Chapter 6 - Second Day (New Reputations) Continued
1780 Words
Mr. Garrison studied her for a long second. Most principals Kendra had met before would’ve snapped at her for that tone. This one just seemed to file it away.
“You are correct that other people acted first,” he said. “But everyone in this room contributed to what happened. That means everyone in this room will deal with consequences.”
He laid them out one by one.
Karina: removed from a few coveted extracurriculars for the rest of the term and placed on behavioral probation. Her mouth fell open at that.
“You can keep your social life,” he said, “but you cannot keep disrupting mine.”
Antonio and Robin: a week of after-school detention for escalating and not stepping in to de-escalate when they could have.
Antonio flinched slightly, rubbing his jaw. Kendra didn’t feel that bad about it.
Then Mr. Garrison looked between Dominic and Kendra.
“As for you two,” he said, “you will serve mandatory joint support hours for the next month.”
Kendra’s stomach sank. “Joint?” she repeated. “As in… together?”
“Yes,” he said. “Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you will report here after school at three o’clock sharp. You will assist office staff, teachers, and others with tasks as assigned. Organizing, delivering, preparing materials—whatever is needed.”
“And if we refuse?” Kendra asked before she could stop herself.
“Then we move to suspensions,” Mr. Garrison said calmly. “Which will not look good on the record of a scholarship-based exchange student.”
That shut her up.
Dominic frowned. “Dad, this is—”
“Not negotiable,” Mr. Garrison cut in, and this time there was steel under the calm. “You tripped a guest in this school. You will help make sure her time here is not made worse by your behavior.
The word guest landed with weight.
He looked at both of them again. “You don’t have to like each other,” he said. “But you will learn to coexist without further incident. Understood?”
Kendra forced out, “Yes, sir.”
Dominic hesitated, then said, “Yeah. Understood.”
“Good. You may all go. I expect better from all of you moving forward.”
They filtered out into the hallway in awkward silence.
The second the office door clicked shut behind them, Karina spun toward Dominic.
“Are you kidding me?” she hissed. “You’re seriously going to spend three days a week with her? Alone?”
Dominic’s expression barely changed. “It’s an office, Karina. Not a prison cell.”
“She humiliated me,” Karina snapped. Her gaze cut to Kendra, eyes narrowed. “You should’ve let me—”
“You poured a milkshake on me,” Kendra said, stepping in before she could finish. “You humiliated yourself. I just finished the job.”
Karina’s face flushed under her makeup. She took an angry step forward, but Antonio caught her arm.
“Karina, drop it,” he muttered. “We’re already in enough trouble.”
She jerked her arm free. “Whatever,” she spat. “This school is literally crawling with trash now.”
She stalked off, her two friends scrambling after her. Antonio and Robin exchanged looks, then trailed away as well.
Soon, it was just Dominic, Kendra, and her girls in the hallway.
Kendra crossed her arms. “You trip me again,” she told him evenly, “I’m not aiming for your friend next time.”
He looked at her for a moment, something unreadable lurking behind his eyes.
“Noted,” he said.
Then he turned and walked away as the hallway belonged to him again.
After School – Joint Service
Third-Person Limited (Kendra)
By three o’clock, Kendra had almost convinced herself detention-with-a-fancy-name couldn’t be that bad.
Then she saw the stack of papers.
“Here you go,” Miss Hall, the receptionist, said cheerfully, placing two large piles of worksheets on the desk between them. “These all need to be collated and stapled. Two-class sets each.”
Kendra stared at the stack. “This is child labor,” she said.
Dominic, already leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, gave a small huff of amusement.
Miss Hall smiled. “Consider it character development,” she said. “Dominic, you can help her with this, and then I’ll need one of you to tackle the supply closet.”
Kendra followed her gaze to the half-open closet door.
It looked like a stationary tornado had died there.
She sighed. “Of course.”
Miss Hall went back to her computer. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”
Kendra dropped into the spare chair behind the counter. Dominic slid into the one next to her.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
She grabbed the first pile and started sorting. He did the same with the second.
The only sounds were the soft thud of paper and the occasional click of a stapler.
“So,” Kendra said eventually, eyes still on the pages, “is this, like, your usual after-school routine? Making life harder for people and then sorting paper?”
