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Two days later, an email bulletin was sent out to all the students at Oak Park reiterating the zero-tolerance policy for bullying.
Whoop-de-fucking-doo.
I was pretty sure everybody either read the email and mocked it, or took one look at the subject line and just straight up deleted it. If Levy seriously thought that was going to stop Adena from attacking me again, the man needed to get out of the education system, because he clearly knew nothing about teenagers.
And thanks to a favor her parents called in, Adena didn’t even get punished. I heard through the grapevine that she’d been called to the dean’s office for a lecture… but as soon as she walked out his door, Dean Levy forgot about her too.
I could practically picture him with his hands in his ears, eyes scrunched shut, blurting loud noises to blot out the rest of the world.
That was how it felt most of the time, and it was why I hadn’t gone to him last semester, even when things were really bad.
He didn’t want to deal with it.
Maybe it was because he wanted to believe the hype about his academy, its reputation for being one of the best in the country.
I’ve got news for you, Dean Levy. The academics may be great, but the people are shit.
Well…
Maybe not all of them.
The guys closed ranks even tighter around me since the attack. Since the dean hadn’t really done shit, I sort of feared that they’d take matters into their own hands and go after Adena themselves. I caught them all gathered in an empty hallway one day after class, their heads bent close together as they discussed something, and even though Finn reassured me it wasn’t about Adena, I wasn’t sure I believed that.
Finals were looming on the horizon, and I hated that in addition to studying my ass off, I was constantly looking over my shoulder now too.
A week after the attack, when my bruises were fading to greens and yellows that were more easily covered up by makeup, I got another call from Jacqueline in the middle of the day.
I answered as I trekked across campus to the gym building. I could’ve let it go to voicemail, but then I’d have to call her back later—and right now, I had the built in excuse of not having long to talk before my next class.
“Hello?”
“Talia.” Her voice was cool. We’d now had three discussions about my plans to pursue dance after graduating, and I could tell she got more pissed off every time.
Well, that makes two of us.
“Hi, Jacqueline. What do you want?”
My tone was too blunt, probably, but I didn’t feel like playing her polite mind games today.
“I want to know why I just received a message from the dean of Oak Park about you getting into some kind of physical altercation.”
My steps slowed. Fuck. Of course, the one step Dean Levy would take was to tell my grandparents.
“Um… It was nothing. Some girls just jumped me because—”
“I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.”
I stopped walking entirely, holding the phone away from my face and staring
at it like it was some kind of alien. Then I finally blurted, “I was trying to! I didn’t go after them. I just told you, they jumped me—”
“And I had to get a call from the dean about it, urging me to make sure you stay focused on school and don’t engage with those girls anymore.”
“Engage with them? I was minding my own fucking business and—”
“Talia. Language.”
I moved toward the gym building again, irritation simmering in my veins. “Right.”
