"You broke your arm, not your legs. Come on, let's go." June snapped at Jeisson, trying to get him to quicken his pace.
"The painkillers are slowing me down," Jeisson said. That was probably true. But also, he was just tired and feeling rebellious. He had spent the last two days in the hospital having to be very obedient, and it gave him some small, sadistic pleasure to be a bit of a nuisance now as he trudged along after June.
They reached the car and Jeisson did his one-handed best to open the door, get seated, and put on his seatbelt. His left arm, now in a cast, was in a sling that hung around his shoulder.
June didn't waste any time in pulling out of the hospital parking lot and speeding down the road.
"What are you in such a rush for anyway?" Jeisson asked, mildly concerned for his safety.
"We have to be somewhere by 3pm."
"We?"
"Yep."
"Care to elaborate?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
Jeisson did not like the sound of that. The clock on the dash said it was just past one. Where would they be going that she had to rush to make it by three? That was two hours away. Jeisson scanned the car, looking for context clues. It was only then that he noticed there were a few boxes in the backseat. One of them was labeled "books" in his mom's sloppy handwriting. The other was labeled "bathroom."
"Um... are we moving?" Jeisson asked, confused.
"We are not moving. You are sort of moving."
"What does that mean?"
"Turner Math and Science Academy."
Jeisson's eyes went wide. "No fucking way. No. Turn the car around. I am NOT going to there." Maybe this was all just a nightmare. Maybe it was just the painkillers. He closed his eyes tight for a moment and opened them again. But they were still driving fast, merging onto the expressway now, and the boxes were still in the backseat.
Jeisson turned to his mother, even though she couldn't look at him with her eyes on the road. "Mom. Come on. You can't be serious."
"It's done. You're enrolled. They're expecting you by 3pm."
"I can't go to Turner."
"Actually, you can. Because you applied, and got in. Principal Mackey told me yesterday." June turned up the radio on her 90s soft rock station, as if that was the end of it.
But Jeisson just turned the volume back down again. "You can't do this to me."
"I didn't make you apply. So whose fault is this really?"
Jeisson turned forward again, pouting. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'm not going."
"You're kind of running out of options here, Kiddo. I don't think any other school is going to take you. By some miracle, Turner still is."
"Look, I promise, I won't get in trouble anymore."
June gave him a pointed look. "What in your sordid past of mischief would make me believe that to be true?"
He couldn't really argue with that. Pouting wasn't working. False promises weren't working. What else could he try to get out of this? "So while I'm lying in a hospital bed, wounded, you're packing up my stuff and moving me out of the house? Real nice, Mom. Way to make me feel the love."
"You were lying wounded in a hospital bed because you stole my alcohol and got drunk on the roof. The fact that all you suffered was a broken arm is a blessing. You brought that upon yourself. So no, I'm not going to feel bad about taking advantage of you being out of the house to actually get you packed up and ready to go. Made things a lot easier for me."

YOU ARE READING
The Plus Side of Negative Thinking
Teen FictionTroubled loner and lazy genius Jeisson wants nothing more than to skate by in life. But when he gets expelled from school - again - his mother decides to send him to a boarding school for gifted students, with money from his estranged father, who su...