Chapter 5 - Probation

"Alrighty. Have a seat." The principal says taking a seat behind the desk. He waits for me to sit down in one of the chairs in front of the desk and then he smiles at me. "How are you this morning?" He says looking at me closely. 

I fake a smile and nod. "I'm good" I add hoping he believes me. He's known for seeing bullshit from a mile away. The students have a running theory that he's some sort of vampire that can read people's minds. 

"Are you sure?" He asks looking me straight in the eyes. I keep a straight face and make sure to blink as normally as I can. I don't want to give anything away or else I'll be stuck in a 3 hour therapy session with him. 

"Yes," I say smiling so it seems like I am really good. I channel Tamrin's advice and try to project positivity towards him. "I'm sure," I say and he nods somewhat convinced. I sigh in relief on the inside happy that he fell for that. Victory!!! I scream in my head. 

"I want to talk to you about your grades," He says and all the joy I felt for a split second disappears.  I don't want to talk about it. I was planning to ignore them until they went away. "You're not doing great, as you're well aware." He says and I nod sad that he's making me go through this. "I know you've been going through a lot in the past couple of months and I'm very sorry for that." He says with a sad look on his face.

I hate it when people do that. He's pretending to understand my pain and it pisses me off.  The only people who can truly understand my pain are the ones who have been through the same thing. 

"But your grades are very bad and as a senior, you're expected to have better scores." He says slowly and I wish he would get through this faster. "Unfortunately we have to put you on academic probation." He says getting to the point and I almost puke.  

This is bad. Academic probation at Golden Hills means I might not graduate if I don't improve my grades. I can't repeat another year. I didn't care when my father died what happened with school but now I do care. I want to be done with this place. I want to leave at the end of the year.

The only thing that's keeping me going is the fact that I'm almost done. 

"So you have the next three months to show us that you can improve and then we'll talk again at the end of the probation." He says he hands me a document with my name and a whole list of numbers that are dictating my fate. 

I can't believe this is happening to me right now. I hate this place even more now. It's like a prison I can't escape because they keep adding more and more years to my sentence. 

I take the paper and leave his office.

I need to fix this.