Storm Warning

Paisley laughed among her friends in the hallway of Newcrest High School. Every morning, Paisley met with her friends, and hung out by their lockers before class started for the day. It had sort of become their ritual, and Paisley began to look forward to their meet ups in the morning. Paisley took a quick glance at her watch, they still had twenty minutes before they went to their first class of the day.

"Get a load of Ms. Hauata." Paisley's best friend London cackled. "Someone should have told her to ditch the polyester blazer." Paisley laughed loudly, which caught Ms. Hauata's attention.

"Girls, you know better than to be loitering the halls before school. Move your feet, or I'll see all of you in detention this afternoon." Ms. Hauata, the school principal, scolded through narrowed eyes. London and Paisley's other friend Trinity began to quickly move to their homerooms. Paisley stayed planted where she had been standing.

"Do we have a problem Ms. Hyde? I told you to get moving." Ms. Hauata's tone came as a warning. Paisley chuckled. Everyone seemed to fear Ms. Hauata. Frankly, Paisley didn't care, and she certainly wasn't going to be talked to disrespectfully by her.

"My problem is you." Paisley muttered facing her locker.

"Well Ms. Hyde," Ms. Hauata said matter-of-factly, "I hope you don't have plans this afternoon after school, because you've just earned yourself a detention." Paisley's anger bubbled up, and she could feel her cheeks turning red. "Matter of fact, let's give mom and dad a call to discuss this change in plans, shall we?" Ms. Hauata's eyebrow raised. Paisley could smack that stupid smug look right off of her face.

Ms. Hauata grabbed Paisley's wrist to lead her to her office.

"Don't touch me you old bitch." Paisley snarled at Ms. Hauata. It wasn't planned. It wasn't even forceful. But it was sharp enough to make Ms. Hauata stumble back, her keys jingling in her pocket.

"Paisley Hyde in my office, now." Ms. Hauata's voice hit that high, tight edge that meant this was serious. Ms. Hauata stomped toward her office. With a quick glance behind her, Paisley saw that London and Trinity had saw the entire thing, their jaws down to the floor. Sighing, Paisley followed after Ms. Hauata to her office. Whatever the punishment was for pushing your principal was, it was probably worse than just afternoon detention.

And when Paisley's parents heard about this, she was going to be grounded until she moved out.

Fuck, what did I just do? Paisley thought to herself.

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" Are YOU out of your fucking mind, Paisley?" Her mom shouted at her from the couch of the living room. Thankfully, her dad was at work and wasn't home to lecture her. The lectures from her dad were much worse than her mom's, and her mom's were still pretty scary.

"But mom she --" Paisley started to say and was abruptly cut off by Maisie.

"You just SHUT your mouth. What on EARTH made you think shoving your principal was a SMART idea? Do you have any idea how much trouble you are in? I'm not even talking about with me and your father, Paisley. I'm talking about with the SCHOOL." Maisie's face was a bright shade of pink. Paisley knew this only happened when her mom was pissed off. Paisley remained quiet, afraid of what her mother was going to say next.

"WELL? What do you have to say for yourself?!" Maisie's voice echoed in the living room. Paisley suddenly felt hot, like somebody turned the heat all the way up.

"Mom, she GRABBED my arm! She touched me FIRST." Paisley's anger bubbled over as she shouted back at her mother. Deep down, she knew shoving the school principal was a stupid thing to do. She regretted it of course, but why wasn't anyone mad that someone had touched her first.

"Do you realize that you're suspended for a week? Do YOU realize that they are talking about expulsion, Paisley? EXPULSION. Did you ever consider that this could ruin your life even AFTER high school?" Maisie shouted. Maisie stood up and paced the living room, and it was at that moment the realization of how badly Paisley had messed up, sank in.

Paisley didn't understand why her mom wasn't mad at the fact that the principal had put her hands on Paisley first. Why nobody was outraged that an adult lay their hand upon a child that wasn't theirs. All anyone could seem to focus on was the fact Paisley pushed the principal back. It didn't feel fair. It felt like everyone was against her.

"I don't know what the hell has gotten in to you lately." Maisie shook her head. "You ran off and got pregnant with some guy from your school, and now you're getting detentions and suspensions. We've been too easy on you." Paisley's heart sank at the mention of the baby that she miscarried. It stung even more that it was being thrown back in her face as a weapon.

"Can I fucking speak?" Paisley snapped. Maisie eyes widened at how her daughter had just spoken to her.

"Haven't you said and done enough, Paisley?" Maisie rolled her eyes. Paisley wanted to scream. No! I haven't said enough! Nobody is listening to my side!

"Why don't you ever listen! Neither you nor dad ever listen to me! It was this way when Archie and Auggie still lived here, it was like this when I lost Chi. You never listen, and I'm tired of never being heard. So I'm just not going to say anything. I don't care about what happens." Paisley stood up from the couch. She was done with this conversation, but it was very clear that her mother was not.

Maisie closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. For a moment, Paisley felt bad for the mass amount of stress she was causing her parents, but she quickly shook that thought from her head. Maisie quickly grabbed Paisley's arm, and pulled her back down to the couch, the very same motion that cause all of this to happen in the first place.

"Absolutely not. You park it right there." Maisie hissed.

It took everything Paisley had to not just walk away. Seeing how she was already in a lot of trouble with not only her parents, but the school, it would have been easy to. The little voice in Paisley's head told her to just stay put, so she did.

"Incase it wasn't clear, you are grounded. Until further notice. No friends. No leaving the house. And while we're at it, I'll be taking your phone as well." Maisie stuck her hand out. "Hand it over it, right now." Reluctantly, Paisley handed her mom her cellphone.

"Incase it wasn't clear, I hate you." Paisley snapped at her mom. "I thought parents were supposed to advocate for their kids, to stand up for them. I guess I was fucking wrong, wasn't I?" Paisley stood from the couch once more, ready to run to her room.

" Go to your room." Maisie pointed in the direction of Paisley's bedroom. "I don't want to see you until your father gets home. We'll see what he has to say about all of this."

"GLADLY." Paisley stomped her way to her bedroom. She slammed her door so hard, she was sure that a couple of picture frames fell off of the wall. What started off as a great day seeing her friends, turned sour extremely fast. Now she was grounded with no hint of ever being ungrounded. To make matters worse, she would have to sit through the entire lecture again with her dad.

Out in the living room, Maisie sat with her head in her hands, trying hard not to sob. She didn't know where she had went wrong with Paisley. She had thought that Paisley's rebellious phase was getting better, after everything that happened with her miscarriage.

But after today, Maisie quickly learned that it wasn't getting better at all. It was getting worse.

To be continued........