IF IT'S SO WRONG, WHY DOES IT FEEL SO RIGHT?

DETENTION

The fluorescent lights in the empty classroom at 3:30 PM seemed even colder, casting a pallid, sickly yellow glow over the rows of scarred desks. The silence was profound, broken only by the low, persistent hmm of the ancient air conditioning unit struggling against the late afternoon heat. Billie sat at her desk, her brow furrowed in concentration, her fingers laced tightly together on the scarred wood. She was ostensibly grading a stack of papers, the red pen scratching against the cheap paper with a sound like dry insects scurrying, but her attention was entirely focused on the imposing figure in the far corner.

Nala Amari had arrived exactly on time, dropping her massive backpack with a heavy thud next to the desk she'd chosen—the one in the far corner, furthest from Billie's own desk. She hadn't taken out any books. She simply leaned back, crossing her long, athletic legs, her arms folded over her chest. Her posture was a masterpiece of casual defiance, her magnificent afro a dark, silent cloud absorbing the meager light.

Billie waited ten minutes, forcing herself to focus on the papers. The silence was oppressive, a heavy, dark velvet texture that pressed against her eardrums. She saw the clock tick from 3:40 PM to 3:41 PM. Her jaw was tight, and she could feel the faint, rapid flutter of an eye tic threatening to break through. She forced herself to breathe slowly, counting the seconds, trying to keep the internal chaos at bay.

"So, are we going to talk about the French Revolution, or are we just going to sit here and enjoy the tension?" Nala's voice finally cut through the silence, lazy, conversational, entirely disrespectful of the disciplinary setting.

Billie placed her pen down with deliberate care. She adjusted the silver rings on her fingers, a small, grounding movement. The color of her mounting annoyance was a sharp, aggressive orange, vibrating right behind her eyes.

"You are here to complete two hours of silent academic work, Nala," Billie stated, keeping her voice even, projecting an authority she desperately needed to establish. "I suggest you take out your assignments."

"I don't have any," Nala replied simply. "I'm ahead in all my classes. I'm a very good student, Ms. O'Connell. You'd know that if you bothered to look at my transcript instead of just focusing on my 'disruptiveness.'"

Billie sighed, rubbing her temples. "Then you can read ahead in the history text. Or you can sit there and do nothing for two hours. But you will do it silently. This is not a negotiation."

"It's always a negotiation," Nala countered, her lips curving into that infuriating, knowing smirk.

"Especially when the terms are unclear. I'm just trying to figure out what the real reason is for this little after-school date. Is it because I bruised your ego? Or because I made you break your facade?"

"The reason is your behavior. Repeated insubordination," Billie insisted, the orange color intensifying.

"Right. My behavior," Nala scoffed, the word tasting like ash. She shifted in her seat, the metal legs of the chair scraping against the floor. "You've had teachers like you before. The ones who try to seem different, and then the second a tall, black, queer girl challenges their perception of the classroom, the mask shatters. You immediately resort to the same punitive measures as the Mr. Allans of the world."

Billie felt the sharp, defensive prickle—the color of her fury was now a hot, searing crimson. She stood up, needing to move. She started pacing the narrow space between her desk and the whiteboard, her chunky boots hitting the linoleum with rhythmic thump-thump-thump.