Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #1) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,137
break every now and again, at least.
The bathroom door swings open and there’s Ms. Keating, staring at me with dark brown eyes, her mouth pressed into a flat line, just like I knew it would be.
“Am I expelled?” I ask, twisting the lipstick and watching the colored tip disappear into the tube. I glance her way as she sighs.
“No, Bernadette. I don’t believe kicking students who need help out of school is a very productive way for a society to better its youth. Come with me, please.” She steps out of the bathroom as I tuck the rest of my makeup away and head after her, turning the corner and moving into her office. She closes and locks the door behind me before taking a seat behind her desk. I notice the windows are also closed and locked today.
I sit down in the chair in front of her desk, and we spend several moments staring at each other.
“I know why you did what you did. Gang life can seem … enticing, when you have nobody and nothing else. It gives you a sense of belonging, of purpose, of family. But none of it is real, Bernadette. No matter what you do for Havoc, you will never be anything but a tool for those boys to use.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” I say, leaning back in the chair and staring her down. I think about Aaron, taking the blame for stabbing Kali. In all honesty, Ms. Keating is probably right … about most people, about most gangs. But the Havoc Boys …
“I am,” she says, exhaling sharply and folding her hands on the top of her desk. Her hair is twisted up in a pretty chignon today, her makeup subtle but tasteful. I can hardly imagine her living the gangster lifestyle. “My high school career was less than stellar, and I ended up running with a very dangerous gang—”
“Havoc is different,” I say, wondering why I’m bothering to defend them in the first place. I hate them. They ruined my sophomore year. They fucking tortured me. And yet … Aaron with his girls, Hael’s kindness at the pharmacy, and even Victor holding me in bed that night. They’re not so bad really, are they? Ms. Keating’s face softens, and she sighs again, like she feels sorry for me, like I’m brainwashed or something. “They could’ve done so much worse,” I tell her, coming to a sudden realization. “They could’ve raped me. They could’ve beat me until I couldn’t stand. But everything they did, it was calculated to inflict damage without leaving the worst sort of scars.”
“Bernadette,” Ms. Keating starts as I grip the arms of the chair, blinking through the idea that’s just slid into my brain. They didn’t do those things because they didn’t want to hurt me. They didn’t want to hurt me. They didn’t.
Victor Channing punched me in the face between first and second period for saying Bernadette Blackbird was hot.
The words from that box come drifting back to me, and my heart begins to pound.
Havoc has done worse. They could’ve done worse. They chose not to.
Fuck, I need to talk to them.
“Can I go now?” I ask, feeling antsy, but Ms. Keating doesn’t look like she’s ready to let me off quite so easy.
“Bernadette, you stole a box of administrative files from my office. Do you understand how problematic that is?”
“I burned them,” I blurt, squeezing the end of the chair arms, my nails digging into the wood. “I can’t get them back.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to bring them back,” she says, “but I am going to ask you to write me a two-thousand-word paper on the implications of gang violence.”
“Okay,” I say, just wanting to get out of there as fast as I can. “I’ll have it in tomorrow.”
“Bernadette,” Ms. Keating starts, but I’m already standing up out of the chair. “Just … please, if you need someone to talk to, I’m on your side.”
“Right,” I say, but there’s no part of me that believes her.
My list includes the principal, the foster brother, the social worker … I’ve tried trusting people like her before, and it didn’t work out for me. I’m not changing my ways now. Not a fucking chance.
I snatch the note she hands me and let myself out of the room, yanking my phone from my pocket and staring at our group text, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to say. Thanks for not kicking my ass too hard?