3 8
Is This Really It?
The car ride is extremely silent.
I take the one moment of silence I've been given in the last three hours to think back on everything.
Malia's nudes, fighting with Cortney, Headmaster Perry's reprimanding, Rachel's words, Jalen's... well, just Jalen in general.
My right eye twitches for the fifth time in the last hour. A nervous and angry tick of mine that I haven't had the displeasure of dealing with since I was kicked off the swim team. Before that, it was when Mom and Dad took their first official break. And before that, it was when Dad had left for two whole days and Mom was an absolute wreck.
I glance toward the radio, thinking maybe some background noise will be good, but I know I need the silence.
It's about a ten or fifteen minute drive from Arlin Preparatory to my house. Today, it felt like an hour, but as the car pulls up in front of my house, it feels like it took one minute to get here.
Neither of us move. I don't unbuckle my seatbelt or get out of the car, and he doesn't ask me to.
I can't even bring myself to look at him. The tension between us is palpable. It's like I could grip it with my fingers if I tried.
My eye twitches again.
Jalen turns the car off and sighs.
I take that as the cue to get the ball rolling on this conversation.
"Why can we never go a few days without something bad happening?"
Jalen doesn't answer. I finally turn his way, just to check if he even heard me since my words had been so low. Pain shoots up my shoulder when I move, but I ignore it.
Jalen's blue eyes are on me the second he hears me move. He looks to my shoulder first. "Do you want to go to the hospital?"
I glance at the cheap sling the nurse put me in. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"Well, that's because I'm not really fine, Jalen."
"Then let's go to the hospital, Lyndon."
Twitch.
"You think my shoulder is the issue here?"
Jalen looks away, jaw clenching. "Tell me what the issue is."
"Everything that just happened."
His eyes stay straight ahead. "Oh, you mean the restraining order that had nothing to do with you? Or the pictures that had nothing to do with you? Or was it the fight that had nothing to do with you?"
"Are you being serious right now? You really think that didn't have anything to do with me? That whole thing started because of me, Jalen!"
"No," he says harshly, turning to me again. "It didn't. You involved yourself and made it all about you."
Twitch.
YOU ARE READING
High School Treachery | ✓
Teen Fiction"The best defense against the treacherous is treachery." In Arlin Preparatory High School, where the students seem to live by this code, Lyndon Prince has become the new, easy target during her first week as a transfer student. Lyndon's first and la...
