The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things(86)

I don’t have to scream to be heard. I just need to believe what I say matters.

Holy shit, Ryan sends back. Coach will have a field day with this. He’s all about ethics and honor. This is a serious violation of his moral code.

I reply, exactly.

The rest of the weekend, I watch the hit counter go up slowly, each time the site updates. The video of Shane singing has more hits than the one of me explaining, but they’re both climbing upward. I’m almost too nervous to go to school, but I opened this can of whoop-ass. Time to see how it smells.

As I walk to my locker, Alex of the awesome Chucks says to me, “It’s so shitty, what Dylan Smith did to you. I hope they expel his ass.”

“That should count as bullying or harassment or something,” a girl adds.

I nod in acknowledgment, moving past them to where Lila’s waiting. “You went for it, huh? I hear they called an emergency staff meeting this morning.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They’re worried about enabling a ‘toxic learning environment.’ If your videos go viral, the school board will have a shit storm on their hands.”

“I hope so.”

Mid-morning, I’m called down to the principal’s office over the intercom. The room is ominously silent as I gather my things and step out. I walk down the hall slowly, torn between dread and elation. No matter what happens, they’re paying attention.

The main office is quiet, and I don’t see Dylan’s mom anywhere. Another secretary avoids my eyes as she pretends to photocopy something. I pull up short when I spot Dylan waiting just inside the doors, but I don’t let him intimidate me. Instead I take in the fading bruises. Even weeks later, he’s still green in places. I’m about to sit down next to him when Principal Warick clears his throat.

“Miss Czinski, I’ll see you now.”

Dylan makes a sound in his throat as I walk by, but I ignore him and follow Mr. Warick into his office. The room is filled with books and quasi-motivational posters. He has a laptop open on his desk, tilted so that I can see he’s been looking at the videos I posted. I take a seat across from him, waiting for him to speak.

“It appears we have a situation. You allege that Dylan Smith followed you from work, threatened you, revealed certain painful secrets about your past in order to ruin your reputation and humiliate you in front of your peers.”

“It’s true. It happened.”

“What possible reason could Dylan have for singling you out in such a way?”

“I threatened him first,” I admit. “Because he was picking on my friends.”

Now the principal looks slightly alarmed. “You mentioned that in your vlog, but you didn’t say how.”

Even now, I’m not willing to do what he did, at least not in a public forum. But this is a private conversation. So I say, “I saw you kissing his mother.”

Make no mistake, Principal Warick is very married. He has two children in elementary school up the road. So there’s a reason he looks ill.

But he still tries to bluff. “Perhaps you misinterpreted what you saw.”

“Your hand on her ass, hers in your hair, and—”

“That’s enough,” he cuts in. “You realize these allegations could ruin my reputation.”

I nod. “I wasn’t going to say anything. But I needed Dylan to leave Shane and Lila alone. He said basically that he doesn’t like to lose and I could expect him to do something horrible to make me sorry. And he did.”

“Which led to the altercation with Mr. Cavendish.”

“Someone wrote ‘psycho killer’ on my locker. Do you wonder why my boyfriend got mad?”

“In fact, I do not.” Warick sighs heavily. “What is it that you’re trying to achieve with these videos, Miss Czinski?”

“I just want people to know the truth, I guess. It’s not fair that Shane’s taking all the blame when Dylan and I did terrible things, too.”

“So you own your part in the conflict?”

“Yeah. I guess you could even say I started it, although if Dylan would just stop harassing people, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”

“What do you mean by ‘harassing’?”

“Pushing them, knocking their backpacks out of their hands, calling them names, starting rumors that aren’t true.” I could go on, but I don’t. He already knows that Dylan followed me from work with the express purpose of scaring me.

“Do you have any witnesses?”

“Sure. I can think of two off the top of my head.” I can count on Lila and Ryan to tell the truth. “Oh, and I asked Mr. Johannes to help once. He’ll confirm what he saw.”

“Then I’ll open an investigation. If the situation turns out to be as you’ve described, then we’ll deal with Mr. Smith accordingly.”

I have no idea what that means so I just nod. Maybe I can’t get Shane released, but I can make sure people know he had a reason for what he did. It’s better than nothing.

“You’ve put me in a delicate situation,” he says quietly.

“Because of what I know?” No point in pretending.

“Precisely. Can I count on your discretion?”

“If I was going to spread rumors, I’d have done it already. But Ms. Smith deserves better. Your wife and kids do, too.” I startle myself by being bold. Apparently, the new Sage speaks her mind and she doesn’t fear the shadows.