Recovery | On Hiatus

Chapter 1

[copyright AubreyParsons ©2016]

Chapter One

      A DEEP GROWL of frustration rumbled deep against the back of my throat. "This is all your fault!"

      He reared back with a stunned hand against his chest. "My fault? You're the one who started the food fight!"

      "You put snakes in my locker!"

      "They were fake!"

      I sneered, letting my arms flail in front of me in an attempt to express my building anger. This was in no way my fault. "How should I know the uncomfortably realistic snakes suddenly falling from my locker weren't real?"

      "Oh, sure, blame the trouble maker! God, Red, you're so stereotypical!"

      "My name is Scarlet, not 'Red', Hayden!"

      "Silence!" our principal boomed, the sound resonating throughout the small office like an explosion. He stood in a swift motion and slammed his shaking fists onto the wooden desk. "Detention, both of you! This entire school—staff and students—are tired of the chaos endured between the two of you!"

       "What?" Hayden exclaimed, standing from his own chair with a start. I took in his white knuckles and messy brown hair. His jaw clenched, pulling attention to the two small studs just under his bottom lip. "How is that fair?"

      Principal Williams snorted, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sat back down. His other fist remained clenched on the desktop, and my stomach twisted with anxiety at the action. "It's perfectly fair, Mr. Mathews. In fact, your detention will last an hour after school for the rest of this month, and the entire month of December, starting today."

       Great. Not only did I have to spend a month and a half of detention in close to two feet of snow, but I had to spend it with Hayden Mathews. "Principal Williams, please," I tried, lacing my fingers together with pleading eyes. "If you'll just reconsider—"

      "No, Miss McKinnon," he cut me off. "There will be no reconsidering. In fact, I've already contacted your older bother and he'll be here to pick you up after your first detention, which will be spent cleaning up the mess you two made in the cafeteria this morning."

       I tensed up at the mention of my brother. I dropped my hands stiffly to my sides, trying and failing to compose myself. "No."

      "Pardon?"

      My attention shifted to Hayden to see him taken off guard, as well. He knew as well as everyone else that he was the only person known to rile me up, but there was no way in hell Darrin was picking me up. I'd walk miles in twelve degree weather if I had to.

      When I returned my attention back to Principal Williams, he stared back with wide eyes. "Tell Darrin I'm fine and that he doesn't need to pick me up," I said. The amount of willpower it took not to spat his name with all the venom I felt inside. "I'll walk home."

      Darrin McKinnon didn't deserve his last name. He didn't deserve to have the same messy blonde hair that I did, or the same piercing gray eyes. He didn't deserve to have girls falling at his feet whenever he visited from his college campus or for every guy within a fifty foot radius to envy him. While I was a seventeen-year-old Junior in high school, Darrin was a two-year graduate. He was twenty one, now in his second year at Michigan State. Occasionally, he'd come back to visit some of his buddies from when he was still in the high school, which would later end with me feeling both physically and emotionally miserable for the following weeks.