Page 25 of House of Bass

“See you on Wednesday, Annabel.” He dismisses me with a wave of his hand.

✧✧✧

Sitting in the canteen with MJ, I told her a brief version of how I have somehow landed myself with a TA position, so we spent the last hour stalking David but couldn’t find anything online about him. No social media presence whatsoever, not even LinkedIn, it is baffling.

“Imagine s'il était un criminal , ou pire qu'il ait fait de la prison?” MJ asks. Imagine if he were a criminal and had been in jail?

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a familiar cloud of dark hair with a huge canvas in hand, so I get up so suddenly and noticeably that whatever suspicion that arose will be entirely my fault.

“Can you just stop?” I shriek, her footsteps slow only slightly, but enough for me to catch up, “I waited for two hours and you left without telling me! What if you had died or something?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“If you must know, I've been told that’s a very admirable trait of mine.” Not particularly.

“What do you want?” she yells, stopping abruptly this time. It is a little out of character for her. The last couple days I have been attached to her limbs and she has simply glared or muttered insults under her breath, but nothing loud. I hadn’t noticed before but she is angry. Is that at me ?

“I just wanted to know you were okay,” I say.

“I am fine. Just fucking fine, I don’t need or want your worries and help,” she continues, glaring at me with a hatred so fierce, all I could see is our father’s eyes. I feel an arm on my shoulder but shrug it off. She tactfully lowers her voice to spit more venom, “I’m the daughter of your father’s whore.” A hysterical laugh pours out of her, “Maybe you should be more worried about your idiotic mother, she was the one who was cheated on after all and stayed.”

Her eyes shadows a hurt that mirrors mine. I hadn’t even taken in just how much of an upheaval the whole situation must've been on her. That is what I wish I said to her, that I understand; instead, I slap her as soon as the words leave her lips, “You’re the worst thing to ever happen to me and I wish you never existed.”

I turn around and come face to face with Arden who eyes me with looks ranging from pity to disappointment, his hands tightly gripping my arms. “Don’t say anything else that you’ll regret two hours from now.”

I push him off me as hard as I can and it is then I realise the crowd that we have drawn and even worse behind Richard Junior was Richard Senior.

“Ms. Bass, Ms. Banjo, I’d like to see you both in my office.”

Fuck, this is going to get back to father.

✧✧✧

Richard Senior is not usually around, he comes by once every other month just to keep up appearances. He is too busy to deal with the petty ins and outs of the students in this way, we are not children. However, I’m guessing he has taken a particular interest this time seeing how it’s me, and the lack of fights that normally don’t happen here. It is utterly beyond.

I have only ever been in his office a couple times for academic reasons, so I feel chastised sitting in here right now like a child who threw a tantrum and is being told off by a parent. There is too much familiarity especially for a man I hold resentment towards because of how he treats his children. On his desk sits a picture of Katherine smiling, she was so beautiful with her bright blonde hair and a light in those brown eyes that never dimmed, until it did. Arden isn’t the only one who lost her, I did too.

Richard clicks the door shut and carries his tall and imposing body round to sit down when he notices me staring at it and proceeds to shift the image out of my sight, his irritation clear. He is the picture perfect replica of his son; dark hair that is now greying and blue eyes with a hint of green. Unlike his son, he is stern and cold, there has never been a person I have wanted to be around less. He looks between me and a barely calm Harley and asks, “Can one of you explain to me why you are having physical altercations on school grounds?”

Neither of us answer.

“Behaviours like this aren’t allowed on my premises,” he looks at me, “you of all people should know better, Annabel.”

“It won’t happen again,” I grit out .

“Make sure it doesn’t.”

Then he looks at Harley distastefully, it borders on–

“William went over my head to the board to get you into this school for reasons beyond my comprehension,” he says, “But I will have you and him know this is still my school. There will be no more of a day like today. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” but she isn’t looking at him when she says that, she’s glaring at me.

“Annabel, the next time you see my son tell him I’d like to speak to him. I’m going to be here all day.”

I’m definitely not doing so but I give him a nod to placate him.

“You’re both dismissed,” he says.