[TAM: Evening the Odds] Chapters 34 & 35. (Patreon)

Chapter 34: As good an outcome one could hope for.

The headmistress, Elena Hayes, who also happens to be Emma’s mother, was a woman in her mid-50s. Brown, yet clearly dyed hair, the signs of small wrinkles and hazel eyes marked her most distinctive features. If I tried REALLY hard, it was possible to see the resemblance between this demon-lord and my angel of a girlfriend, but it seemed Emma didn’t take much after her mother in either physical or personality aspects.

“Mr. Walker, I thought I warned you about breaking the rules in my academy,” Mrs. Hayes says, sitting behind her desk in her office. I could swear I heard her try to hide her joy over the situation, but her face remained still, neutral. Suspiciously so, even.

“You did, Mrs. Hayes. To this day I remember your words clearly,” I answered, having collected myself with Ms. Owen’s help. I stood before the headmistress’ desk while the English teacher stood beside her.

“Then why did you break the rules, Mr. Walker?” she asked. “Why do something so awful as to assault one of our students?”

She didn’t question whether I had truly done it or not. She immediately asked for a motive instead of asking my version of the events. I had to swallow the bile rising in my throat.

“I have done no such thing, Mrs. Hayes,” I answered with outward calm. Getting emotional wouldn’t help my case. Poise and rationality were better allies in this case.

“Then how would you explain that picture the entire school has seen by now. It is a clear violation to the school’s moral code and an outright crime by the code of law,” Mrs. Hayes said.

“Forges evidence to pin on me a crime I didn’t commit, a setup to frame me as a sexual offender. I have never laid a finger on Ms. Ramirez,” I explained, trying to be as formal and academic as possible. My chances of success were already low, so better not to lower them more by trying to appeal to the empathy side of Lucifer herself.

“Please, Mr. Walker, the world does not revolve around you. Why would these girls, students of our prestigious academy, do something as awful as frame you for a crime?”

I had to resist the primal urge to clench my fist and throw a shoe at her. She was taunting me on purpose.

“The reason escapes me as well, Mrs. Hayes,” I told her, omitting of course any comments that would further make me look like a victim. I didn’t have her sympathy, quite the opposite, so I needed to argue with cold facts. “Yet I was led to the restroom, forced inside and pushed to the ground. That’s when the picture was taken.”

“You mean you were forced and pushed to the ground by those delicate ladies?” she asked with a slight hint of mockery in her tone.

I held back a smirk, now thankful for her old-school mentality because she just gave me a HUGE opening to argue back against her.

“Why, yes. This academy only accepts the best of the best, does it not? That includes sports and academics. I don’t see why these three girls would have trouble overpowering me. Shameful as it is to admit, I’m not a physically strong person.”

I could see Mrs. Hayes noticeably suppressing a scowl while Ms. Owens tried to hide a smirk.

“Mrs. Hayes, if I may,” The English teacher interjected. “The nurse, Ms. Fujiwara, has confirmed that there are no signs of a physical struggle on Ms. Ramirez’s body. I believe that, at the very least, the stories of both parties have holes in them. Mr. Walker has no evidence or witnesses to support his claim, yet we have records of several students with claims of bullying pointing towards Ms. Hughes, Ms. Reed and Ms. Ramirez, which, I must remind you, you’ve yet to address.”

Yep. Elegantly used cold, hard facts. This woman is truly an inspiration for me.

Mrs. Hayes suppressed a groan at the teacher’s comment. She let out a heavy sigh and looked at Ms. Owens. “Very well, we’ll discuss this more tomorrow and decide if legal action is necessary.” She then looked at me as if holding back a glare. “You may go home, Mr. Walker. Just remember your situation before you do anything else.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mrs. Hayes.”

I politely said goodbye to both women and exited the school. I walked back to my room with heavy shoulders, then felt the lack of a sandbag in it because I REALLY needed to punch something. I didn’t have one, though, and I have enough self-control not to destroy things in anger. Instead I changed into my workout clothes and picked up my weights. I went through my regular routine, including pull ups in the wooden beams in the ceiling. I was in the middle of those when I heard a knock on the door.

