Chapter12 - The Week Before the Fall
1869 Words
Joint Service – Monday Afternoon
If Kendra had written a list of “people she expected to act normally today,” Dominic Garrison would not have been on it.
So, when she walked into the office at three o’clock sharp, ready to endure two hours of silent mutual hatred, she was almost offended to find him already there… quietly sorting papers.
No smirk.
No snide greeting.
No fat joke.
“Afternoon, kids,” Miss Hall said. “Today I’ve got some filing that needs doing and a stack of mail that needs to go to classrooms. Think you can handle that?”
“Sure,” Dominic said.
Kendra blinked.
“Yeah,” she added slowly. “We got it.”
Miss Hall handed Dominic a box of manila folders and a list. She handed Kendra a bundle of envelopes. “These go to the teachers’ rooms,” she said. “You can take the second floor today. Dominic, you’ll finish labeling, then help Kendra once you’re done.”
Kendra gave him a sideways look.
He didn’t meet her eyes.
They worked in near silence for the first fifteen minutes.
Kendra leaned against the counter, sorting mail into smaller stacks per classroom.
Dominic labeled folders, his pen moving steadily.
The quiet would’ve been peaceful if her brain hadn’t been replaying Friday’s cafeteria scene repeatedly.
Words she’d heard all her life, repackaged in his voice.
Buffet. Starved. Whale.
Her stomach knotted.
“You know they're still talking about it, right?” she said abruptly, not looking up.
“About what?” Dominic asked without thinking.
She laughed, short and humorless. “You are accusing me in front of everybody. Calling me fat. Shooing me out of your territory.”
She shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it with her back half-turned to him. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on walking into the cafeteria and demanding an apology.”
He put the pen down.
“Kendra,” he said.
Something in his tone made her glance up at herself.
His eyes were on her now, dark and serious. Not mocking. Not cold.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said quietly.
The words hit her like a physical object.
She stared at him, thrown.
“What?” she said.
He swallowed. “What I said in the cafeteria,” he clarified. “About you. Your weight. That wasn’t… I shouldn’t have. It was—”
He stopped himself, jaw clenching like the next word hurt.
“Cruel,” he finished.
Kendra stared at him for a long moment, searching his face for the joke.
There was none.
She wasn’t sure she believed him anyway.
“You mean that?” she asked carefully. “Or is this part of your ‘my dad told me to behave’ routine?”
“It could be both,” he said. “He did tell me to stop being an i***t. But I also know I crossed a line.”
She blinked.
She had not prepared for this.
An apology. From him.
Even a half-formed one.
Her chest felt… weird.
Unsteady.
“Okay,” she said finally. “You shouldn’t have said it. Agreed.”
Silence stretched between them.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“What, you want me to cry and thank you for your crumbs?” she shot back, defensive prickles already rising. “You don’t get a standing ovation for basic humanity.”
His mouth twitched. “Fair.”
“Plus,” she added, looking back down at the envelopes, “Words don’t disappear just because you regret them later. That’s not how it works.”
He went quiet again.
“You’re not going to deny it?” he asked after a moment.
“Deny what?”
“That you messed with Karina’s stuff,” he said.
She shot him another look. “You really want to go down that road again?”
He hesitated. “She’s… been having a rough couple of days,” he said instead.
Kendra snorted. “Welcome to consequences.”
“She’s not… evil,” he said.
Kendra barked a laugh. “That’s debatable.”
“She’s… Karina,” he said, as that explained everything and nothing at once. “She goes too far. She always has. But she’s not used to being laughed at.”
“Must be nice,” Kendra said flatly. “To live your whole life punching down and never imagining someone could reach back up.”
He didn’t answer.
Miss Hall returned just then, arms full of more paper, and the moment was shattered.
“Kendra, you can start those deliveries now if you’d like,” she said. “Second floor, as I said. Dominic, you’re on the main floor when you finish.”
“Got it,” Kendra said.
She grabbed her stacks and headed for the door.
Halfway out, curiosity got the better of her. She glanced back once.
Dominic was watching her leave with unreadable expressions.
For a second, something flickered between them again—something she refused to name.
She left before it could settle.
Wednesday – Hallway
The rest of Monday passed without incident.
Tuesday, too.
No slime.
No pranks.
No cafeteria spectacles.
It should’ve felt like a win.
Instead, it felt like waiting for a punch she couldn’t see coming.
By Wednesday, Kendra’s nerves were frayed.
Dominic was… weird.
He didn’t hover, exactly. But he was always nearby. At the end of the hall, when she turned the corner. A few tables away at lunch, eyes flicking over like he was measuring distance.
