The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [21]
“It was some guy from town,” I spit out. “I was with this guy, and we broke the statue as a joke.”
“This is true?” Tristan’s voice cracked. We were close enough that I could see his lower lip starting to shake. His eyes looked like he was close to crying. He would be gutted if he cried in front of everyone. He didn’t even cry sophomore year when he broke his arm in gym class. I felt my face turn red hot with shame. Everyone in the crowd was staring at me like I had grown a tail. Even Mr. Winston looked unsettled. He had thought he had everything tied up, but things were turning out to be more complicated. The chapel bells on campus chimed eight. Mr. Winston glanced down at his watch, annoyed that even time was getting away from him.
“The rest of you are dismissed for classes. Ms. Kendrick, you’ll come with me to the office.” He took me by the elbow and guided me toward the door. “Mr. Johl, there’s no need to stand there. You’re going to be late.” We brushed past Tristan. I could feel his eyes burning into my back as the dean and I walked out of the hall.
Fifteen minutes before, I had been sure that everything was going back to normal. Now my entire world had blown up and was never going to be the same.
9
I shifted on the wooden bench. It must have been made out of some type of especially hard wood designed to make people feel pain. I was stuck waiting outside Dean Winston’s office in the area that held his secretary, while he spoke to my dad on the phone. Mr. Winston and I had already discussed:
• How what I’d done was vile and on par with kicking disabled kittens.
• That I was on the path to becoming a criminal and likely would spend the rest of my life in jail giving myself homemade tattoos with a needle and a Bic pen.
• That the statue was a work of art, and would I dare to tear the arm off the Mona Lisa? He didn’t think so.
• That I was a disappointment to him, my family, my boyfriend, my fellow students, and likely all of Western civilization.
I watched out the window as people walked past. I wanted to see Tristan to explain, but at the same time I had no idea what I would say. How do you tell your boyfriend that you kissed someone else but you hadn’t meant to? Kissing isn’t exactly a common accident. I couldn’t explain it to myself, so how was I going to explain it to him? I jumped, suddenly noticing Kelsie standing outside looking in. She met my eyes and spread her hands in a universal WTF? gesture. I shrugged, and for the first time felt like crying.
“Ms. Kendrick,” Dean Winston barked. I spun around. He was standing in his doorway. “Your father would like to speak with you.” He held the door open so I could walk past him into the office. His large desk was clean, with only the phone in the center of the highly glossed mahogany space. The red light blinked, indicating the speaker phone was on. Mr. Winston dropped into his leather chair and pointed to the small wooden chair across from him. I had hoped I might be able to talk to my dad by myself, but it looked like Winston was planning to have a front row seat for the discussion.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, weaving my fingers together to avoid picking at my fingernails.
“Hailey, can you explain what’s happened?” My dad’s voice sounded clipped through the speaker.
“It was sort of a joke.” My eyes darted over to Dean Winston, and I rushed to finish. “I realize it was a huge mistake and not remotely funny at all. It was one of those things that sort of just happened.”
“Things like this don’t just happen,” my dad said. “This is very serious. If the school wanted to file charges for vandalism, they could. The cost of the statue is significant.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mr. Winston nodding along with what my dad was saying. He was most likely wishing my dad would come up with some form of vile punishment, but once your family sends you off to boarding school, there isn’t that much more they can do to