by Mia Archer
But I could enjoy the little moment I had with her in the hall. It’s a moment I’ve thought back on a lot since all of this started to go down. A moment of calm in the middle of one hell of a storm.
No sooner was I thinking how nice it was to be up close and personal with her than a voice came over the PA. I usually ignored those announcements, we had a principal who was well known for being more in love with the sound of his own voice than he was with his wife, but this time it was difficult to ignore.
“Ashley Timmons. Please report to the front office immediately. Ashley Timmons to the front office.”
The reaction in the cafeteria was the first thing I noticed. Everything went silent while the secretary’s voice rang out over the loudspeakers, and then they really picked up in volume afterwards.
Damn it. On any other day someone getting called to the principal wouldn’t be a big deal, but today everyone had to be putting two and two together and probably figured that anyone getting called to the office might be related to the breakup artist.
Fuck.
“Was that you?” Maddie asked.
I sighed. Looked at her. It was clear she was making some of the same connections everyone else probably was.
“Yup. That’s me,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked.
I thought about that long and hard. It’d be nice to have a friendly face with me when I was facing the music, whatever music I was about to face, but at the same time I didn’t want to bring her into this. Not yet. Not when things were still going so well. Not when we were having this perfect moment together.
“I don’t think so,” I finally said. “This is something I have to do myself.”
I wasn’t sure why I was even talking like that. People got called to the office for all sorts of reasons, and I couldn’t think of a good reason for the principal’s office to get involved in all this breakup artist bullshit unless they were pissed off about the hit the school website hosting was taking.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on here, and the only something going on in my life right about now was my side job. Yeah, this wasn’t going to go well.
“I’ll see you around Maddie,” I said, hoping it was true.
“Sure you will,” she said with a smile that broke my heart.
Because along with the feeling that this all had something to do with the breakup artist nonsense? I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe when this all came out she’d decide I was a horrible person and she didn’t want anything to do with me.
How right I was, but not for the reasons you might think.
27
The Fuzz
Ashley Timmons says
Don’t talk to the press and don’t talk to the cops.
We’ve already been over why the first part of that is obvious. You don’t talk to the press because if they’re talking to you and it’s not for a feel good bullshit interview it means they’re trying to pin something on you.
In a society where everyone likes to move from the latest outrage to the latest outrage it can be a very bad thing to be the outrage of the moment. Trust me on this one. I still have people outraged about what I was doing, and they don’t even have a very good idea of what it was I was doing in the first place.
It doesn’t matter that they’re a bunch of ill-informed assholes though. All that matters is they get that sweet shot of anger endorphins every time they see my name and turn to their friends to talk about how bad I am in the lunchroom or over social media.
Now we’re going to get to the second part of that saying though. Don’t talk to the cops. Though the people I talk to in today’s entry weren’t exactly the cops. They sure wanted to play like they were the cops, but I wasn’t buying that bullshit.
So on to the big story of the day. How Ashley took on the school, but let’s wait and see whether or not it was the school who won in the end since this is one part of the story that never got much public attention.
It’s one of my favorites though. Especially now that Valerie is getting some of the same treatment, and from everything I’ve heard she either didn’t read my advice about not talking to reporters and cops or she thought she was smart enough that it wouldn’t matter.
We’ll see. On to the story!
I took a deep breath as I stepped into the office. I’d only been in here a few times when I forgot my locker combination.
The secretary was always nice enough. She always had a smile on her face for students who were on her good list, but I’d seen the look she gave the “bad kids.” It was a sour look with her lips puckered so they looked like the backside of my cat when I was scratching his hindquarters.
And she was hitting me with that look today as I walked in. Great. Just great.
I figured that meant I was really in trouble. I still wasn’t sure how they were going to try and pin anything on me, but I also figured that wouldn’t stop them from trying.
We were talking about the kind of people who thought zero tolerance policies and punishing the kid who was bullied right along with their bullies was a grand idea, after all.
“Um, I’m…”
“Ms. Timmons,” the secretary said. “Yes. Mr. Gorman will see you right away.”
“Um. Right,” I said.
I wondered what the heck I’d done to piss her off. She looked really angry. Like she wanted to bite my head off or something. I wasn’t used to seeing that from adults.
I wasn’t one of the bad kids. That was the thing. If you were on the good kid side of the good kid/bad kid divide you never saw looks like that.
So it was a surprise seeing her glaring at me like I’d pissed in her Wheaties or something.
“Follow me,” she said, again in a voice I’d never heard from an adult before. I can’t say that I cared for it. I couldn’t understand why the “bad kids” would ever keep doing what they did if it meant getting in hot water like this all the time.
