Page 39 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

Chapter Ten

Tahli

“Hey.” Vin was there first. He got up from the chair outside of the principal’s office as Tahli approached. She wasn’t sure what seeing him again after Sophie’s birthday present would feel like. But it was reminiscent of the initial reveal of his betrayal—water simmering, near-a-boil resentment.

“You know what this is about?” He asked when she didn’t answer.

“No.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Tahli–”

“Get off of me, Dalvin!” She yanked her arm from his grasp, glimpsing his stunned expression.

“The fuck is wrong with you? Hey.” He curved his head into her face when she turned away, and Tahli slammed her eyes shut. What did it matter? Nothing mattered. They were divorced and she was starting fresh with Drew.

“Nothing. Just forget it.”

“Huh? Forget what? You’ve been dodging the fuck out of me.

Talking through Vanessa. I ask you what’s up, and you acting like I’m crazy.

Then, the fucking school calling me, telling me we have to come in, but they can’t tell me why over the phone.

Now I get here and you walking up wit’ ya ‘ stay the fuck away from me’ face. ”

“It’s not my stay the fuck away from me face.”

“It’s definitely your stay the fuck away from me face.”

“Then maybe you should heed it and stay the fuck away from me.”

His brows pinched, and his frown stoned, but the principal’s door swung open before he could fight it.

“Mr. and Mrs. Hayes.” Principal Stevens greeted them, her cobalt blue eyes bouncing between them as if she sensed the tension.

Tahli took a step back.

“Hall. It’s Hall, now.”

“I’m…forgive me.” She shut those blue peepers briefly. “All of these years of knowing you two, it’s just…old habits. Step into my office, please.”

When they were settled, Tahli crossed her legs and folded her arms. She wouldn’t even look at Vin in the chair a few feet from hers. But she smelled him. He didn’t douse himself in cologne, but his air was always fragrant. And brooding. She could feel his brooding. It made her rub on her neck.

“Well…I invited you here because I wanted to talk about Dali. There’s been…several instances that have occurred over the past months–”

“Instances?” Tahli became defensive. “Why haven’t I heard about these instances?”

“Well…for the most part, we’ve found it effective when the children, and sometimes our counselors, can resolve the issues on their own. It gives them a sense of independence, especially with most of them going off to college when they leave here.”

“Independence? She’s a child. She’s my child.”

“I get what she’s saying, Tahli.”

“Oh, who asked you?” Tahli snapped, instantly regretting it. But when she was angry, her reactions came before contemplation.

In a way, she understood it as well. She used to have the same relaxed attitude about the kind of mother she’d be and how her children were on their own path, until she felt Dali slipping away from her grasp. Principal Stevens sat in silence with pursed lips before continuing.

“Only when we feel the issues have escalated to where we need additional parental reinforcement do we contact you. Like with the excessive class-cutting last month.”

Tahli’s eyes bugged. She snapped her head to Vin when Principal Stevens shifted her eyes his way. He only swiped his closed lids with that tattooed hand.

“Wow,” Tahli blew out, realizing who the cool parent was and who they kept secrets from. Typical Dalvin Hayes. Layers of secrets force-fed to her under the guises of preservation. Like fucking spumoni.

“Not to get sidetracked,” Principal Stevens reeled it back in, “the situation today is one definitely needing to be addressed. Now, before we get into it, I want to assure you that I know Dali is a terrific kid. She is at the top of her class, a star violinist and athlete. She’s involved in so many extra-curriculars and her teachers adore her–”

“Can we…please?” Tahli didn’t need the briefing on her daughter, only why she was called from work in the middle of the day and had to stomach his presence.

Anxiety, anger, and frustration were maxed out.

“Okay, so…I’m not sure how to say this. But…Dali was discovered in the boys’ restroom today by a teacher after another student informed her. This teacher went in the restroom and found Dali and two young men in a…compromising situation.”

Tahli’s heart stopped beating. For a moment, only a moment, she gawked at Principal Stevens.

The next instant, she twisted her neck toward Vin, who had collapsed his head into his hands. Doubled over, she watched his thick fingers squeeze the back of his scalp.

Tahli was unsure of what to say or think. She was hesitant to even more. Startled when he suddenly leapt up and flung the office door open, slamming it shut behind him. One of the principal’s framed awards fell to the ground.

“I…um…” Principal Stevens stammered. “I just…w-want…to reiterate. I know Dali just turned fifteen. A-And she’s a great kid. At this age, there are so many questions and hormones. Social media has these children exposed–”

“Was she…?” Tahli found a voice. It was weak and croaky, but it managed. “Were they?”

