GIBSIE
DECEMBER 17TH, 2004

"ALL OF YOUR PARENTS HAVE BEEN CALLED." I hated that sentence.

We have been sitting in the Chairs inside Mr. Twomey's office for almost twenty minutes now. Johnny sat closest to the door, then it was me, then Michelle, then Katie, Hughie, Feely, and last and least Nathan.

The moment Mr. Twomey was sat in his chair Hughie, Feely, and I pointed at Johnny and said "he had nothing to do with this."

Great minds think alike.

He wasn't supposed to be getting into fights because of his contract with the Academy and technically, he hadn't hit anyone. So he has no reason to be in here except for wrong place, wrong time.

Mr. Twomey sighed, glancing down the line of students "is that true?" His eyes landed on Michelle and Katie. Maybe it was because they looked the least messed up, maybe it was because they've been in the office the least amount of times, or maybe it was simply because they were girls, I don't know and I don't care. I just really hope they agreed.

"Yes." Both Katie and Michelle answered in sync.

It seemed a little rehearsed, but Mr. Twomey either didn't want to deal with the drama or actually believed it and waved him off. "Wait in the hall. If you're needed you'll be called in."

Johnny glanced down the line of students before following orders and walking out the door.

"Now." Mr. Twomey leaned back in his seat, his eyes scanning each us as if hoping one of us would say something incriminating. "Who would like to go first."

Michelle raised her hand.

"Ms. Hathway." He looked a little relieved that one of us was willing to cooperate.

Instead of telling Mr. Twomey what happened like I expected her to do, she pointed to the red head beside her and said "she had nothing to do with this either."

Mr. Twomey rubbed his fingers against his temples before mumbling "That's actually pretty believable." Then he looked back at Katie and said "go sit with Mr. Kavanagh. Same rules apply."

Katie sent Michelle a grateful smile which was quickly returned before she nearly sprinted out of the office.

"Anything else you would like to add, Ms. Hathway?"

Not a bone in Michelle's face moved.

"Ms. Hathway?"

Nothing.

I almost laughed.

"Oh, great." Mr. Twomey grumbled as if he had expected this moment to come. Then he took in a deep breath and sat straight up "Now. I have a few people out there"—he pointed to the door, probably referring to the hallway—"that said that you"—he pointed at Michelle—"threw the first punch. Is that correct, Ms. Hathway?"

Absolute silence.

I'm not even sure she was blinking.

He glanced at the rest of us. I don't think he was waiting for any of us to answer, it was more like he was inspecting his future obstacles.

"Ms. Hathway, may I speak to you privately in my office?" Mr. Twomey began to stand up, but was cut off my Michele, who finally decided to talk.

"No." Her hands were gripping the arm rests so tightly her knuckles had turned white.

Mr. Twomey dropped back into his chair, letting out a sigh while whispering something to himself.

"Ms. Hathway, I am fully aware of your past record from your last school and I also understand that you had been dealing with certain troubles at the time," I didn't like the way he said 'troubles' "but here at Tommen, this kind of behavior is not accepted, no matter the circumstances."

"Wow." Michelle scoffed, crossing her arms across her chest and leaning back in her chair "that was a low blow."

Her eyes fell to the floor, folding her bottom lip between her teeth. She looked sad, like if someone didn't manage to pull her out of her thoughts she would end up crying.

And that pissed me off.

Finally, deciding I was annoyed—not only with him, but also the way he seemed to be specifically targeting Michelle with the questions, I cleared my throat and spoke up "I didn't see Michelle hit anyone."

"What?" I purposely chose to ignore Nathan's annoying voice.

Before Mr. Twomey could ask anyone to confirm or deny my statement, both Hughie and Patrick agreed.

I leaned forwards in my seat. "I did see Nathan hit her though, which—if you ask me Mr. Twomey—is incredibly wrong and disrespectful. I mean—" I snorted. "Not only is he twice her size, but it's like basic common decency that boys don't hit girls."

I made a point to make specific words in my sentence stick out, hoping it would knock some sense into the poor old guy.

"No." Nathan looked pissed "She punched me."

Finally, I let my eyes fall on Michelle. She was staring at me with an unreadable expression—I think maybe shock mixed with a little bit of sadness.

The only thing I could think to do was smile.

Mr. Twomey let out a loud and long sigh as he ran a hand across his face—clearly annoyed. "Mr. Gibson as much as I would like to believe you—"

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by the door swinging open.

I almost jumped for joy at the sight of Mammy K. Not only because she was beautiful, but also because she had come in at the perfect time.

The last thing I wanted to hear was Mr. Twomey's twenty minute rant on why he doesn't believe me.

"Ah." Mr. Twomey stood up, awkwardly pulling at his suit. "Mrs. Kavanagh, glad you could make it."

Behind Mammy K, I could already see that a few more parents had arrived, each poking their heads through the doorframe.

"Are you planning on explaining to us what happened, or are you just going to keep us waiting." Mammy K popped a hand on her hip "Some of us have things to do."

"Right, yes." Mr. Twomey cleared his throat, turning to the teenagers lining his office chairs "I suppose I should speak to your parents, if you could all wait outside for me."

Then, as if there was no place better, each of us stood and practically bolted out of the room. While passing the group of parents, I didn't fail to notice the lack of mine.

I also noticed that there was nobody else out here besides Johnny and Katie, despite what Mr. Twomey had said. No 'witnesses'.

"How'd it go?" Katie asked, her eyes mainly on Michelle.

"Terrible." I groaned, slouching on the bench beside Johnny "we're all expelled."

Clearly picking up on the fact that I was being sarcastic, Johnny shoved my shoulder. "Shut up." He grumbled.