But it also wasn’t going to be enough to intimidate me. I knew I hadn’t done anything against school rules. Everything potentially bad had gone down outside school. If anyone had broken school rules it was stupid Valerie insisting on using school resources to pursue her vendetta against me.
So when I walked into the principal’s office and stared at Mr. Gorman it was with my head still held high. If he thought he was going to intimidate me then he had another thing coming.
“Ms. Timmons,” he said, the displeasure dripping from his voice. “I’ve had some facts come to my attention recently that are very disturbing.”
“Oh?” I asked.
He glared at me over his glasses in a look that I’m sure was meant to intimidate me into doing something stupid like talking.
Yeah, if he thought I was going to do that again then he had another thing coming. I’d already learned my lesson today, thank you very much, and I wasn’t going to let him push me around.
Finally he sighed. Wheeled his monitor around, a nice shiny new LED monitor that was way bigger than I figured a school administrator needed. That shows where all the money in the school system was going. Why don’t you online rabble who’re always giving me so much trouble complain about that to somebody?
Right. So when he wheeled the monitor around I found myself staring at none other than that hit piece starring yours truly featuring Valerie’s handiwork.
“What do you have to say about this Ms. Timmons?” he asked.
“I’d say it looks like the work of a student abusing school resources to cause a lot of drama and trouble. You should probably do something about that. I’m sure there’s something in the student handbook that forbids that sort of thing.”
I felt a little dizzy. I couldn’t believe I was talking to the principal like that.
He cleared his throat a couple of times as he eyed me over his glasses. Clearly he wasn’t used to a student talking to him like that either, and even more clearly he didn’t appr
eciate it.
“I don’t like your tone, Ms. Timmons,” he said.
“I’m sorry, but what tone sir?” I asked, trying to toe the line of being respectful while also making it clear that I didn’t like this. “You told me you had a problem and I told you what the problem was. Why, is there something else going on here?”
He cleared his throat. Paused to take his glasses off and rub them with a cloth sitting on his desk. He put them back on and looked at me with that glare that I’m sure was the terror of students who actually had something to hide.
I had something to hide, to be sure, but I was so pissed off that I wasn’t getting pushed around. Not to mention I had a very recent example of what happens when you start talking to get yourself out of something and it wasn’t a mistake I was in the mood to repeat.
“We’ve had a very credible accusation that you’re the breakup artist,” he said. “Now normally this sort of thing would be your own business.”
“I agree with you completely,” I said.
“Right. But in this case it’s causing quite a disruption at the school and as a result we’re going to have to take disciplinary action.”
Oh, by the way, I’m sure there are some of you out there who are wondering if Principal Gorman actually talked like that. I can assure you that he totally does. Also? I can assure you that just like with my conversation with Valerie I was recording the whole thing.
That’s right folks. You’re reading a transcript. And if you’re not the kind of person who’s inclined to believe me, even after the proof I provided with Valerie, then you can go down to the bottom of this post and click the handy little link I’ve provided down there that proves that everything being written here is the absolute gospel truth.
Maybe I put in a comma here and there where I should’ve put in a period or something, but for the most part what you’re reading is exactly what was said.
Right. So getting on with the conversation. You can listen to it all you want, but we all know I’m providing the juicy context up here that everyone is eating up.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you’re telling me you’re going to punish me because of a disruption another student caused using school resources to stir up drama about something happening outside school?”
“Now listen here Ms. Timmons,” he said, some heat coming to his voice. “You know very well that there has been quite a disruption going on today. Kids with their noses buried in their phones. Teachers who can’t get them to put their phones away.”
“Right. And all of that is happening because of an article printed in the school paper,” I said. “If you can tell me what that has to do with me then I’d be happy to cooperate, but right now it seems like there’s someone else who should be getting in trouble for using school resources to disrupt things.”
“Listen. If you’re going to continue twisting everything I say then we’re going to have to give you detention. You’re in some serious trouble and…”
“Prove it,” I said.
That shut him up. Clearly we were at another moment where he wasn’t quite sure what to do. His face turned several different shades of red, and then moved into the purple end of the spectrum.
“Excuse me?” he finally exploded. Again, listen to the recording. He exploded at me. An adult school administrator yelled at a student when he didn't get his way. Talk about professional.
“You heard me,” I said, my blood pumping as I said it. “You’re accusing me of a lot of crap here, and I want you to prove it. Otherwise we’re done here.”
Now I’m well aware that we weren’t close to being “done.” One of the bad things about being in school is you’re pretty much trapped by the whims of whoever is running that school, and it was no different even if I'd lawyered principal Gorman.
Finally he sighed. Looked down at his screen and then back to me. He looked like he was very sad about whatever he had to do, but there was a twinkle in his eye at that said he got off on this sort of power trip.
