Life, Love, & Lemons

Queen

I wished I didn't have to go back into my apartment that night. That I could have just stayed out on the patio with Kai forever and try to forget all that was crumbling around me.

It was Thursday, so I should have been getting up early to get ready for school and Homecoming activities, but instead I just laid in bed staring at the ceiling. I wondered what everyone around school was saying about me. Probably nothing good and Kai was probably getting a lot of the flack from people as well. I just hoped that no one thought that somehow he was involved with it, or that Brynne didn't think she'd won and now was all over him.

I shuddered just thinking about her slithering up to him with her stupid dreadlocks and that smirk like she had won. I heard Dad shuffle into the kitchen around ten and figured that I should get up as well.

Mom never came back that night to get her stuff and even though she had been pretty absent since we moved to the apartment it was still weird knowing that she wasn't going to be around again. Dad slumped down at the kitchen table, staring at his cup of coffee blankly.

"Hey Dad..."

He slowly looked up at me. First he lost his job, then his daughter got suspended, and to top it all, his wife was cheating with his insurance agent. For the first time, I finally understood why he was so mopey all the time. I wanted to crawl into whatever hole he was going to bury himself in and stay there. But I knew that we had to go on somehow.

"I really don't know where to go from here, Bent," Dad sighed. "I should have known this would happen with your mother, but I it still feels like a shot to the heart."

"I know I'm not supposed to say this as your daughter, but you're way better off without her." I tried my best to smile. Though it pained me to even say it, it was true.

Even though Mom was always a 'stay at home Mom,' she was always too busy to be a Mom. Doing different charity functions, lunch dates, golfing. It was like being a mother was an inconvenience to her. As much as I also hated to admit it, Dad was the same way pre-lay off. I kind of wondered what life would have been like had Dad not gotten laid off. Would he have been the same distant father who I never got to know as a writer or guy that was actually interested in my life?

"You know." He let out a big sigh. "In some ways this lay off was one of the best things that could have happened to me."

I choked on my own spit, literally. I started coughing violently for about thirty seconds.

"Excuse me?" I asked when I finally regained my composure.

"If this wouldn't have happened I would have just been stuck for another 30 years in a loveless marriage, in a job that I hated, but now I get the chance to venture out on my own without the constraints of a job or a wife that hadn't been a real wife in years."

He reached across the table and patted my head. "But that's not something you should be concerned with right now. What we need to be concerned about is getting you back to school."

"I hope that you believe me Dad. I mean, yes, when I was at St. Christopher's I was dealing, but I'm definitely not doing it now and you know that Kai would never put me up to something like that." I protested, feverishly chewing on my bottom lip.

"Bent, I've been with you and Kai enough to know that neither of you would ever do that. Kai may dress funny and have way too many piercings for my liking, but I know he's a good kid. And I know that you are as well." He gave me a reassuring, tight lipped smile.

"Well where do we go from here Dad?" I'm just the kid in this relationship I don't have all the answers." I removed my hand from his and placed both my hands on the table, folding them together in front of me.

"I think that we should get dressed and go down and talk to your principal." Dad stood up, looking down at me.

"What are we supposed to say though?" I stood up in front of him, crossing my arms. "I mean I don't think she's going to believe the truth.

"Well I guess we are going to have to try and make her." Dad smiled, giving me a reassuring pat on the back before heading into his bedroom.

I didn't know if this would work. In fact I had no idea what was even going through Dad's head. He put on his former everyday work attire: charcoal dress pants, button down shirt, and a tie. I think he even shaved. He looked more like the Dad that I was used to pre-lay off.

"We'll be fine, Bent, don't worry. Whatever happens, happens." He smiled at me.

Dad had never even been to St. Christopher's for anything besides my eighth grade graduation, so it was even weirder to see him so ready to walk into East High with me. I wondered if I looked the same as him at my first day of school.

With his wide eyes as he stared at the metal detectors and his confusion at the horrible smell that hits the nostrils as soon as the door opens.

"Hi, I'm Marcus Evans and my daughter and I are here to see Mrs. Grover." Dad turned on the 'all business' voice as he spoke with the secretary.

"I will let her know that you are here, Mr. Evans." The secretary smiled behind her Coke bottle glasses then headed down the hallway toward Mrs. Grover's office.

"Dad, do you really think this is going to work?" I said quietly, as I looked through the big glass windows that surrounded that office.

People walked by and stared at us, then whispered to each other.

"It's worth a shot." He smiled as the secretary walked back out to the office.

"Mrs. Grover will see you now." She motioned her arm toward the hallway. Mrs. Grover seemed to have a softer appearance about her as she greeted us. Maybe she had gotten wind of Mom and Dad's split somehow and wanted a guy that wouldn't be running around on her.

"Please, have a seat." She motioned for us to sit as she closed the door behind us.

"Thank you for seeing us, Mrs. Grover." Dad said as she took her seat behind the desk.

"Well, I'd have to say that I wasn't too surprised when my secretary told me you were here." She smiled and leaned back in her chair.

"Do most parents come in and speak with you after their child has been suspended?" Dad asked, crossing one ankle over the other, leaning in.

"No, actually, the kids that do get suspended are expelled and have parents that are pretty absent in their lives, but looking through Bentley's file it seems as though that was not the case."

She opened the file and started thumbing through it. "Aside from that last incident at St. Christopher's Bentley looks like a model student. Honor roll, student council president, AP classes. Bentley looked like the poster child for high school success."

"I know, Mrs. Grover, that's why it's obvious that someone set me up and I didn't do it." I practically whined.

Dad sat his hand on my knee, before he looked back at Mrs. Grover.

"Mrs. Grover, you can obviously see how upset that my daughter is and I'll be the first to tell you that I believe her. I'm also not here to tell you that I plan on paying you off. Things have been rough on my daughter the past year with my lay off, moving, and starting a new school. I really don't want her to miss out on her senior year because of a miscommunication and I'm hoping there is some way that we can work this out."

"Well, lucky for you, Malakai Rowe has come forward and said that the pharmaceuticals were his and that Bentley actually had no idea that he had put them there for safe keeping." She closed the file and folded her hands on top of it. "Mr. Rowe left just a few Moments ago and I was actually just about to call you, Mr. Evans. Bentley is welcomed back to school and will be able to assume her position on Homecoming court." She leaned in smiling. "Where I do hear from the student body that she is a shoe-in for queen."