Whitewood Academy (Year One)

Chapter 1: Kicked Out

CHAPTER 1: Kicked Out

You know, thinking back on it, calling Meredith Sovolsky a slutty, bitchy, attention-seeking whore in front of the principal on camera – who was incidentally Meredith’s father – wasn’t the best idea. But she did deserve the name-calling. Everything I said to her was true. After all, she did steal my best friend’s boyfriend away from her. Not to mention she made my boyfriend break up with me to be Meredith’s own personal boy toy. Yeah, at age 13 she was already a slut.  

I played with the strands of my blonde hair lying below my shoulders as I listened to my mother yelled at me for being kicked out of Sovolsky High.

“Ciara, just what am I going to do with you?” My mother sighed, her voice hoarse from all the yelling.

“Love me, feed me, and never leave,” I quoted Garfield. Mom eyed me wearily. I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of my mother’s uneven breathing. The front door slammed suddenly and an ugly voice bellowed out my name.

“CIARA!”

I immediately opened my eyes, sighed inwardly and scrambled to the living room where my ‘father’ stood, clutching some papers and tapping his boots impatiently. When I entered the room, I bowed to him, something that he wanted all of us to do when he entered the room. The living room reeked of alcohol, especially stronger near him when I moved closer.

“Yes, father?” I asked him as calmly and politely as I could with the stench of beer up in my nose.

“I thought I raised you good and proper, Ciara, to be a young lady. You are a straight-A student and you get kicked out of the best school in the district?” My father gritted his teeth. “I seriously don’t know what’s happened to you. I really thought I’d raised you to be perfect.”

I glared at him. Who the hell does he think he is?” Excuse me, but my mother was the one who raised me on her own for 10 years. I am 13 years old. You’ve only known me for three years.” I could see his jaw clench and I inwardly smiled. “I’m pretty sure that Mum was the one who raised me, unlike you who never even bothered to stick around when she got pregnant! So don’t say that you raised me! Because you didn’t.”

My father glowered at me and, before I knew it, I was on the carpeted floor in a second, clutching my stinging cheek. He hit me! My own father hit me!

I looked around for my mother and remembered that she was still in my room. My ‘father’ clenched his fists and I flinched. He seemed to like my reaction. He leaned his head closer and whispered fiercely so that he wouldn’t bring Mum’s attention down here. “You have no business in telling me what I did and did not do. I ought to punish you more!”

I got up and positioned myself behind the couch, if by any chance he wanted to abuse me again, I would duck behind the sofa.

“Thank God, you’re going away until you’ve graduated.” He growled. “At least the house would be rid you and your miserable existence.”

I froze. What did he mean that I was going away until I graduate? I would be away from Mum for almost five years!

“What do you mean?” I asked, anxiety lacing my voice. He thrust the papers at me and I picked them up. There was a brochure underneath the papers.