Which makes going into something like school administration the perfect job. Where else can you enjoy a power trip that lasts nine full months out of the year, after all?
“I didn’t want to have to do this, but you need to unlock your phone and give it to me Ms. Timmons.”
I sat there stunned. Of all the bullshit I thought he might pull this was near the bottom of the list. Sure I’d heard of other schools trying stuff like that before, teachers passed out those articles as scare tactics and always ignored that the story never ended well for the schools pulling that bullshit, but I’d never thought I’d actually be in the middle of one of those bullshit stories.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“I am serious. I need to see your phone and I need to look through your Internet history to see if you are, in fact, the breakup artist.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure you can’t do that,” I said.
Like I said, those scare articles were always clear on one thing. If you bothered to look up the follow up articles and didn't take the scare tactics the school passed out as the whole truth.
Schools couldn’t do this kind of bullshit. Maybe other people had fallen for this before, but I wasn’t going to give over my phone unless there was a cop standing in front of me demanding it and he had a search warrant in hand.
I was suddenly very glad that my paranoia because of my side job led me to do a little more research than students usually did whenever one of those stories came along.
“I’m your principal and I can do whatever I want,” Mr. Gorman said. “And you’re going to give me your phone, or else.”
I stood. I figured we were pretty close to this conversation being over if he was making illegal requests for my phone.
“No, you can’t,” I said. “I’m pretty clear on what the law says about this, and you’re not a cop or a judge. You can try to get a cop or a judge to let you see my phone, but I’m pretty sure they’d laugh at you if you tried.”
His mouth worked and he stared in disbelief as I turned and walked out of his office. I went ahead and walked right out of the school and drove home, because I had a feeling the longer I spent at school that day the more I was going to potentially get myself in trouble or leave myself open for getting in more trouble with Mr. Gorman.
What a fucking day.
28
Meet the Parents
Ashley Timmons says
Yeah, all you naysayers out there can suck it. I could tell which ones of you didn’t bother to read everything because you just had to go right down to the comments and talk about how I was making stuff up.
“Oh dear! A girl would never say something like that to a big bad adult man! That’s wrong!”
“Oh my! I can’t believe you would talk to an authority figure like that! You have to be making it up!”
“If you’d done something like that you would’ve been put in detention until you graduated college! I’m calling bullshit!”
Some of those are real comments. Some of those are me paraphrasing many similar very real comments I got. You can go back to the last post and read all of them if you feel so inclined.
I wouldn’t bother if I were you. I just gave you the gist, minus the festering cesspool that is any Internet comments section. Plus you don’t have to see Thomas going through the comments still trying to pick up girls who are fool enough to still want to take a ride on the Thomas train even knowing what they know about him now.
Yeah, I totally did that little pun on purpose.
That recording at the bottom sure proved all of you wrong though, didn’t it? Not that hard evidence has ever convinced someone on the Internet that they were wrong. That’s sort of how things work online and I suppose I should’ve anticipated something like that.
I wasn’t grounded until I graduated college, an that’s for one very simple reason. My parents. I haven’t mentioned them much in this story because there’s not much to say about related to this story
other than how much their relationship screwed up how I saw relationships. They both worked from home, but they weren't home most of the time. They both kept pretty busy, they made decent money, and they liked their work.
Oh right. Their work. Did I mention that both of my parents are crusading lawyer types who like nothing more than a good case where they can stick it to the man?
Yeah, that’s about to become important to the story. I didn’t pick up that “don’t talk to the cops” advice out of nowhere.
I probably should’ve done something other than going straight home that day. Can you blame me though? I mean I’d just had someone I considered a best friend betray me. I’d just had the principal try to shake me down with an illegal search.
It’d been a busy day, and I wanted to get home so I could sit on my bed and pretend I lived in a time when I wasn’t instantly available to anyone via the Internet.
I wondered what it would’ve been like to grow up in the ‘70s or the ‘80s, or even the ‘90s. Back when there was still some technology around if you knew where to look for it, but before all that technology was wired together creating a miracle of modern life that was used for trading porn and cat pictures.
I knew I was in trouble the moment I walked through the door. My mom was right there in the kitchen and she was obviously surprised to see me.
Worry immediately crossed her face.
“What’s wrong? Did you get sick and you had to come home? Did something happen at the school? What happened at the school?”
I rolled my eyes. I probably shouldn’t have rolled my eyes considering I was looking at getting grounded for life, but I couldn’t help it.
My mom is one of those people who always goes to the worst case scenario. So of course when I walked home unannounced her brain jumped to a school shooting or a bomb threat or something equally catastrophic but improbable.