“They were…in an oral sexual situation. They were clothed, but the boys were exposed. And Dali was…knelt before them–”

“Okay.” Tahli tented quivering fingers to her lips.

“Before he comes back in here…I need you to not say any of that to him. Like none of it,” Tahli warned.

She was angry, and hurt, and disappointed—mainly in herself.

She’d failed, somehow, some way…her perfect family was now a fiasco.

But bigger than all of this…something was much bigger than all of this.

“Since I know you can keep secrets, as you and my ex-husband have done from me, I need you to not only give him a much more PG version of that story... I need you to under no…I mean any …I mean not even if he grabs you by the throat and tries to choke it out of you, which he may do…I need you to not, by any means, disclose the names of those boys. Because when I say…” Tahli blew out wind, shaking her head.

“Principal Stevens, when I say there will be bloodshed. There will be police. There will be young, innocent lives lost …”

The office door swung open on Principal Steven’s wide-eyed expression. Vin stalked back in, slamming the door behind him and retaking his seat. Tahli studied him and it was there—the scary calm. Deathlier than his anger.

“I need names,” he said evenly, crossing a leg over the other, ankle to knee. He pulled on his beard, eyes narrowed on Principal Stevens.

Tahli knew him too well.

Don’t do it, lady. Don’t you fucking do it.

“I…cannot disclose that, Mr. Hayes.”

“You can. You can and will.”

“Mr. Hayes, for the protection of- Oh, my.”

“Dalvin,” Tahli called out, when he rose, pressing both fists down into the desk, leaning into this terrified, white woman’s now paper-white face.

“She can’t tell you that!”

Tahli watched his jaw throb. The swell of his nostrils.

The glare he didn’t bother to hide as Principal Stevens fidgeted behind her desk.

After a moment, he slowly shifted his eyes and scowled at Tahli before sending the container of pens flying to the wall with a smack of his hand.

Principal Stevens yelped, and Vin stormed out again.

Finally, Tahli let a full breath go.

“What happens now?”

The woman visibly attempted composure. “Um…three…three days of…in-school suspension. And…peer mediation with the counselor and sex education specialist. You two are such pillars in the community. You do so much for the school.”

Tahli sighed. She couldn’t say anything else. Couldn’t think . She simply grabbed her purse, heading out of the door herself.

“Hey! Where the fuck are you going, Tahli?” Vin shouted when she blazed by him, heels clicking against the concrete.

The sun’s rays beat down on them and their colorful surroundings of expensive, planted flowers and landscaping—pro bono from Vin’s company of course.

But it might as well have been storming.

“Hey!”

“Home!” She shouted back, yanking from his grip when he jogged up behind her. “To talk to my child.”

“Home? What the fuck you mean, home? We need answers. Did she tell you who the fuck did this?”

“Did what, Dalvin?” Tahli slit her eyes at him.

“Violated our daughter. What the fuck you mean, what? Are you crazy?” Spit spewed from his foaming mouth; eyes darkened with fury. Tahli actually caught a chill. Until she remembered she knew him—flesh and blood. He’d saw his hand off before it touched her in wrath.

“And how exactly did they violate her?” Tahli folded her arms.

Sure. She was angry. She was disgusted. But Dali was a child. And they had been so wrapped up in their shit, they’d both missed the signs. Tahli ignored them and Vin thought letting her do whatever the hell she wanted was the way out of his dad guilt.

“Tahli, did you fucking hear the principal? I don’t even understand you right now.

Two little punk-ass niggas had my daughter in a fucking bathroom, and I swear to God, when I find out who the fuck they are, arrrrgggggggghhhhh!

” Vin growled, startling two teachers passing them towards the parking lot.

“Dalvin. First of all, calm down. You’re either gonna have a stroke or they’re gonna call the cops on you. Second…they weren’t having sex. They were…” Tahli searched for saving grace, “hooking up.”

“Hooking up? Tahli, what the fuck is hooking up? We’re black. What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means kissing,” she lied.

She’d have to get to Dali first. She’d need to explain the severity of not disclosing the whole truth to her father, until he was 95 and incapable of shooting someone. Possibly. Maybe save it for his deathbed.

She glanced at Vin again, skin taut over bulging veins on his veins and forehead, pacing the school’s entrance.

Yeah…Dali had better save it for graveside confessions.

“Do I like it? No. Am I going to talk to her about it? Of course. But…I was a girl. I was a girl who liked boys and–”