Chapter 7 - MY FRIENDS CHANGED AFTER THEY LEARNEDThis part hurt in a different way.
Before the cafeteria incident, I had three people I considered friends.
Sophie.
Maya.
Lucas.
After everyone learned Dad was the principal, they acted strange.
Sophie stopped complaining about teachers around me.
Lucas asked whether parking tickets could “disappear.”
He was joking.
Mostly.
Maya became overly polite.
Finally, I said:
“Can everybody stop?”
They stared.
“Stop what?” Sophie asked.
“Acting like I became a different person.”
Lucas said:
“Your dad can suspend us.”
“He could suspend you last month too.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t know.”
Exactly.
That was the whole reason I kept it secret.
I wanted relationships uncontaminated by power.
Now contamination had arrived anyway.
Maya eventually asked:
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because of this.”
She looked hurt.
“So you didn’t trust us.”
That landed.
She was right too.
I had turned secrecy into a test nobody knew they were taking.
That wasn’t entirely fair.
I apologized.
They did too.
Friendship survived.
May you like
Messier.
More honest.
