“Well, Mr. DiMarco, putting your hands on another student is wrong.”
“Did you know that Ryan pushed Aiden first?” I ask her, and she stumbles with her words.
“Well, I wasn’t aware,” she starts to say, but I cut her off.
“And you also were not aware that he called him Frenchie?” I tell her, and she opens her mouth and then closes it. “I really don’t appreciate my son being called out and called names. I also don’t appreciate him being brought down to the office and not being heard.” I start to get up, and Eli follows me. “It is safe to say, Mrs. Lambert, that we will be looking for an alternative school, seeing as the new kid is”—I shrug my shoulders—“well, apparently guilty before proven innocent.”
“Mr. DiMarco,” she starts to say, and I hold up my hand.
“I’m not going to say that my son is innocent, and if he did push the other child, his mother and I will rectify that it doesn’t happen again.” I look at Eli, who just nods her head. “But what I’m not going to do is sit here and have him be guilty when you didn’t even give him the time of day.” I don’t wait for her to say anything else; instead, I walk out of the office.
“Honey, let’s go get your stuff, and then we can go,” I tell Aiden, putting out my hand and walking out of the office.
“Am I in trouble, Dad?” he asks, looking up at me. I stop and turn to him, squatting down.
“Did you push Ryan?” I ask him, and he looks down.
“He pushed me first,” he says quietly.
“Doesn’t matter that he pushed you first. It is not okay to put your hands on other kids,” I tell him the adult thing to say, but I really want to high-five him and tell him not to take anyone’s shit and stick up for himself all the time.
“He is always pushing me and calling me names,” he finally says. “I don’t like it here.”
“Why don’t we get your things, and we can sit down and talk about things with your mom?” I tell him, and he smiles.
“Okay, Dad,” he says, and we walk to his class, and he gets his books.
“Is everything okay?” his teacher asks, looking concerned.
“I’m not really sure,” I tell her and see Aiden go over to his desk and grab his stuff and then walk out to his locker. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” she says.
“Is my son a good student?” I might be biased and think he’s at the top of his game, but I need reassurance.
“He is one of the top five of the class. His reading level is already that of a third grader, and his math is exceptionally high,” she says and then looks at him. “He is a pleasure to have in class.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, and I want to jump up and celebrate, but instead, I walk back to the office and find Eli there chatting with Mrs. Hope.
“Thank you for everything,” Eli says. “Please forward me anything that I may have forgotten to sign.” She sees us. “Ready,” she says with a smile, and I can tell it’s fake.
“Should I ask?” I look at Aiden who stands between us, looking up at her.
“Who wants ice cream?” she says, and Aiden just smiles. He turns to walk toward the exit. When he is out of earshot, she looks at me. “He’s never coming back here.”
“I agree,” I tell her and put my arm around her and bring her to me as we walk.
Chapter Eighteen
Eliahn
“Who would have thought this Monday would end with me eating ice cream on a park bench at four?” I look over at Luca who sits on the bench next to me. His jacket’s off, his shirt is rolled up to his elbows, and his tie is also gone.
“Not me,” he says as he licks his own ice cream. “Are you going to tell me what happened when I left the room?”
I look over at Aiden who is trying to go across the monkey bars but falling after only two. He always gets back up and tries again. “Well, considering you left the room and took her dignity, she made it a point to tell me that maybe Aiden is acting up because of his home life and seeing as things are so wishy-washy between us that getting into a fight was his outsource.” He stops licking his ice cream, and I see his jaw get tight. “I wish I had a good comeback instead of ‘bite me,’ but it was the only thing that came to my mind,” I say, and now he laughs. “Well, it was better than fuck off and eat a bag of dicks.” I look back out at Aiden and hear Luca roar with laughter.