Chapter 30

KATHERINE.

The sound of someone moving around in the room woke me up and I rubbed my eyes as I turned to my left to see Lenore standing in front of her vanity, humming a familiar tune to herself. I drew my brows together. “Lenore?” I called out, sitting upright in my bed, and she looked over her shoulder before flashing me a smile.

“Hey, Katherine. I was just about to wake you.”

“When did you get back?” I replied, glancing at the grandfather clock to see that the time was a little past seven am while she returned her attention to her mirror and resumed moisturizing her face.

“Not too long ago. I got you breakfast.”

Another glance at the other end of the room revealed a takeout bag on my coffee table and my eyes darted back to her as she began to hum again. She seemed cheerful – a ‘very’ different mood from the one she was in on Friday morning – and I was glad that she was but I still couldn’t help but wonder what happened to her. Why she was curled up on the floor crying on Thursday night.

After Theo came to our room on Friday and left with her, I didn’t see her in any of our classes throughout the day and she didn’t come back to our room since then so I also wondered where she’d been during the weekend.

“Are you feeling better now?” I asked and through the mirror, she slightly raised her brows at me. “You seemed upset on Friday.”

“Ah, that…” She let out a laugh and despite her cheerful disposition, it seemed a little bit forced. “I was just feeling homesick.”

It did ‘not’ look like she had been feeling homesick but I didn’t want to be nosy so I just asked, “Are you feeling better now?”

She nodded and flashed me a smile again. “Yep. Just perfectly splendid.”

Now I found her enthusiasm a bit odd. She closed her moisturizer and set it on the vanity before grabbing her bag and heading towards the door.

“Where are you going?” I called out as she opened the door.

“Out. I’ll see you in class.” And with that, she shut the door and silence descended upon the room once more before I realized I had to get ready for class.

‘Ugh.’ I dragged myself out of bed and grabbed my phone from my nightstand to see if Kit had texted me with Aunt Vivian’s phone like he’d been doing ever since I came here but there was no message from him. There was a message though – an email to be exact – from the school and a quick read through it revealed that it was regarding the complaint Lenore sent to them about Poppy. It also revealed that I had a meeting with the dean by nine am and I was strongly advised to be prompt.

****

‘Now why was I told to be prompt.’ I bit back a groan and let my head loll back before heaving a sigh. I was at the dean’s office… well, I was outside the dean’s office, waiting to be called in, but the issue was that I had been waiting for two hours. No one else was in the office with her and it had been that way for the two hours I’d been there so I highly suspected she was keeping me waiting on purpose.

‘Shouldn’t a meeting take place at the scheduled time?’

I glanced at the secretary who was currently typing away on her computer and I tried to get her attention by moving my head sideways but she didn’t look up. I heaved a sigh again, loudly this time, but she did not indicate that she heard me. It was like I wasn’t even here.

Irritation pricked at me and I wanted to get up and leave but the fact that the dean didn't like me coupled with me being on aided learning made me keep my ass on the chair.

“Excuse m–”

The door on my left opened, cutting me off, and the moment I glanced at it to see who walked in, I gritted my teeth. Poppy paused when her gaze landed on me before a scowl overtook her expression, also not pleased with my presence, as she shut the door behind her. She walked over to the secretary’s desk and just before she came to a stop in front of it, the secretary finally lifted her gaze from her computer.

‘Oh, so she notices Poppy.’

“I have a meeting with Dean Bryman,” Poppy stated and I narrowed my eyes, wondering if their meeting had something to do with Lenore's complaint.

“Give me a moment,” the secretary replied as she rose to her feet and walked over to the door to the Dean's office.

Unease at being left alone with Poppy set in the moment she disappeared into the office and I subtly shifted in my seat before Poppy spoke.

“You fucking bitch.”

I pursed my lips and looked away from her just as she whirled to face me.

“You ran to Lenore to report me? Do you have no shame? Hiding behind her like that?” she continued, sounding like she was trying very hard to not yell, and I ground my jaw at that because I also didn’t like that Lenore had to step in for me to be considered ‘important’, but alas, this school had a hierarchy problem. “First Patel comes after me and then Lenore files a complaint against me. Are you insane?”

The door to the dean’s office opened once more and Poppy immediately turned to face it with a smile on her face like she hadn’t just wanted to chew my head off.

“You can both go in now,” the secretary said, holding the door open for us and I took a moment to collect myself before heading after Poppy.

The dean’s gaze slid from Poppy to me after I walked in and a muscle in her jaw twitched before she plastered a smile on her face. “Have a seat, you two,” she said and I glanced at the two chairs across from hers which were closely placed together before biting back a groan.

I could choose to move one chair farther away from the other but Dean Bryman already didn’t like me and for some reason, I felt doing that would make her dislike me more. Not that I cared about how she felt about me, but she was the ‘dean’.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room as the dean’s gaze bounced between us after we took our seat and just before the silence could grow thick enough to try to suffocate me, she finally spoke.

“I heard about the unfortunate incident that took place at the recreation center on Wednesday. The incident in which Miss Dawson ‘accidentally’ made you fall into the pool, Miss Roxley.”

“Accidentally?” I blurted out and the Dean narrowed her eyes at me.

“Miss Roxley, this is obviously a trivial matter. Not important enough for you to have brought it to Miss Sutton’s attention.”

“I–”

She held a hand up to shut me up and I tightened my hands into fists. “And seeing as it is that – a trivial matter – I called you and Miss Dawson here today so she could extend an apology to you."