"Seriously though? I don't know. This is my first time at the office, so I don't exactly know what his facial expressions mean." Michelle said from her spot between me and Katie.

"Chances are it won't be that bad. Probably just a lunch time detention." Hugh said, sitting on the other side of Katie, followed by Patrick, a large empty space, then Nathan.

"Ugh." Michelle groaned, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. "This is shit."

"It'll be fine." I said, mainly to her.

It likely would be. I highly doubt that Mr. Twomey would suspend Michelle with no actual proof that she hit him first.

"No, I mean my mom's gonna be pissed." She dropped her hands into her lap.

"Good." Nathan mumbled form all the way at the end of the bench.

"Shut up."

It's like we're all sharing a brainwave today.

It's awesome.

There was a few minutes of silence where we all pretended not to be listening in on what the parents were talking about, then Michelle leaned forwards, glaring down to the brunet at the other end of the bench.

"What did you say to him?" She asked.

Nathan, who had been spacing out at the wall, turned to face Michelle with an annoyed look, pulling his ice pack away from his eye. "Who?"

Somehow pissing the girl off more with just one word, Michelle snapped "Finn, obviously. Who the hell else?"

Nathan laughed, "I said nothing, but the truth."

"And what would your version of the truth be?" Her hands gripped the edge of the bench just like they had on the armrest in Mr. Twomey's office.

Nathan leaned towards us, a huge smirk on his face.

He hadn't even started and I already wanted to punch that smirk off his face.

"I told him, that if he and his dumbass boyfriend want to make out, they could have the decency of doing it somewhere more private because us normal people would rather not see that gross shit."

Wait, Finn's gay?

Michelle face had gone white.

I'm guessing that was news to her too.

I hadn't even registered the fact that Michelle had jumped up and stomped towards him until she was cut off by Hughie stepping in her way.

"As much as we'd all love to see you knock his ass out, you're already in a deep enough hole, let's not dig any deeper." Michelle didn't take her eyes off of Nathan as Hughie carefully pushed her back towards her seat. "Just wait till we are off school grounds."

Five long minutes later, the door to the office opened and everyone's parents stepped out. "Have a wonderful rest of your day." Mr. Twomey said to them before he closed his office door, not bothering to tell us anything.

We all stood up in sync.

"Gerard, you're with me." Mammy K said, pointing a long nail at me.

"Yes ma'am." I hopped up, practically skipping towards the woman.

"Go grab your stuff, I'm gonna have a chat with some of these other parents." Her eyes scanned the group of parents until they locked on Michelle and her mother, who seemed to be trying to comfort her daughter by running a hand through her hair whilst Michelle quietly mumbled something to her.

"Nothing mean, right?" I just had to double check. Having my sort-of-third-mother fighting with my maybe-future-girlfriend-or-maybe-something-more's mother, didn't seem like a very comforting concept .

"Oh, God no." Mammy K swatted the idea away before lightly patting my shoulder and walking towards my Michelle.

"She probably won't say anything mean to Michelle, if that's what you're thinking." Johnny said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to follow him.

"I wasn't thinking that." I lied.

Johnny scoffed, slapping his hand against my back "sure, you weren't, Gibs."

It took maybe ten minutes to walk to our lockers, grab our shit, and walk back.

Mammy K was waiting for us, her arms crossed against her chest, thankfully whatever she wanted to say to Michelle and her mom was finished now so I didn't have to hear it.

"Can we stop and get ice cream on the way home?" I pulled at the straps on my backpack.

"Seriously Gibs?" Johnny mumbled, looking over at me with a glare that matched his mam's.

I nodded "yeah, punching people makes me want ice cream." I glanced down at my knuckles, which were still red. Not because of when I punched Nathan, now it was because of the amount of times I had roughly ran my finger across them.

"We will not be getting ice cream." Mammy K said. I could tell she was mad at me because of her tone, so now I'm practically waiting for her to yell at me—even though in the six years she's known me, she's only done that three times.

"Worth a shot." I mumbled, letting my head fall.

Me and Johnny began to walk towards the door, but Mammy K stopped us "hold on, we're just waiting for one more."

"What, who?" Johnny asked, pausing to stare at his mam.

"Mammy K, I love you, but if you offered to give Nathan a ride home, I'm walking."

Just then, in the corner of my eye I watched Michele walk around the corner and into the main hallway.

"There she is." Mammy K pointed towards Michelle as the girl made her way towards us. "I'm sure you've both met Michelle."

My hand dropped down and I grabbed onto Johnny's wrist so tightly I hope I cut off circulation.

This could either go great or terribly.

AUTHOR TALKS!!
I already have books planned out for Finn, Maeve, and two future OCs. So hopefully by the time I'm done with this book and ready to publish then, they'll be complete so I can just publish the whole thing.

Please don't be mad at me for bringing up the fact that she was half the size of Nathan. I wasn't saying it because I wanted to say she's small 'cause she's not. Michelle is 5'9" and like 130-140 pounds. I don't really get into it much in this book (mainly because she doesn't really see it), but she is very well built because she used to be very athletic (that's talked about more in part two and three). Anyways, I brought it up so much in this chapter (and it'll probably be mentioned only a few more times in the next two chapters) because I wanted you guys to understand how big the dude was and the fact that when it came down to it, Michelle didn't give a flying fuck because he had hurt her baby brother. Something that is very important to both Maeve's and Finn's stories is how protective Michelle is of them despite the fact that they barely know each other.

The point is I'm sorry for saying she is half the size of Nathan so many times, I know a lot of people hate the 'small girl' trope and I totally get it.