“I know everybody wants to go home, and I do understand that you’re honestly working to help, but I want to talk about the other kids. If not now, then in another meeting. I know Geneva has issues that make her an easy target, and I see how starting off by keeping her out of the crosshairs could be good, but it’s not okay to focus only on her. The problem is the bullies. The kids who target her. Are you also coming up with a plan for dealing with them?”
“We are, in fact,” Dr. Granger said. “But that’s a whole-school issue, not specific to Geneva. We’ll discuss it at the next PTA meeting.”
Siena would make sure to be there. For now, she backed off and let these people go home. They probably had real lives. Children and spouses and pets to go home to.
“Okay. Thank you.”
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~oOo~
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As Siena walked aloneback to her car, sitting in the dark visitor lot by its lonely self, she let the feral cats in her head run free. For the most part, they wanted to replay that whole meeting and hiss at her for being a prime bitch. All those people were sincerely trying to help her sister. The principal probably couldn’t care beyond whatever wouldn’t get him sued—as if Siena had the money for a lawyer, hah—but Geneva’s actual teachers? They were stepping up. Offering up their personal time, their own resources, to do what they could.
Something her pre-surgery therapist had said more than once: life is only a constant battle if you live every moment of it armed and armored to fight. Siena had blown that idea off, because obviously her life was a constant battle. Her own body was trying to kill her. Her mother’s body had killed her. Her grandmother’s body. Her aunts’ bodies. The whole reason she’d decided to maim and gut herself was so she could have a chance to stay around to fight for Geneva.
Life wasn’t a constant battle. It was a constant fucking guerilla war.
Since Christmas, though, she’d been at DEFCON 1. Things had gotten so much worse for Geneva, and so much worse between them, Siena had been throwing hands in every direction, trying find the right enemy she could fight and win and make things better.
The people at this meeting hadn’t been the right enemy, had they? The school was the site of Geneva’s worst trouble, but her teachers weren’t the enemy. They were allies. She didn’t agree with everything they said or did, but they were working on the same side. Unless she made herself their enemy.
Had she made things harder for Geneva by trying to fight for her? Geneva sure as fuck thought so.
Fuck. Fuck!
Just then, as Siena shifted her keys from their habitual lacing between her fingers and moved to put the key in the door, trying to find the hole in the dark, a hand landed on her shoulder.
She nearly leapt from her skin. She jumped, screamed, and spun, swinging her key hand as hard as she could—and hit Geneva’s science teacher in the face. The blow knocked his glasses off.
“Oh! Mr. Jones!” she gasped, trying to reclaim some equilibrium.
“Sorry to startle you,” he said, his voice muffled a bit as he bent to collect his glasses. He stood straight and put them on.
There was a scratch at the top of his cheek, pretty close to his eye. Beads of blood began to bubble up in a dotted line.
“I’m sorry I hit you. I just ...”
“No, no. It wasn’t smart of me to come up behind a woman alone in a dark parking lot. Nor was it kind. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Maybe not every person in the world was trying to cause hurt. Even if they scared the shit out of her. But why had he sneaked up behind her? “Did you need something?”
He’d taken an old-fashioned handkerchief from one of his pockets and was dabbing at his scratch. “I meant to catch you in the hallway after the meeting, but I missed you. I had a thought about something Geneva might enjoy.”
“Okay ...”
“You know my wife teaches social studies at the junior high, yes?”
Geneva had had Mrs. Jones in sixth grade. “Yes, I remember.”
“Well, she has a few students who’ve been playing Magic—the card game?” When Siena nodded that she knew what it was, he went on, “They’ve become something of a social club, meeting once a week after school. They would like to learn Dungeons and Dragons, and she’s been asking me to help, because I played in school. But I know Geneva plays, too, and I was thinkingshecould be their DM. Dungeon Master. It would be a social situation separate from the high school, where she’d have some ‘cred’ as an older kid who can teach them. The junior high kids would probably prefer playing with her than me. She’s very good at explaining concepts so new learners can understand. You’re worried about Geneva being too isolated. Maybe this could be a way for her not to be.” He took the handkerchief away from his cheek and looked at it.
“I’m so so sorry I hit you,” Siena said. It seemed like the most important thing she could say to this person who’d heard her concerns and was trying to answer them.
“No apology necessary, really. It’s my fault. You were just protecting yourself. Just like you’re protecting Geneva. What do you think of the idea?”
“I love it. Thank you so much. I’ll talk to Geneva tonight.”