "Boys," he warned.
To their credit, the boys apologized in unison before following Rebecca into the kitchen as she stormed off, saying things like, "He's been a total dick to me, Mom, you don't understand" and "Rebecca, it wasn't even a big deal. There was, like, no blood at all!"
I watched them trail after her and couldn't help the quirk of a smile. Blonde hair and brown hair. Pale skin and tanned skin. Thin frame and muscular frame. They were a product of brothers by bond and not by blood. Chris's readily reaction to threaten, to fight, to protect with loyalty fierce enough to cause harm and be harmed... This was Reece's influence, and it was damn cool to see.
