Page 30 of Broken Pieces
The sound digs into my skull until I want to snap that fucking pen in half. Then he stills it with a sharp press, as if to underline the point.
“Do you want to tell me why you hit him?”
A single shake of my head. The answer’s no, but I don’t waste the breath on words.
His mouth tightens. “You’re not helping yourself.”
Good.
Didn’t walk into this office to save myself.
“Zane.”
He says my name again, his patience now wearing thin. He leans forward, eyes hard, tone snapping against my ears.
“This is your third suspension. In three weeks.”
His gaze pins me to the chair, while his voice carries the final blow.
“You’re on your last leg, Mister. You so much as breathe the wrong way and I’ve got every right to suspend you. Permanently.”
The word"permanently"drags across the desk, thick and final, like a coffin lid slamming shut.
I nod once. Nothing more.
He lets the silence hang long enough to see if I’ll flinch, break or fill the air with some pathetic plea to keep myself from drowning.
I don’t.
Fuck these pathetic people and their judgements.
I sit still as stone, my pulse hammering in my ears. My knee bounces under the desk, but not a single crack shows on my face. If he wants weakness, he can go find someone else.
He finally drags the suspension slip across the desk. The pen scratches loud against the paper.
“Three days,” he says, voice clipped, cold. “Effective immediately. You’re not allowed back on campus until Monday.” He pauses, jaw tight, eyes narrowing with one last swing of authority. “And if you come near that boy again—”
“I won’t.” It slips out low, scraped from the back of my throat, barely more than a growl.
Granger rises, then opens the door with that finality that tells me I’m nothing more than paperwork now. A signature and a problem shuffled out of his office.
I sling my bag over my shoulder, the strap digging into my palm, and step into the hallway.
Every footstep pounds against the tiles, echoing too loud, reminding me what I am. Trouble. Noise. A warning carved into the echo.
By the time I shove the front doors open, I know I’m fucked. The sunlight is too bright. It makes everything feel rawer, every nerve ending exposed.
That fucker Liam deserved it.
He opened his mouth and ran it around the wrong girl. Thought he was clever. Thought he was untouchable. His words crawled under my skin. Calling her a fucking broken toy withthat arrogance. The kind of shit that turns people into property instead of human.
The fuckers never get it.
We didn’t ask for this life. We didn’t choose to be shoved into these cages and labeled defective. And I’ll be damned if I sit quietly while some asshole treats Skylar as if she’s nothing more than something to use and throw away.
So I swung.
And now the world wants me to fucking pay for it.
