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“I can’t believe we finished it,” Erica says to Tan as the yearbook committee have a pizza party being that today is their last yearbook meeting.
“Yeah now all we have to do is take it to Principal Taylor and hope she doesn’t hate it”
“Does that woman like anything?” Erica asks jokingly and they go back to their little party.
walking to the principal’s office with the yearbook prototype in his hands Tan gets nervous. Tan worked really hard on this yearbook and it got him into Northwestern so he hopes Principal Taylor likes it. “Hi Mrs. Drake” Tan greets the receptionist in the principal’s office
“Hey Tanner” she looks up from her desk and smiles
“Is Principal Taylor in? I have the yearbook to show her”
“Ooh is it all done?” she get’s excited
“Yeah we finished it this morning”
“That’s great well she’s not with anyone so go ahead.”
Knocking on the door Tan wait’s for an answer “come in” he hears her voice
Walking in smiling nervously Tan starts “hey PT what’s up?”
“PT?” she looks up from whatever she was reading
“Principal Taylor” the principal doesn’t react “you don’t like that? Okay. So, here’s the finished yearbook all it needs now is your a-ok so we can send it to printing.”
Tan puts the binder and the principal’s desk “ok I’ll take a look at it and have it back to you tomorrow”
“Awesome” he smiles “hope you like it.”
“Have a good day Tanner” the principal dismisses him going back to her work.
awkwardly walking away Tan leaves the office and meets his friends up at lunch sitting at their usual table as the girls eat and chat. “How’d it go?” Erica asks as he sits next to her
“Fine I think there was no emotion so I don’t know, she said that she’d have it back by tomorrow”
“She’s such an ice queen”
“Tell me about it so what were you guys talking about?”
“This” Lin hands Tan her phone opened on text messages between her and Cyrus, the guy she’s crushing on. “All he says to everything is I don’t know or whatever”
“Why do you even like him, Lin?” Tan asks scrolling through the texts
“Because he’s hot!” Tan rolls his eyes at the response and hands Lin her phone back
“He also carries around a guitar that no one’s ever heard him play before” Ronnie makes fun of him
“He says he’s waiting for inspiration”
“On what? How to play the guitar?” Tan asks making Ronnie and Erica laugh
“Joke now but when he’s serenading me with beautiful music you’ll all be jealous.”
The talking dies down and Tan starts to look around noticing something “have any of you guys seen Sven today?” he turns to them and they all shake their heads “I haven’t spoken to him since what happened on Friday and I haven’t seen him anywhere all day today.”
“You guys have math together next period maybe he’ll show up then” Lin tries to reassure Tan
“Or maybe he’s avoiding you after you ran out when he kissed you” Ronnie replies honestly
“You think he’s avoiding me?”
“Makes sense”
“I don’t blame him I’m the worst.”
Their day ends and The four friends walk out together after school, walking Tan to his mom’s car “hey girls” she rolls down the window waving.
“Hi Mrs. Milton” they all wave back and greet
Getting in the car Tan waves to them and his mother pulls away “how was your day?” She asks as she drives
Tan knows she doesn’t really care “fine.”
“How’s uh… your umm… what is it you’re working on again?”
“Yearbook committee mom”
“Yeah that! How’s that going?”
“It’s fine thanks for caring” he replies sarcastically.
“Why do you have to do that? Be so passive aggressive”
“Because you don’t actually care, mom”
“Would I ask if I didn’t care?” She takes quick looks at him
“Yeah, you would” Tan takes out his phone to ignore his mother.
“I don’t want to fight Tanner”
“Good” he replies still looking at his phone.
After dinner with his parents, Tan lays in bed on his computer when he hears “Tanner come here please” his mother calling him.
Grunting as he gets out of bed annoyed he walks to the dining table where they’re still sitting. “Yes?” He stands at the table
Scott and Shiela both look at him “sit down for a second so your father and I can talk to you”
Doing what she says instead of retaliating to avoid a fight Tan sits “am I in trouble for something?” He looks between them
Scott shakes his head “when were you going to tell us you got into Northwestern?”
Tan sighs knowing he’s been caught “right now I guess. Mom, dad I got into Northwestern.”
“Stop joking Tan,” Shiela says seriously
“Who says I’m joking? I only found out on Saturday”
“You’ve known since Saturday and didn’t bother to tell us?” Tan stays quiet knowing his answer would start a fight. “This is a big deal Tan you don’t seem excited”
“I am” he makes no reaction to prove that “wait were you guys going through my stuff? Is that how you found out?”
“We both got emails congratulating us” Scott answers. “How did you possibly think you were going to get away with not telling us?”
