Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

Avoiding Josh at school wasn’t as hard as I’d expected. Swans Landing School was small, but there were still places to lose myself in a crowd or else hide out until I was sure Josh had passed.

Avoiding Sailor, however, was impossible. She and Dylan met me outside our first period classroom. “They’re actually allowing a violent sociopath like you back in school?” she quipped as she stalked past me. I fell into line behind her, with Dylan at my side.

“When I punched Elizabeth, I imagined it was your face,” I told her. “It was very satisfying.”

Sailor shot me a disgusted look over her shoulder as she headed toward her desk. “I liked it better yesterday when you weren’t around. Wasn’t it great, Dylan? Nice and quiet, just the two of us. Like old times. We’ve had a lot of nice, quiet times alone, haven’t we?”

Dylan’s face reddened. “I hear Mr. Venugopal might be giving a pop quiz today,” he said.

Sailor shot me another dirty look and then turned facing forward again, as if pretending I didn’t exist.

That afternoon I headed toward the dreaded appointment with Mr. Richter. As I lifted my hand to knock on the office door, it opened and Josh stood there looking out at me.

I blinked at him. He blinked at me.

“Mara, hello,” Mr. Richter called over Josh’s shoulder. “Come in, please. Josh, I’ll see you next week.”

Josh’s gaze never left mine when he stepped aside allowing me to pass into the office. He had to know that I was avoiding him. Earlier in the day when he passed me in the hall, I had refused to look at him.

But as Mr. Richter closed the door, the urge to look behind me was too great to resist. Josh still stood there, staring back at me, his face unreadable.

I hoped that my own face hadn’t betrayed the way my heart went into a frenzied beat at the sight of him. It had been easy all day to tell myself that if he wanted Sailor he couldn’t have me too.

But in Josh’s presence, my body said differently.

“Please sit,” Mr. Richter said, gesturing toward the chair in front of his desk. He moved behind it and sat in his own black leather chair, leaning back to smile politely at me. “How was your day off?”

“Interesting,” I said. It was the safest answer I could give.

Mr. Richter nodded, pressing his fingertips together. “I hope you had a chance to think over your actions on Monday. Violence is never a solution to our problems.”

Actually, it had felt like a really great solution to my problem called Elizabeth. It would probably make an excellent Sailor-problem solution too.

“Of course, Mr. Richter,” I said, playing up the humbled student act. “I deeply regret what I did and will never do it again.” I was laying it on thick, but Mr. Richter seemed pleased.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said. “Because part of your coming back to school requires that you apologize to Miss Connors.”

My eyebrows shot halfway up my forehead. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. Here at Swans Landing School, we value camaraderie between our students and promote peaceful resolutions to problems. I can set up a meeting tomorrow between yourself and Miss Connors with myself as a mediator so that you can tell her how sorry you are.”

“I assume then that she has to apologize to me too?” I asked.

Mr. Richter blinked at me. “For...?”

“For verbal harassment,” I told him. “She said something to me first. If she’d kept on walking, none of this would have happened.”

Mr. Richter looked grim. “Mara, several of the students who witnessed the incident came to my office to give their account. And all of them corroborated Elizabeth’s story—that she was on her way to work on her English assignment when you attacked her. They all indicated that you and Elizabeth had had a disagreement in the library last week and that may have been the reason for your reaction to her?”

Witnesses? Since when had there been witnesses other than Josh? Despite Josh’s sneaking around with Sailor, I couldn’t believe that he would tell lies to Mr. Richter about me. These witnesses must have been random friends Elizabeth had convinced to lie on her behalf.

“There was no ‘disagreement,’” I said, making air quotes with my fingers. “What happened last week was also caused by Elizabeth running her mouth. It is insane that she can do whatever she wants with no repercussions and I have to apologize to her.”

“I understand that it’s difficult moving to a new place,” Mr. Richter said, sighing. His sigh was a long, drawn out hollow sound. “Especially in your situation. I know that being different from most people doesn’t make it any better, but there are rules we’re all expected to follow here, Mara. And since I wasn’t there, I have to go by the information I receive. Four people all told me the same story, yours is the only one that’s different.”

I understood now why Sailor was so angry toward the people of this island. It didn’t matter what the truth was, anyone who was finfolk was to blame for everything that happened.

The chair rocked back a bit when I pushed myself to my feet suddenly, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. “You’re already prejudiced against me, so there’s no reason for me to sit here and tell you my story, even if it is the truth.”

“We’re not done yet, Mara,” Mr. Richter said as I stomped across the room.

“I am,” I told him. “You’re no different from anyone else around here.” The door hit the wall with a loud crack when I swung it open, the sound echoing down the empty hall. Everyone had left, free to go home for the day.

Everyone, except one person. I stopped short when I saw him seated on the floor across from the guidance office, his back against the wall and legs bent so that his arms rested on his knees.

“Mara!” Mr. Richter called behind me. “We have a lot more to discuss today—”

Josh raised one eyebrow at me, like he had done that day he first took me for a ride on his ATV. A challenge. Did I stay to listen to Mr. Richter’s guidance, or did I dare to go wherever Josh wanted to take me, despite what might have happened with him and Sailor?

I extended one hand toward him, palm up. Josh slipped his hand into mine and stood. Then, fingers entwined, we ran for the front doors of Swans Landing School, bursting out into the bright afternoon sun and stumbling across the parking lot toward freedom.