When the Bad Boy Isn't Bad

Chapter 21: Inner Five Year Old

"If you get one more detention this semester, you're expelled. That's it. You'll be sent off to a delinquent school."

Fletcher was sitting in an office, across from the school principal.

He was staring at her, gaping, color drained from his face.

"Do you understand?" She continued. "I can't have that on the school records, and although you do get good grades, your detentions do not look good for the school." She put a hand up before he could speak. "Look, I understand that your... methods of getting detention are in theory, not extreme or violent, but a detention just shows up as a detention on the records. No reasoning. And that won't work for us."

"Work for you?" Fletcher exploded. "What about me?" He had a wild look in his eyes, but after a second he reconsidered and calmed himself. "Can I please go?" He said, quieter.

"So you see why I can't?" Fletcher finished, leaning against the wall. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and flipped it open. I moved my hand over his on the box, preventing him from taking out a cigarette. I pushed the box back towards his pocket and sighed. We had gone outside, across from the low wall.

"Yeah, I mean, it's terrible. But I'll help you, okay?" I responded, leaning on the wall next to him.

He sighed. "I can't get expelled. It's hard enough for my mom to see me riding my motorcycle all the time, but if I got expelled, I don't know how she'd handle it."

I bit my lip. "What about your dad?" I asked hesitantly.

Fletcher laughed. "He was the one who bought me the motorcycle. He'd be proud, even. Still. I don't want to be expelled. Not now."

"Sure. I'll help you, though. No more detentions," I cracked a smile. "Ain't nobody got time for that."

"Speaking of nobody," Fletcher stopped me. "Nobody hears about this. I gotta keep my rep up."

"Sure thing," I agreed, laughing. "Wait, do you think the ice cream stores are still open?"

Fletcher motioned around us. "Are you blind? Do you not see the snow?"

I rolled my eyes. "Answer the question."

Fletcher grinned, catching on. "We'll have to go check."

After drama was over, I found him and we walked out to his car. He had stopped riding his motorcycle to school when it got snowy because of the cold and lack of a windshield.

"Let's go to Coldstone," I suggested, laughing and rubbing my hands together from the cold.

They were, in fact, open. The woman standing behind the counter just stared at us as we pushed through the door, noses and ears red with cold.