Till Next Time | completed | currently under re-edit

9

9

The day I returned I realized everyone in school knows about my little run-in with the office.

The students, the teachers, even the janitor. And no one fails to leave a harmless comment hanging about in the dense air to attest to the fact that they are aware.

Thus, as soon as I walk into Behavioural Mod., aside from the inquisitive shock on Ana's face, Miss Jane smiles at me and announces, "Look who is back from his little exile. Welcome back, Brooklyn!"

"How are you, Brooklyn?"

How many times in the last two weeks have I been asked this like it matters?

"I am fine."

"Would you like to tell the class what happened?" She asks and I want to punch her smug little face into the wall.

No. "I got suspended."

"Why?"

I can tell she knows. My jaw stiffens.

"I got into a fight."

"For what reason?"

"Name-calling."

She sighs. In a distance, Anastasia rolls her eyes.

"How do you feel about all of that? The fight, the suspension, everything."

It's like she just refuses to take the goddamn hint.

"I don't know. I don't think about it too much," I say.

Miss Jane smiles, maybe at my nonchalance. "You do, Brooklyn. You always think about things."

She chooses not to pursue after me anymore and moves on to Jennifer with anorexia, congratulating her on the newest three pounds, leaving me scrambling to make eye contact with Anastasia.

Upon dissolving the class Miss Jane calls out to me before I could hasten my exit.

"Brooklyn, may I have a word with you?"

Anastasia and I share a glance. "Sure," I turn back and say.

We move into her little office. "Take a seat, please."

"How are you liking the support group?" She tucks her palm under her sharp chin.

"It is nice." It is the bane of my existence.

She scrunches her forehead.

"I can tell when you are being dishonest. I am a Behavioral expert, if you remember."

I give in. "It is not my most favorite thing in the world."

"Why?"

Well, first of all, you ask a lot of questions. "I don't know, I feel like I don't belong here."

She smiles. "No one does, Brooklyn."

I look at her, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Look around you. Do you think these are your everyday people?" She turns a picture frame she keeps on her desk to me, a picture of the class. Minus the newest additions, of course.

"We had this taken when we took a trip to the Museum of Natural History" She smiles proudly and unmindfully caresses it.

"Martha was the first one I had. She made her first cut at thirteen and by sixteen, three trips to the Intensive Care Unit had already been made. Then George. He spent a year in correctional facilities after his father shot his mother point-blank in the chest. The authorities found him after three days holed up in some dark alleyway. None of the occupants of those twenty chairs in that hall fit anywhere else."