No insults. No shoves.
Sometimes their eyes met. He’d look away first.
It made her feel unsteady, like she was standing on a boat she hadn’t realized was moving.
“What is his problem?” she muttered under her breath as she and the girls walked toward the science wing between classes.
“Who?” Erica asked.
“As if you don’t know,” Kendra said. “Big, broody, annoying.”
“Garrison?” Alrreah guessed.
“Obviously,” Kendra said. “He’s been… off.”
“You mean, not actively bullying you?” Jennie said. “That sounds like an improvement.”
“Yeah, but why?” Kendra demanded. “Guilt doesn’t turn guys like that into saints overnight. He’s up to something.”
“Maybe,” Jeah said carefully, “he realized he went too far.”
Kendra made a face. “More like he’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security so he can drop a vending machine on me or something.”
They reached the stairs.
The hallway was crowded—kids bunching up near the stairwell entrance, teachers trying to get past, someone dropping their books and swearing in the traffic jam.
“Yo, we’re going to be late,” Erica said, trying to slide through a gap.
Kendra shifted to follow her, hand digging blindly in her bag for her notebook.
The stairwell opened up ahead.
She took another step—
“Kendra!”
A shout came from behind her.
She didn’t turn. Not yet. The voice was familiar; she’d heard it throw laughter and insults in equal measure.
“Keep walking,” she muttered to herself.
Except that the crowd shifted unexpectedly.
Someone bumped her shoulder from the left. Another kid cut in front of her, forcing her to pivot. Her foot landed half on the edge of the first stair, half off.
Off-balance.
She windmilled her arms, notebook still in hand.
She didn’t actually fall.
Not yet.
Antonio’s voice floated from somewhere behind Dominic. “Dom, leave it!”
Dominic’s answer was lost in the noise.
Kendra didn’t look back to see the worry flashing across his face.
She just steadied herself, rolled her eyes, and kept going.
A few kids chuckled like they’d been hoping for a repeat of her first hallway fall.
She flipped them off without breaking stride.
Wednesday’s Joint Service was quiet again.
Almost too quiet.
Miss Hall had them shredding old documents and reorganizing a file cabinet. They worked side by side, occasionally bumping shoulders, always pulling away as the contact stung.
At one point, Kendra caught him staring at her hands while she fought with a stiff drawer.
“What?” she snapped.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, looking away.
He’d been doing that a lot—watching her hands. Her wrists. The way she moved.
He didn’t know yet that in a week, he wouldn’t be able to look at her hands without flinching.
She didn’t know yet that in a week, those same hands would be wrapped in white and pain.
All either of them knew now was that something had shifted between them.
Something they didn’t have a name for.
Something that felt, in different ways, like standing at the edge of a cliff in the dark.
Waiting.
Friday – The Last Normal Day
By Friday, the tension in Kendra’s shoulders had eased a fraction.
No one had tried anything new. Teachers were starting to call on her in class like she was just another student instead of “the Jamaican girl who suplexed Karina.” Her grades were decent. Her friends were settling in.
Life, somehow, was… happening.
They made it through lunch with no incidents.
Even Karina seemed tired—quieter than usual, sitting close to Dominic, occasionally shooting Kendra death glares but not moving to act on them.
Dominic watched Kendra in flashes.
He watched her laugh with her friends. He watched her flick a fry at Erica for stealing from her tray. He watched her talk with her hands, the way her fingers danced with her words.
His wolf prodded at him constantly.
Protect.
He didn’t know from what.
He just knew the week had crawled by in a strange mix of dread and hope.
The dread, he understood.
The hope?
He didn’t touch.
After school, Joint Service was almost… easy.
They spent an hour helping Miss Hall put together small welcome packets for an upcoming parent night—maps, teacher lists, school rules.
Kendra folded papers into folders with practiced speed.
“You ever think,” she said suddenly, “about how weird this is?”
“What,” Dominic asked, “paper?”
“This,” she said, gesturing between them. “You. Me. Your dad is forcing us to play office assistants three times a week instead of just suspending us.”
He considered. “Suspending you would’ve looked bad,” he said. “Exchange program and all.”
“Yeah, I got that part,” she said. “Still weird.”
“You’d rather be at home?” he asked.
“Honestly?” she said. “Yeah. Or at least somewhere that’s not full of fluorescent lights and childhood trauma waiting to happen.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
“You?” she asked, surprising him. “You’d rather be… where?”
He shrugged. “Forest,” he said after a second. “Running.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You do track?”
“Something like that,” he said.
She studied him for a second, like she wanted to ask for more.
Then she didn’t.
When Miss Hall finally dismissed them.
- Writer
