Page 5 of Requiem & Reverie

“I’m sorry, I know Oliver is a good kid. It troubles me to see things like what happened today, particularly as I know that’s just not his personality.”

Sneaking another glimpse of my son, looking downtrodden where he sits, I shake my head. “Definitely not. It’s my fault. I’ve been … working a lot of hours, and I haven’t been able to spend much time with him. I’ll work to correct that.”

“That sounds fair.”

We finish up the meeting with Principal Johnson, and I wait for Oliver to gather his things from his locker. The walk to the car is silent, but once inside, I sit for a moment, gripping the steering wheel.

“What was this, Oli? I mean, I don’t want to start a routine of picking you up from school for fighting. That’s not where we’re headed, are we?”

Brows furrowed, he crosses his arms and stares out the window.

“No, you’re not ignoring me.” I pull a notepad and pen from my purse and set it on the console between us. “What happened?”

He doesn’t move, his face still scrunched with anger.

“Fine. I’ll add anger management therapy to your weekly doctor visits.”

Snapping his head toward me, he swipes up the notepad and furiously scribbles across the page. When he’s finished, he tosses it onto the console once more.

The kid punched me a week ago. He got a group of friends to try to beat me up after lunch. I knocked him out with a pressure point.

“Pressure point? What is that? Something you learned on YouTube?”

He turns the notepad and writes Voss showed me across the page.

“Voss. Voss showed you how to do that?” The anger pulsing through me stiffens my jaw, and I grind my teeth together when Oliver nods.

Lip snarled in disgust, I flip on the engine. “Well, Voss has a bit of explaining to do, then.”

* * *

By the time I arrive home, my emotions are all over the place. I want to be mad at Oliver for what he did, and a big part of me is. Had that boy’s family decided to press charges, we’d be sued. And screwed.

Which is easy for a guy like Voss, who probably welcomes the hostility. I’m not as quick to jump into conflict, but at the moment, I’m practically vibrating with the need to chew my boundary-stomping tenant’s ass out.

Oliver dumps his backpack at the foot of the stairs, and with one hand on the staircase bannister, he pauses. The expression on his face carries less anger and more remorse than before.

“Something you need to say?” I ask, crossing my arms.

Remorse flips back to anger, his lip curled, as if he wants to tell me to go to hell right now, before he jogs up the staircase, toward his room.

With frustration boiling inside of me, I march through the house, out the back door, and up to the in-law suite.

I knock on the door to the apartment, the headache I’ve mounted on the way over about three times more intense now. Voss’s car is in the driveway, so I know he’s here, but the guy never responds to unexpected company in a normal way, like ‘Just a second!’. No, I’m always left standing on the front porch, banging away at his door like a psychotic doof, until he answers.

The door swings open, and he glances back into the room. “Star Wars, what’s going on?” Another glance leaves me wondering if I caught him at a bad time. Like … mid-cheating asshole o’clock, or something.

Without invitation, I push past him to the middle of the room, from where I can see his bedroom is empty. Thankfully. Because under the circumstances, catching another woman in his bed after last night would surely send me into raging bitch mode.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got my attention,” he says, closing the door. “You come to make that trade we talked about?”

“This is serious, Voss. Very serious.”

“What happened?”

“Oli got suspended today. For making one of his classmates pass out in a little trick you apparently taught him.”