“Not again, Tiara,” one of them by the name of Jen said.
She was the only one Tiara seemed to like in the whole office. Jen stared at Tiara with knowing eyes. Instead of responding with words, Tiara put her hands up and shrugged her shoulders. She was sure that Jen knew all about the fight. Tiara followed Principal Schroeder all the way back as he opened a glass door that led to his personal office. The office was spacious and neat. The walls were an off-white, and he had a flat-screen TV hanging from the ceiling. She looked around at all of his pictures on the walls.
That’s when he went fishing. That’s when his wife had their son. That’s when he became principal.
Tiara recited the happenings of his photos as she sat down across from Principal Schroeder’s desk. He stared into her eyes for a few moments as if waiting for her to speak first. When she didn’t say a word, he sighed. Tiara’s folder was already sitting on his desk, but instead of looking through it, he pushed it aside.
“Aren’t you growing tired of seeing my office?”
“Never,” Tiara said with a smile. “It’s so interesting in here. Why would I ever get tired of seeing such a place?”
The principal heard the sarcasm in her voice and shook his head. “I think you behaved much better when your father had those bodyguards accompanying you to class,” he said.
“I would be just fine if you would tell the teachers working here to watch their mouths,” Tiara snapped back. “I would never get in trouble if people just talked to me right.”
“You are a student. It is your responsibility to respect the teachers. And fighting is something that we just can’t tolerate in this school!”
“So basically you’re saying that it is OK for these teachers to talk to me crazy, but I can’t defend myself verbally? And it is OK for a girl to try to trip me just as long as I don’t hit her back? Why isn’t she in the office too?”
“She is in the nurse’s office, that’s why.”
“That’s what that bitch gets,” Tiara said, folding her arms with a smug expression on her face. She leaned back in her seat and looked the principal square in his eyes. “Because I’m sure that’s the only form of discipline she’s going to receive.”
“Look, Tiara, I’m not sure what happened in that classroom today. All I know is that there are several witnesses saying that you took your frustration from Mrs. Ross out on Ericka.”
“And how believable does that sound, Schroeder? Every time I come in this stupid office of yours you never believe me or anything that I say. So you know what? Forget it. Give me detention, in-school suspension, or whatever. I don’t care.”
Principal Schroeder thumbed through Tiara’s file and saw all of the notes on this troubled kid. No form of discipline seemed to work with her, and whenever he called home, one of the Rogers’s many housekeepers always answered the phone. He had tried to schedule conferences with her parents, but it was always her mother who came. And he had a feeling that Tiara and her mother didn’t exactly see eye to eye when it came to certain things.
“It’s to the point where I don’t know what to do with you anymore, Tiara. And because your father made one of the most generous donations to the school, I am not in a position to suspend you or expel you.”
Tiara translated that to, “Your father put a lot of money into this school to pay us off, and we’ve already spent what he gave us. We can’t do anything to you because we need more of your daddy’s money. His money is more important to us than you.”
She shook her head. Nobody cared about her, and Principal Schroeder’s next statement proved that.
“Just do me a favor and try to keep your nose clean for the next few months, OK? You have good enough grades, and you’ll be ready to graduate soon. The sooner you can get your diploma, the sooner you can be out of this school and out of my balding head. Deal?”
“Whatever,” she responded looking at the ground.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door to his office. Before he could answer, the secretary Jen opened it.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but I have a student here looking to get his class schedule. He’s the new student.”
“No problem. I was just done here,” Principal Schroeder said. “Send him on in.”
Tiara glanced up when she heard footsteps walking inside of the office. Her heart skipped a beat when they fell on the most handsome boy she had ever seen in her life. He was tall, muscular, and had the most gorgeous brown eyes in the universe. His hair was cut into a curly fade, and his skin was smooth and caramel. When he saw Tiara staring, he flashed her a perfect white smile, and his already high cheekbones rose even higher. His lips were luscious, and Tiara could not help but to stare. He was a pretty boy, but something about him read the complete opposite of that. He was dressed in the school uniform, but Tiara was drooling at how clear his muscles were defined through his blazer.
“Hey,” he said to her.
“H-hey,” Tiara swallowed her spit and waved a shaky hand.
“Jen, can you please get somebody to escort Tiara to her next class for me? I’m not sending her home today, but I also don’t want any more fights breaking out in the hallways.”
Jen winked at Tiara seeing the way she was looking at the new student. “Come on, Laila Ali,” she said. “Let’s get you back to class.”
Tiara stood up, and