Dominic’s mouth twitched. “No,” he said. “Usually, I’m not forced to share oxygen with someone who assaulted my friend.”
“Your friend shoved me,” she reminded him. “In what universe is that okay?”
“He was stopping you from hitting me,” Dominic said.
“Oh, right,” Kendra said. “God forbid the prince of the school get a bruise.”
“I’m not—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she cut in. “Principal’s son, not an actual prince. My bad.”
He went quiet again, jaw working.
She finished a set of worksheets and thumped them into a neat stack.
“Just so we’re clear,” she added, “I didn’t ask to be stuck here with you, either.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he said.
She shot him a look. “Excuse me?”
“You seem to enjoy causing scenery,” he said simply. “Halfway. Cafeteria. Office. It’s day two, and everyone knows your name.”
Kendra snorted. “Trust me, Garrison, if I wanted attention, I’d pick something that didn’t involve dairy products and threats of suspension.”
He didn’t answer that. Instead, he grabbed the now-smaller pile and carried it over to the far side of the desk to make room.
The distance helped. Just a little.
Miss Hall popped her head up. “Kendra, when you’re done with that stack, could you start on the closet? Dominic, keep going with the packets.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kendra said automatically.
She caught herself.
Ma’am. Jamaica really followed her, huh.
She pushed away from the chair and walked over to the supply closet. Up close, it was even worse—open boxes of pens mixed with unopened reams of paper, random art supplies, and things she didn’t even recognize.
“Who died in here?” she muttered.
“You’re allowed to complain less and work more,” Dominic called lightly.
She grabbed a box and turned just enough to glare at him. “You know you’re the reason I’m even here, right?”
He met her glare calmly. “You threw the punch.”
“You stuck out your foot,” she shot back. “Actions, consequences. Ever heard of those?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “You’re not scared of much, huh?”
It wasn’t really a question, but it hung there like one.
Kendra bent to slide a box of pens onto a lower shelf. “I’m scared of plenty,” she said. “I just don’t let people who don’t know me see it.”
“Is that what this is?” he asked. “You… performing?”
She laughed, a short, sharp sound. “You think way too highly of yourself if you think any of this has anything to do with you.”
He didn’t push it. For a while, the only sounds were boxes sliding and papers shuffling.
Kendra found a rhythm: pull a box out, call what it held, let Miss Hall point where it went. Every so often, she’d feel Dominic’s eyes on her, but if she turned, he’d be looking somewhere else.
It was annoying.
And weird.
And a little unsettling, like one of those feelings you get right before a storm hits.
—
By five o’clock, the supply closet looked like an actual closet again instead of crying for help. The stacks of worksheets were sorted, stapled, and labeled.
Miss Hall clapped her hands together. “You two were a miracle today,” she said. “Thank you. You’re free to go.”
“Free,” Kendra echoed under her breath. “Love that for us.”
She slung her backpack over one shoulder and headed for the door. Dominic walked a few steps behind her.
The late-afternoon light slanted through the hallway windows, painting long rectangles on the floor. Most students were already gone. The building felt quieter, emptier, like it belonged to someone else now.
Outside the main doors, she could see Sofia’s car in the parking lot, her friends waving.
“Kendra! Move yuh big head!” Alrreah shouted, beckoning.
Kendra smiled despite herself.
She took a step down the stairs, then paused and glanced back at Dominic.
He was watching her, his expression unreadable.
“So,” she said, “see you on Wednesday, I guess.”
“Looks like it,” he said.
“Try not to injure anyone before then,” she added. “Especially me. I don’t like repeating materials.”
Something like amusement flickered across his face, there and gone in a heartbeat.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
For a second, it felt like the world narrowed to just the awkward space between them—two people who’d collided way too hard, way too fast, and were now stuck in each other’s orbit, whether they liked it or not.
Then someone yelled her name again, and the spell broke.
Kendra turned away and jogged down the steps toward her friends.
Dominic watched her go, hands in his pockets, jaw tight, thoughts louder than he liked.
He didn’t know what to do with this girl from another country who didn’t flinch when he glared at her, who hit as she meant it, who refused to move when he told her to.
He just knew one thing:
She wasn’t going to be easy to ignore.
- Writer
