Page 28 of Broken Pieces
I should be used to it by now.
But today, it crawls deeper than usual, reminding me that no matter how hard I fight, no matter how sharp my edges become, I am still proof that some people are born without value.
Chapter Four
Zane
Theprincipal’sofficereeksof bleach and bullshit. It’s all scrubbed walls and dirty truths.
I’m slouched in the chair outside his door, leg bouncing hard enough to rattle the floor, trying to shake the fury clawing at my skin. The anger sticks. It always does. Doesn’t matter how many times I try to peel it off.
My knuckles are split again.
Red.
Throbbing.
A mess of old scars torn back open. My jaw aches from how tight I’ve been clenching it, every muscle straining to keep the scream buried.
And fuck, I’ll never learn.
Always fight or flight. But I never run, so I swing. Every goddamn time, because that’s all I’ve ever been taught.
My whole life’s been one long fucking brawl. Me against the world, fists up, breath short, waiting to be hit so I can hit back harder. It’s instinct, more like muscle memory now. They come for me, and I burn the whole thing down.
Part of me wishes I didn’t always end up bleeding and broken in someone else’s hallway. But wishing only gets you so far. And no one ever taught me how to walk away.
The door groans open, dragging silence into the room.
Mr. Granger fills the frame, face screwed up so tight it seems painful. As if he’s been chewing on bitterness his whole life and still hasn’t learned to swallow it. His eyes cut through me, dismissive—the same expression people give to roadkill they wish someone had cleared before they had to drive past.
His expression says everything.
I’m the mistake he wishes had been erased before landing in this school. The stain he’ll never scrub out of it’s shiny floors, no matter how much bleach he drowns the halls in.
“Inside,” he snaps, voice flat and clipped, already done with me before I’ve even moved.
I push up from the chair, every muscle dragging, weighted with the kind of heaviness that never leaves.
My shoulders square out of habit. My body moves like it’s been trained for this routine. Dragged into offices, lined up for lectures, another adult waiting to carve their disappointment into my skin.
I don’t meet his eyes. I refuse.
His gaze is a trap, hungry for weakness. He won’t get a damn thing from me.
Instead, my focus stays locked on the wall past his shoulder, where the paint’s chipped, a thin crack snaking upward, as if even this place can’t hold itself together. That crack becomes my anchor, something solid to keep me from drowning in the weight of his stare.
The door clicks shut behind me, a clean, final sound. A lock without a key.
My teeth grind until I taste the copper of old blood.
“Sit.”
The word lands sharp. A command, not a request. The kind of order they’ve been shoving at me my whole damn life.
All I can think about is how much I want to ignore him. How much I want to stand there and watch him squirm when I don’t fold into his rules.
I don’t.
