Deep (Heavy Hearts Book 2) by Sarah Duncan (red seas under red skies txt) 📗

her brown bob bouncing as she does so, apparently satisfied with his response, before giving me a small smile and returning to the classroom.

Mr Matthews and I start walking down the hall, and he grins, “I know what you’re thinking, and you need to stop.”

“What?” I ask innocently.

He shakes his head, chuckling under his breath but doesn’t answer my question.

“Oh, come on. Is she your girlfriend? Are you two lovers?” I wag my eyebrows at him, and he just smirks and shakes his head.

“Lexi, you should stop being concerned about my life and start showing concern for your own. You haven’t even been back a whole day, and you’ve already gotten into a fight.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“We live in Australia, not the US. The Amendments don’t apply here.” Mr Matthews offers, even while trying not to laugh at me.

When we reach Principal Rogan’s office, I get the same nervous sick feeling like I had this morning, so I gesture for Mr Matthews to lead the way and let him walk in before I do, hoping this isn’t another trap.

Sitting in one of the chairs is Tasha Pritchard. Did that cow lag?

Principal Rogan approaches, looking down at me from her height, concern etched over her face.

“Lexi, do you give me permission to look at your head?”

Well, I guess I’m not hiding this from her. I shrug, and she gently lifts my blonde waves up off the side of my face. I hear the moment she sees the cut or whatever it is, by her sharp intake of air. She steps back, dropping my hair and gestures to a seat.

“Please sit.”

I do as I’m told, and I don’t at all feel unsafe like I did a couple of weeks ago when my dad was in this office with me.

The smell of vomit wafts over, and I turn in the direction it’s coming from. Ha! Tasha, the bitch, vomited on herself. Serves her right. I wrinkle my nose at the stench and make sure she sees.

“I could ask you both what happened, but I’ll save you the trouble of lying to me. We have a video of the incident in the toilets that occurred at the end of lunch today.” Principal Rogan turns to me, “Lexi, I understand that you have been through an extremely traumatic ordeal of late, but we do not condone violence.”

“But…” I try to defend myself.

“No,” Principal Rogan holds her hand up, “We will have further discussions about that later. For now, you will attend after school detention for the rest of the week.” She moves her attention to Tasha shaking her head, “I may be new to this school, Natasha, but make no mistake, I am not new to this sort of bullying behaviour. The words you spoke and the way you have treated Lexi and also contributed to the physical violence of the situation is absolutely disturbing.” Principal Rogan takes a deep breath before speaking more calmly. “You too will attend after school detention for the rest of the week. I want you both to understand that this is not over. I will be making further consultations on this matter, and we will readdress the punishment.”

“Just suspend us already. That’s what usually happens.” Tasha apparently has balls I didn’t know about, and her comment gets a glare off Principal Rogan.

“I know that’s what normally happens, but I’m in charge now, and I do things differently. So, for now, your punishment is in limbo.”

I like this principal. I don’t like the fact that I have to go to detention, but let’s be honest, what the hell else do I have to do?

“Lexi, here is a pass to the school nurse,” Principal Rogan hands me a slip of paper, “Please go and get your head cleaned up before you do anything else.”

I accept the slip of paper with a nod and stand, turning my back on Tasha. As I leave the Principal’s office and the stench of Tasha behind, I get a message on my phone.

Marcus Grady

Lex! WTF is this about you getting in a fight with Tasha?

And then my inbox blows up with messages from the rest of the guys.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Detention is a bitch! Mainly because I’d rather be anywhere else than in a room with Tasha Pritchard. The good thing about it, though, is that Rhys is also in detention, and she entertains the shit out of me as she sits next to me, across the room from Tasha, taunting her by pulling faces and blowing her kisses. This chick is hilarious. I don’t know why I haven’t paid more attention to her before. Probably because it would have raised red flags on my prim and proper status. I can’t believe how superficial I used to be!

It surprises me that they allow us to use our phones in detention, but I’m thankful to use it as a distraction from Tasha’s daggers. I read over the messages from the boys, who aren’t happy. Well, most of them anyway. Simon seems pretty pleased he got to watch my catfight on video.

“Wanna explain how the video of that cow and me fighting got out?” I whisper to Rhys.

“What video? I know nothing about a video.” Rhys flutters her dark lashes innocently before poking out her tongue.

“Did you really need to send it out to everyone?” I complain, but Rhys just smirks.

“By everyone, do you really mean why did I send it to your pack of hot saucy guys?” She shoots me a cheeky grin and wags her dark brows, her voice too loud to be classed as a whisper.

I roll my eyes, “Sure. Whatever.”

“You can thank me later.” She winks, “The lighting in the toilets really brought out the blue in your eyes, don’t you think?” She doesn’t even try to be quiet as she speaks. I shake my head and try to hide my smirk.

“How did you edit it so quickly?” I ask, genuinely interested. Apparently, the video got sent out about fifteen