I almost didn’t open it. Didn’t want to see anyone at the moment, but there was a chance it was Emma, or maybe Ms. Owens. I had to.

I went to it, panting from just dropping from the beams. The two girls at my door were a sight for sore eyes, even if they didn’t have the happiest faces. Both were scowling, Emily in anger and Megan in worry.

“Sorry…” I told them with a forced smile. “I forgot we had tutoring today. My bad…”

“Forget about that! David, what the hell happened!?” Emily snaped.

“Can we come in?” Megan asked.

I glanced from one to the other, then nodded. Both girls came inside the room and sat on my bed.

“So? Spill it! How did you get caught up in that?” Emily asked with arms crossed and a no-bullshit attitude.

“So you heard, huh?” I tried to laugh it off, but I couldn’t. I was drained of the energy to put up a facade.

“I doubt there’s anyone in the school who hasn’t heard,” Megan told me and even showed me that goddamned picture on her own phone. “Even I got it, and I couldn’t be further away from Olivia’s circle. Tell us what happened.”

I sighed and told the short story for a second time, keeping it short and factual.

“So that’s it? Are you telling me I was right in thinking you were a loser who got pushed around and couldn’t stand up for himself?” Emily accused me, gritting her teeth.

I think I was too tired to even feel offended by that. “Pretty much. Sorry to be a disappointment,” I told her bluntly, shrugging my shoulders. “Now, if that’s all, why don’t you leave so I can wallow in my misery for 10 more minutes before I start figuring out how to fix this shit?” I turned my back to them and was moving to pick the weights back up.

So I was a disappointment to them. A loser who couldn’t stand up for himself. Well, they weren’t wrong, and maybe it was for the best this way. I was  already dating Emma yet I was flirting with Megan and Emily at the same time. Wouldn’t be surprised if this was karma at work. If these two decided I wasn’t worth their time, then so be it. I had shit to take care of and girls were the last thing I wanted to worry about.

Then I felt a hand grip my shoulder. I looked back to see Megan frowning at me, her lip quivering, hurt.. She gripped my shoulder as hard as she could, and she’d be digging her nails in if she didn’t keep them short.

“You’re not being fair to us,” she told me.

Her expression, her words hurt me as well. I didn’t like seeing her like that, but at the same time the anger and frustration overrode other feelings.

“Well, sorry if I don’t feel like being fair today.”

Megan groaned in frustration as tears formed around her eyes. She stomped her foot, held both of my cheeks and pressed her lips hard against mine before pulling away.

“Will you just LISTEN for a second!?”

Anger?

Frustration?

Helplessness?

What the fuck are those? My mind went completely blank. I couldn’t process a thing. “Okay,” was all I could manage to answer.

Emily stood next to her friend. Her hands on my cheeks replaced  Megan’s and she did exactly the same as her. Emily pressed her lips hard against mine and pulled away with a huge grin on her face. “Ten minutes to wallow in your misery is too much. We’ll give you one to recover from this and we’ll start brainstorming, okay?”

It really did take about a full minute for my mind to start working again. Megan kissed me. Emily kissed me right after that. Neither of them seemed to mind. I had questions. So, so many questions.

“So… what was that?” I asked, baffled.

“More on that later. We have more pressing matters,” Emily said, but she and Megan couldn’t hold back their grins at my reaction.

************

Chapter 35: With Emily and Megan.

I sat on the bed after being soundly defeated by these two jocks, and my heart might have just skipped two beats in a row when each of them sat beside me, Emily to my right and Megan to my left. They were close and holding onto one of my arms each, yet they refused to comment on it. I didn’t think I’d get anything out of these two, so I settled on enjoying what was happening, let them do their thing, and start thinking.

