Chapter 52 Don't you think it's your responsibility?
In the afternoon, the atmosphere changed. Katherine was summoned to the principal's office, Marta.
Upon entering, she noticed that the room was full of teachers discussing the chemistry competition, but the atmosphere was tense. Marta, upon seeing Katherine, stood up immediately, as if she were waiting for a time bomb to go off.
“You're here. Come with me,” Marta said in a low, solemn tone.
“What's going on?” Katherine didn't take a step.
Marta sighed, her voice laden with reproach that she tried to hide from the other teachers. “What am I going to say about you, Katherine? Instead of studying, you're negatively influencing your classmates. Now, a student's parents are here at school to confront you. You're dishonoring me as principal.”
Katherine let out a short, ironic laugh, her eyes shining with disdain. “If it's not you who wants to see me, but someone else's parents, then I'm leaving. I have better things to do.”
“Wait there!” Marta grabbed her by the arm, her voice trembling with contained anger. “You're coming with me right now to give those parents an explanation!”
Katherine looked at the principal's hand and then at the woman's anxious face. “Explain what? I haven't done anything, I don't owe anything, and I don't know these people. If they have a problem with their children, they can explain it themselves.”
The tension in the office rose to boiling point. Katherine knew that “Mrs. Figueiredo” or “Rosana Lutz” was behind this, and she was ready to turn the parent-teacher conference into a battlefield where only one person would emerge unscathed: herself.
Marta approached, lowering her voice to a whisper laced with venom. “Gabriel Park confessed his feelings for you, didn't he?” Now his parents are convinced that you are to blame for his decline in academic performance. They think you are ‘influencing’ him. They are in the meeting room right now. They are major donors to the college, Katherine. All you have to do is apologize and sign a letter of guarantee promising never to appear in front of Gabriel again. Understood?"
Katherine listened to every word with almost scientific attention. Then she simply leaned back against the wall and let out a short, crystalline laugh. Her eyebrows arched, and her eyes sparkled with dangerous amusement.
Marta froze, her face red with indignation. “What are you laughing at?”
“An excellent joke, Principal. Why shouldn't I laugh?”
Marta shook her head in disbelief. “I'm talking about something that could ruin your future, and you think it's a joke?”
Katherine shrugged, her voice soft but sharp: “What else could it be? No one with an ounce of intelligence or dignity would say something so absurd.” If this isn't a joke, I would have to seriously question my principal's intelligence.
“You...” Marta lost her breath.
“If there's nothing else,” Katherine continued, relaxed, “I'll go back to class. After all, the monthly test is in a few days, and I still intend to continue studying in your class.”
Marta, realizing that she couldn't bend Katherine with words, abandoned any remnants of pedagogical etiquette. She grabbed Katherine's wrist tightly and pulled her violently toward the conference room.
By instinctive reflex, Katherine's body tensed. Her wrist rotated at a technical angle, ready to throw Marta to the floor with an immobilizing blow. At the last millisecond, her brain regained control. Not yet, she thought. Engaging in physical aggression against a teacher would bring trivial complications that she had no patience to deal with right now.
At that moment, the cell phone in her pocket vibrated.
Marta stopped and stared at her furiously. “Turn off your phone and give it to me. Now! Don't even think about using that to escape. The directors are all inside. Apologize, sign the paper, and everything will be fine.”
Katherine didn't answer. She just glanced at the notification on the screen before Marta snatched the device from her hands and put it in her own pocket.
It was a message from João Pedro. A single question: \[Where are you?\]
Katherine's eyes darkened slightly. She walked silently beside Marta to the conference room door.
Marta knocked and entered, announcing with an almost servile submission: “Mr. and Mrs. Park, here is Katherine Lutz.”
Immediately, a teacher called Marta into the hallway to deal with an emergency. Marta left, taking the opportunity to slam the door shut, locking Katherine in that makeshift courtroom.
Katherine remained standing, observing the figures seated around the round table. On one side were the Director General, the deputy directors, and the dean—all with expressions that suggested they would rather be anywhere else. On the other side were Gabriel's parents, dressed in ostentatious luxury that screamed “power.”
Mrs. Park looked Katherine up and down with an icy stare. “As expected,” she hissed to her husband, “she looks like a flirt. Instead of learning something useful, she learned too early how to be a bad woman and seduce boys from good families.”
Mr. Park shot his wife a warning glance before turning to Katherine with feigned seriousness. “Child, sit down first.”
Katherine pulled out her chair with a sharp noise and sat down, maintaining the posture of someone watching a boring show.
“What is your relationship with our son?” asked Mr. Park.
“None.”
“Don't lie!” Mrs. Park exploded. “We have the video! My son was declaring his love for you in the middle of class, neglecting his studies, and you still say there's no relationship?”
Katherine narrowed her eyes, her voice calm but laced with venom: “Mrs. Park, my eyes are hurting a lot.”
The woman frowned, confused. “What does that have to do with me?”
“It has everything to do with me. You forced me to come here and waste my precious study time just to look at your face. Don't you think that's your responsibility?”
It took Mrs. Park a second to process the insult. When she realized she had been called ugly and irrelevant in the same sentence, her face contorted with rage. Mr. Park, on the other hand, realized that the girl in front of him was no ordinary victim.
“Child,” he said, trying to regain control, “are you saying that this matter is just a unilateral initiative of Gabriel's and that you have nothing to do with it?”
“Ask him yourself,” Katherine replied, standing up. “I don't usually memorize the names of people I'm not familiar with.”
“Wait!” Mrs. Park stood up abruptly, slamming a document on the table. “Sign this letter of guarantee. Promise you'll stay away from my son. I won't allow his future to be ruined by someone like you.”
Katherine let out a low laugh, her eyes fixed on the adults, who suddenly felt an inexplicable discomfort under that sovereign gaze.
At that moment of maximum tension, the door opened.
Marta appeared, but her expression was one of pure shock, as if she had seen a ghost. She leaned against the wall and, in a trembling voice, announced to someone in the hallway: “Mr. Arbex... please come in.”