Page 2 of A Vicious Rumor

That pulled me out of my haze just long enough.

I was wrenched off the little shit by someone much bigger than me. It must have been a teacher or a security guard. I only had a minute to take in the scene. The kid was bleeding all over the floor, his face almost unrecognizable from when we started.

Something caught my attention to the side.

A girl.

She was my age, or looked it. Rather plain looking but with pretty blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She was holding her nose and I could see bits of red seeping through her fingers.

I cringed as I thought about what hit my elbow. It must have been her. She must have been trying to pull me off of him.

It was her fault that she got hurt.

She should have left me alone.

They all should have just left me alone.

“It’s a lucky thing that girl intervened when she did,” I heard the principal say to my father. The whole conversation bored me.

I was in trouble.

Big whoop.

They couldn’t hurt me.

I was already hurt so much I couldn’t even feel it.

What were they possibly going to do to me? Take away my mother?

I looked around at the stuffy office. Everything at King’s Academy was stuffy. The principal had his own son at the school. He was in my class and everyone loved him. It was all fake though. They just liked him because he was blond and had connections. They didn’t like him for him.

“Did you hear that, son?” the principal asked in a stern voice, an obvious ploy to try and recapture my attention.

“Interesting choice of words,” I snorted at him, crossing my arms and sinking further into my chair.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for us,” my father replied, filling the silence. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” he said, his voice trailing off.

“Yes, well, life is difficult. He’s going to need to learn that he can’t beat someone to a bloody pulp just because they call him names,” the principal muttered.

I rolled my eyes and my father stood up and began to hustle me out the door.

“Mr. Stone,” the principal said, standing up. “I thought you might want the information of the little girl that did step in to help. I understand that her nose was broken and required medical attention. People from that area, well, they don’t have much,” he said.

My father looked uncomfortable for a moment before finally reaching forward and taking the piece of paper that the principal was sliding forward.

“Thank you,” he said, stuffing it into his pocket. “I’ll make sure everything is straightened out.”

I slouched low in the seat of my dad’s Porsche, Cayenne as the city flew by me. I watched it all with disinterest, just wanting the day to be over.

“I know the last few weeks haven’t been easy on any of us,” my Dad said, acting like this all wasn’t his fault. “But you can’t go around breaking people’s noses because of it. Especially not little girls,” he added.

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t mean to hit her. She got in the way.”

“That’s how these things happen,” my Dad lectured. “Better to just keep on the straight and narrow.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” I said through clenched teeth.

My father just sighed. He didn’t respond. He was never going to respond. He was a pushover. He had been his whole life and even in middle school, I could already see that. My mother—well, my ex-mother, would bully him into buying anything she wanted for her. Look how far that got him.

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