Selfish Machines

We pull up to the school and rush inside; the first class of the day is English with Ms. Johnson. I drop my stuff off at my locker and meet Mike at the door, we walk in together. He gives a slight nod to his friends while walking past them and taking a seat beside me. Class starts in two minutes but Ms. Johnson isn’t here yet. I had almost forgotten about the blow-up that happened with her, the weekend was a little crazy for me. I pull my books out of my backpack and put them on my desk. Ms. Johnson walks into the classroom, once she looks at me her eyes immediately narrowed.

“Mr. Fuentes can you come to my desk?” She says and I watch Mike as he walks up to the front of the classroom. I see them quietly talking for a minute or two and then he comes back to the desk beside me but instead of taking a seat he grabs his backpacks and walks out. No word, nothing.

“Spencer did you rewrite that paper?” She says loud enough that everyone in the room can hear her. The entire room goes silent and everyone’s attention is brought to me.

“No actually I didn’t I don’t need to the first one was good enough.” I proudly stated trying to stand my ground.

“No ‘actually’ it wasn’t ‘good enough’ I told you to rewrite it” She glared. Who the fuck does she think she is? She’s a teacher, not my parent, she can’t speak to me like that.

“Was that before or after you called me a whore?” I said standing up. You hear a slight “Ooo” from a few of Mike’s friends.

“Don’t use language like that in my classroom. And I never said that.” She beamed.

“No you just heavily implied it.” I fought back.

“That’s it you’re out. I gave you a chance but obviously, you don’t deserve it.” She stated angrily “You can follow Mr. Fuentes in the office.”

“Happily.” I said with a smile. I grabbed my books shoved them back into my backpack and walked out of the classroom making sure to slightly slam the door on the way out.

I walked down to the office to see Mike sitting there on his cell phone.

“Texting your hoes?” I ask plopping down in the seat next to him.

“Oh, definitely I can’t keep up with all of them.” He says with a little laugh. “She sent you down here too?”

“Of course she did, I was this close to telling her to fuck off.” I say holding my fingers a centimetre apart for exaggeration.

“I did Friday that’s why I’m here.” Mike laughed.

The secretary walked over and stood in front of us. She was wearing high heels and a pencil skirt. She wore this beautiful string of pearls around her neck. She looked like a classy lady from the 60’s.

“Principal Williams will see you now.” She said. We both stood up and followed behind her into a stale beige office that reeked of desperation.

“Mike always a pleasure to see you, but Ms. Jones I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to meet you before.” He says reaching his hand out.

“No, I don’t think we have.” I say as I shake his hand.

“So it looks like you guys have had an altercation in Ms. Johnsons English 11 class. Care to explain?” He asks but before I get to answer “Actually it doesn’t matter we’ve had quite a few problems with her, she seems to have it out for the Fuentes brothers and I’m assuming you were just caught in the crossfire.”

“She didn’t do anything she just stood up for me.” Mike lies.

He gives me this look so I just nod.

“Okay well I have to do something so it doesn’t look suspicious, she wants Mike to be expelled but we won’t go that far. So you two will have a short three day in school suspension.” Mr.
Williams says.

“So starting today you will be in room one-o-two” He says looking at me “And Mike will be in room two-thirty-two.”

Wait. Why are we being separated??

But before I could even ask he answered my question. “We're starting a new program for suspensions and detentions where they are gender specific, trying to see if that will help.”

“Okay” I say. And then me and Mike walk out of his office.

We pass by the chairs and the secretaries answering phones and walk into the hallway I turn to Mike.

“Wanna go out for a smoke before going to our ‘gender specific’ in school suspension?” I can’t help but laugh a little.

“Of course, and what’s with the whole ‘gender specific’ shit anyway?” Mike asks laughing as well.

“Who knows? Like oh no sitting beside a boy is going to make being in this classroom so hard.” I say

“Well hey looking at you in class is pretty distracting.” He says giving me a cute little wink. We reach the end of the hallway and he holds the door to outside open for me.

“A true gentleman.” I say as I walk through the door.

We walk together to the back of the school in our “secret” smoke spot. Basically, it’s the only spot the cameras can’t see us.

We pull out our smokes and we light one. I lean against the wall and so does he. He watched me as I took a drag.

“Why you staring me?” I ask slightly blushing.

“Because you’re cute.” He says. Now my face is bright red.

“Flattery won’t get anywhere.” I say with a wink, taking another drag.

“Oh as if you weren’t begging for it this morning.” Mike laughed.

“Yeah what was with that anyways you asshole?” I said playfully tapping his arm. Finishing off the rest of my smoke.

“We were gonna be late for school I told you that.” Mike says in an indifferent tone, flicking his cigarette butt.

“But that’s never stopped you before, you don’t care about being late for school.” I say moving a little closer so I’m standing in front of him. Our bodies just barely touching.

“No, but you do.” Mike says as I press up against him a little closer. I go to kiss him but he steps away to the side before I get the opportunity to.

“Well, I should go to the classroom before I get in shit.” He says rubbing the back of his neck a little. “You should to.” And with that, he left. Again what the fuck?

Well, I guess I should go to room one-o-two or whatever.

Notes