“I was going to tell you guys, I was just waiting for the right time” translation they’re so busy with their lives they wouldn’t have even cared if he got in or not.
“You didn’t think dinner would’ve been a right time? Because we’ve had dinner three times since you’ve known.”
“Does it matter? Now you know, can I go to my room please?” He asks looking between them
“Fine” Tan’s mom says and he gets up walking away. As he leaves he hears his mom say “this is all your fault Scott, our son won’t even talk to us. He got into freaking college and wasn’t going to tell us.”
“How the fuck is this my fault?! Tanner’s his own person we can’t force him to do what he doesn’t want, and I fucking love it when you blame me for everything when it comes to him! He won’t talk to either of us Sheila, not just me!”
Tan hides behind the wall listening to them fight about him. “Maybe if you weren’t so fucking incompetent as a father he’d trust us more!”
“you know why I don’t tell either of you anything?” Tan walks back out asking, Shiela and Scott turn to him “because you’ll just find a way to turn it into a fight and I seriously can’t take it anymore.” He walks away leaving his parents, and Tan knows as soon as he shuts his door they’ll just fight about what he just said.
Tuesday morning Tan stands in the kitchen eating cereal as he waits for his mom to finish getting ready so she can take him to school. “Your father and I were talking last night” Shiela walks into the kitchen
“You mean fighting?” Tan asks not moving his eyes from his bowl
“We were talking Tan, and we decided to go see a counselor”
Tan chuckles “why bother with that? Just get a divorce”
“Is that what you want for us to split up?”
“Yeah let’s make that the kid’s decision”
“I think family counseling could really help us”
“Wait family counseling? As in I have to go too?” Shiela nods
“That’s not fair!” Tan yells and Shiela says it at the same time mimicking him
“Funny Scott said you’d say that” she smiles. “We’re a family and we are clearly having problems so we’re getting help, end of discussion.”
“Thanks for giving me a choice” Tan drops his bowl in the sink and walks away.
Finally getting to school Tan goes to his locker expecting to see Lin waiting with his usual coffee but she’s not there. Walking away he walks to Ronnie and Erica’s lockers when he finds them standing at Ronnie’s locker “guys what’s going on?” He asks getting closer to them
“Shhhhh!” They all shush him “come here!” Lin calls him over “look at that god of a man standing over there talking to Principal Taylor.” Looking in their direction Tan’s eyes land on Harris causing him to gasp a little. “I know right! Like what lab created that because sign me up!” Lin drools as they continue to stare
“Look at his hair so rich and silky, and that suit oh my god that suit!” Tan listens to them fonding over Harris “it’s so tight on him, why is he so beautiful?” Erica’s eyes are practically popping out of her head.
“Do you guys think he’s married? I’d totally have sex with him even if he was married”
“Me freaking too” Erica agrees with Ronnie.
It was finally Tan’s turn for an input and we all know what he’s already thinking, but to not give anything away he says “I don’t see it” and shrugs.
“Shut up what do you know!” Ronnie barks. As they gawk at Harris, Principal Taylor turns her head and sees them “abort! Abort!” They start to scatter getting caught
“Tanner?” The principal says his name as he’s trying to get away “can I see you for a moment?”
“Don’t go it’s a trap” one of the girls whisper as he reluctantly turns back walking towards the principal.
When he gets to them he flashes a quick and awkward smile at Harris then turns to Principal Taylor. “Morning Principal Taylor”
“Come into my office I want to discuss somethings about the yearbook with you”
“We can do that later you seem busy” Tan tries to back out of the most uncomfortable situation of his life.
“It’ll be quick, come follow us Mr. Wheeler” Principal Taylor walks away leaving Tan to walk in front of Harris. He can feel the two holes Harris’s eyes are burning behind him as they all enter the office. Shutting the door Principal Taylor walks to her desk picking up the binder, “good job on this Tanner” she hands it to him
“Thank you” he smiles.
“One thing before you send it to printing, the fonts were very inconsistent and kind of a distraction so get that fixed”
“Will do”
“That’s it get to class.”
“All right” walking to the door Tan walks past Harris getting a whiff of his amazing scent on his way out. Practically weak in the knees Tan leaves the office.
When he walks out he’s immediately ambushed by his friends “what’d she want?”
“What was it like being so close to that Adonis? We’re calling him Adonis now” they throw questions at him.
“You guys need help” he walks away instead of answering.
It kills him inside lying to his friends, they were the only people he could tell anything to but now he’s hiding this secret from them and it’s getting harder. Harris is literally in his school right now and he can’t react in any way that’ll look suspicious to his friends, they already know he’s lying about something.
Tan goes to class pretending that today is just like any other day.
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