Forever Changed

“Kassandra, there you are,” Mom said, sounding strained.

She looked absolutely panicked. This was the new Mom though, a shell of her former self. I missed my vibrant, confident mother who loved to entertain and go out, yet another casualty of the accident.

“Kassandra,” Mrs. Leighton said, looking more severe than I’d ever seen her.

“Why don’t y

ou go read for a little while, Peanut? We’ll eat in a few minutes,” I said, giving her a slight nudge toward the staircase.

Mrs. Leighton waited until Megan was upstairs before talking.

“So, like I told your mother, Kassandra, your behavior today was quite alarming,” Mrs. Leighton said, looking at me pointedly.

I glanced at mom to get a gauge of her reaction and was shocked to see her looking more alert than she had for months. “Kass, what happened?” she asked.

“Um yeah, well Mr. Matthews was being a real jerk,” I stuttered out.

“That may be, but cussing out a teacher is intolerable. Even more so is falsely pulling a fire alarm on school property,” Mrs. Leighton said sternly.

“I know,” I said, looking down at my folded hands.

“The principal wanted you suspended,” she said, holding her hand up when I started to protest. “But I stepped in and intervened on your behalf,” she continued.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. There will be consequences. First, you must write a letter of apology to Mr. Mathews', and secondly, you will have detention for the remaining weeks of this quarter.”

I nodded reluctantly. A week and a half of detention, I could handle, but writing a letter of apology would be a harder pill to swallow.

“And you will come in and see me during lunch three times a week for the rest of the year.”

“What?” I squawked, looking at my mom for help, but she only nodded her head in agreement.

“That’s the deal if you’re going to return to school,” she said, leaving no room for negotiation or argument.

“Fine,” I said, standing up to leave the room. I stomped up the stairs, losing the high I had gotten being a rebel. The last thing I felt like doing was pouring out my guts to some teacher that got off on being over-the-top nice.

Word of Kassandra losing it in Mr. Mathews' class reached me before I even made it to first period the next day. It was common knowledge that eventually someone would snap in Mr. Mathews' class, but I never would have thought it would be Kassandra that would give him the finger. She became an overnight sensation as everyone applauded her actions. Pulling the fire alarm was just the icing on the cake and earned Kassandra the title of Bad Ass of the year.

I had endured Mathews' prickish attitude as a junior and was lucky to make it out of his class without an incident. I was pissed when I heard what he had said to Kassandra to push her over the edge. For just a moment, I regretted not having my dad’s hot head. I would have liked nothing more than to cram my fist in Mathews' face.

“Did you hear she only got a week’s detention? That’s sweet.” I heard a pimply face sophomore say to his gaggle of friends. “That would be so worth it to tell that dick off. My sister had him two years ago, and he had her in tears almost the whole year. Why the school keeps an ass…”

His words faded away as he and his friends turned the corner. He was right. A week’s detention wasn’t all that bad, but I had a hard time picturing Kassandra surrounded by the crew that was normally doing the time in the auditorium after school.

“I think it’s hot she dropped the f-bomb, now I wanna see what else she’ll do with her mouth,” Dwayne, a loud mouth junior who had always grated on my nerves said as he and a couple of other jockstraps walked by.

Without taking time to consider my actions, I had him by the collar and slammed up against the long row of lockers.

“What the hell, man,” he said, trying to act tough.

“What’d you say about her mouth?” I said in a deadly serious voice for his ears only.

“Dude, I was joking,” he said as I released my hold on him.

“Keep your mouth shut about her or you’ll find something shoved down your throat. You got me?” I threatened as him and his buddies backed away.

I could hear him muttering about my dad as he walked off, but I noticed they had picked up their pace. How I had gotten a reputation as a badass was beyond me. With the exception of what just happened, I hadn’t been in a fight since junior high when Mark Bartlett had roughed up Drake in the locker room after gym class, just to show him up. I waited until the next day and let him know what a real punch felt like. I had endured enough beatings from my so-called dad over the years that I could put one on when I needed to. I got suspended for that one. Even though it was worth it for wiping the smug look of the punk's face, I struggled afterward with the gut-wrenching reality that I was becoming my dad. I had decided at the moment I would never throw another punch if I could help it.