Straighter than Parallel Parking

≈ t h i r t y - e i g h t ≈

"All I do have are all the suspensions you obtained because you keep messing with her," her teacher points out. "And I have already talked to Audrey. She denies everything or pleads the fifth. You know she hates confrontation."

"And she's totally under Makenzie's stupid thumb," grumbles Janice, plopping down onto the chair. She rotates it so she's partially facing both her teacher and her principal, the latter of which remained quiet while watching.

"So, what?" Janice asks, drumming her fingers against the armrest. "Did they ask you to deduct 40% from my grade? Give me detention? Do you want me to redo the project on my own? Lay it out so I can start. This is nothing new."

And it isn't. Janice has had far worse.

All her years of standing up to bullies or taking her own "choice of justice" has never resulted in her favour. Being called a troublemaker, violent, aggressive—that's the normal reaction.

Apparently, adults always decide they're the only ones who have the authority to do what they want, even when they forgot to take responsibility for their messy children. The young troublemaker suspects people don't just become bullies overnight unless they're accustomed to living with them; her issues are with the adults who fail to check their children, or worse, encourage the behaviour like feeding gold bars to a greedy thief.

It's either living with sewn lips and bruised muscle or having a filthy mouth and thick skin.

"They want a parent-teacher interview. For both of you. Together."

Janice's fingers freeze midair. "No. I refuse. Why do I have to drag my father in for their problem?"

"Janice, this isn't up to discussion," Ms. Jules says firmly, though not unkindly. "Mackenzie's parents are going to use all their connections and appeal to the council for reform behaviour if you don't attend." Ms. Jules steps forward, gently putting down a large blue file onto the principal's desk. "Maybe this is better for your dad to handle this, too. We know you're not as bad as a kid as this file will state, but I can't convince her parents with just words. They'd call me Betty White for children."

"My dad," Janice says again, "does not need to come just because two white people think the orphaned kid is out for their arrogant, egotistical child. He has a job he needs to go to and enough worries at the back of his mind that don't need to involve my problems when I'm almost eighteen. How the hell is that even fair?"

"Janice," Ms. Jules scolds sharply at her language. Janice's raised voice was accompanied by goosebumps on her arms that don't seem to go away. Her face flushes the more her heartbeats, and she is suddenly so sick of girls and their needless drama.

"I am not here to spoon-feed a child that either suffers from a princess complex or falls short of the expectations her parents put on her. I'm not her mother or her friend. I am her classmate. I did my job. I don't want my dad involved."

I can't drop another bombshell on him.

Yesterday, after editing all the videos and getting her Woman Definition Project ready, Janice broke down—not in a hysterical mess, but she was a mess of emotions and feelings. Elation, anxiety, happiness; she had put a lot of souls searching to get through to the ends of this video, and now it was her turn to finally let her dad know.

Why? Because all her life, she's been messing up.

Bringing up going to an adoption agency failed to be any sort of casual when she mentioned it over dinner. Forks dropped, and gazes glared into her so intensely that she almost choked on the words she wanted to say next. Her father was excited, sure, as were everyone else, but he was worried.