“Alright, so here’s the main issue. The headmistress hates my guts for some reason and I’m sure wants to take this incident as an opportunity to kick me out. Unless I present evidence, she won’t believe a word I say, and since Olivia and her group do have ‘evidence’, she’ll believe them instead.”

“There’s really nothing we can use to your favor?” Megan asked.

“Ms. Campbell and Ms. Owens are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. Ms Campbell said she’ll look into our records from previous schools and I’m 100% clean there.”

Emily groaned in frustration. “But that’s not gonna be enough, is it?”

I shook my head. “There’s also the fact they claim I forced Jessica to the ground, but there’s no signs of a struggle, so that also helps my case.”

Emily snickered. “Sorry, but I’ve seen Jessica in P.E. She’s in great condition and is stronger than she looks. She can totally kick your ass,” she told me with a satisfied grin.

“Hey, as long as that testimony helps me out of this, I’d gladly admit to being a wimp,” I agreed. It’s called pragmatism.

“Megan can kick her ass, though,” the blonde added, making me glance at the brunette, who confidently nodded.

“Yep. Right towards the goal and through the net,” she said bluntly. “You want me to? I’ve been looking for an excuse.”

“It… might get you involved in this mess, so no.” But to be fair, I did believe Megan was capable of doing it.

“So little evidence on your side. What about witnesses? Did anybody see the thing happening?” Emily asked again.

“I don’t think so. I did try to check my surroundings, but I didn’t see anyone on the fourth floor. I guess they were counting on that,” I regretfully informed.

“Then tomorrow we should ask around and see if anyone saw it happen,” Megan suggested. “If you ask, I don’t think you’ll get results, but if we do…” She looked at Emily.

“They’ll talk right away. I don’t like saying this, but I guess we’re popular enough that people WILL want to talk to us.” Emily sighed, resigned. “Okay, we’ll take care of that.”

“Are you sure?”

“What? Don’t trust us?” Megan asked with a small smirk and hugged my arm closer to her chest, allowing me to feel her breasts against it.

“I mean, I do, but that’s a lot of work,” I told her. “Not to mention you’re unlikely to find anyone.”

“We’ll be fine. We’re used to working hard.” Emily grinned confidently and interlocked her fingers with mine, making my heart beat even faster. “If there’s a chance, we’ll take it. We have to, now more than ever.”

I swallowed hard and continued, trying to ignore their obvious displays of affection. For now, at least. “Well, I’m not sure there’s much else we can do. I’ll speak to Ms. Campbell and Ms. Owens tomorrow. They both told me they wanted to clear this issue soon. Aside from that, it’ll be up to whether or not I can make a case for myself. Having at least two teachers willing to hold Mrs. Hayes accountable and forcing her to be objective should give me a chance.”

“Think you can do it?” Megan asked, worried.

“If nothing else I’m a good speaker. I’m confident I can avoid legal action, at the very least. Mrs. Hayes won’t want that kind of attention on her academy. News drama, parent complaints, loss of trust and credibility… She won’t want her academy to be known as the place that accepted a sexual offender, especially when it’s nothing more than an excuse to get rid of me and keep her school girls-only.” There was the chance she could take this as an opportunity to strengthen her argument to keep men out of her academy, but there were enough holes in the case that it could be turned against her. For example, the fact that the three girls involved had previous accusations of bullying from other students that the headmistress was still ignoring. I was confident she would keep this under wraps, regardless of the result. “The worst case scenario here is I get kicked out of the academy and Mrs. Hayes personally tries to hinder my acceptance into other schools. Don’t know how much actual reach she has, though.” If she had the reach of my dad, though, then it would be fairly possible for her. Would my dad do something about it or would he leave me to fend for myself again? At this point I wasn’t sure.

Megan frowned and gripped my arm harder. “You can’t leave now, though,” she said quietly. Her friend nodded in agreement.

A silence formed in the room. Somewhat awkward, but the fact the girls didn’t move away from me already said something. It was time to address the elephant in the room.

“So… can I finally ask what this is about?”