Second Day – New Reputations
Third-Person Limited (Kendra, then Dominic)
Kendra woke up with the mood of somebody who'd spent the night fighting demons in her sleep and lost.
Her nose hurt. Her knuckles hurt. Her back hurt from the hard cafeteria bench. Even her pride felt bruised, though she'd never say that out loud.
She stared at the ceiling for a moment, replaying yesterday in her head in quick flashes:
The trip in the hallway.
The laughter.
The punch.
The milkshake.
The scream when she slammed Dominic's girlfriend's face into the table.
She snorted into her pillow. "Worth it."
Her phone buzzed beside her. Groaning, she reached over, blinking at the flood of notifications.
New followers.
DMs from people she didn't know.
Tags on posts from students whose names she hadn't learned yet.
One stood out: a page called @GarrisonTea had tagged her.
She tapped it.
@GarrisonTea
First day & the new Jamaican girl baptized our resident queen in dipping sauce 💀 #saucysmackdown
Below it, a shaky video showed the cafeteria scene from yesterday. It started just after the milkshake hit, then caught Kendra grabbing the blonde girl's hair, slamming her face into the table, and dumping sauce down her shirt.
The audio was mostly screaming and gasps.
Kendra watched herself move in the frame. She looked… furious. Controlled, but furious.
The comments were already stacked.
Is that Karina??
Karina Frost got FROSTED 😭
Who is the Jamaican girl, I love her.
She really said "sauce is served" 😭
I heard the new girl punched Antonio too??
Dominic's girlfriend really picked the wrong one lmaooo
Kendra squinted at that last one.
Dominic's girlfriend?
She scrolled back up. The girl in the video—the one she'd decorated with sauce—was tagged:
@karinafrost.xo
Karina Frost. Of course her name sounded like a perfume brand.
The caption on another repost read:
Day one: new girl slams Dominic Garrison's girlfriend into a table. This year's gonna be wild.
"Oh, perfect," Kendra sighed. "I hit the mean girl and embarrassed the golden boy's girlfriend. Nice."
"KENDRA!" Erica's voice echoed down the hallway, followed by a bang on her door. "If you're not up, I'm coming in with cold water!"
"I'm up, man! Relax!" Kendra yelled back.
She dragged herself out of bed, dressed in black jeans and a clean sweatshirt—the least milkshake-scented one she owned—and tied her hair into a bun. Her nose was tender when she touched it, but not crooked or swollen. Good enough.
Downstairs, the kitchen was already loud.
"There she is," Jeah grinned. "The legend herself."
"Don't start," Kendra said, grabbing a slice of toast.
"We saw the video," Alrreah said through a mouthful of cereal. "Multiple angles, actually."
Erica snorted. "You're basically campus famous, you know."
"Infamous," Jennie corrected quietly. "There's a difference."
Kendra shrugged, biting into the toast. "People talk too much."
"Still," Jeah added, "you did kind of flip that girl like a pancake."
"She poured a milkshake on my head," Kendra reminded them. "I didn't attack her in the parking lot for breathing."
"And you punched Antonio," Erica said cheerfully.
"He shoved me," Kendra said. "If anything, that was charity. My right hook needed practice."
Outside, a car horn honked.
Sofia.
"Girls!" she called from the front door. "Let's go before my boss thinks I've started a side hustle as a chauffeur!"
They piled into the car. The drive to school felt shorter now that the route was familiar, but Kendra's stomach still twisted as the building came into view.
Garrison Academy rose up sleek and intimidating against the pale sky, the parking lot buzzing with students.
"Maybe today will be… normal," Jennie said hopefully.
Kendra side-eyed her. "You just cursed us, you know that, right?"
Jennie groaned. "I take it back."
The second Kendra stepped out of the car, she could feel it.
Eyes.
It wasn't like yesterday, when they'd been just the new girls: curious glances, double take, whispers about accents. Today, the stares were heavier. People looked at her, then quickly looked away. Some nudged their friends. Some didn't bother pretending they weren't talking about her.
A girl with pink braids passed by and gave Kendra a tiny nod of respect.
"Yo, that's her," someone whispered. "The Jamaican girl from the video."
"Karina looked so pissed, bro."
"I heard she had to go home and change—"
Kendra rolled her shoulders and kept walking, pretending not to hear.
They reached their lockers. As she spun her combination, the intercom crackled overhead.
"Would the following students please report to the principal's office immediately: Kendra Atchinson, Jeah Gordon, Alrreah Thomas, Erica Campbell, Jennie Bailey… Dominic Garrison, Karina Frost, Antonio Reed, Robin Miles. Thank you."
The hallway noise dipped. Kendra froze, her hand on her locker door.
"Ah, shit," she muttered.
Erica winced. "That… can't be good."
"Maybe it's for a welcome party," Kendra said dryly. "With balloons and a banner that says, 'Please Stop Assaulting Our Students.'"
Despite the joke, her chest felt tighter.
Getting in trouble at home? Fine. She knew the system. Here, in some rich-town private school with a principal she didn't know and way too much money on the line.
Different risks.
They walked together toward the office as a group. At the next hallway intersection, they almost collided with a familiar cluster of boys.
Dominic walked at the front, hands in his pockets, face unreadable. Karina strutted at his side in a new top and perfectly styled hair; lips pressed in a thin line. Antonio and Robin trailed behind two other guys, talking quietly.
Kendra's gaze brushed Dominic's for a split second.
There was no smirk today. Just cool, dark eyes, flicking over her like she was a math problem he hadn't solved yet.
She looked away first.
She hated that.
Principal Garrison's office was bigger than the ones back home, with wide windows and bookshelves that had books on them. Certificates lined the walls in neat frames. Pictures of sports teams and school events filled the spaces in between.
Behind the desk sat Mr. Garrison.
He didn't smile.
Kendra could see the resemblance immediately—strong jaw, same sharp eyes as Dominic, just older and colder. But while Dominic gave off arrogant, take-up-space energy, his father radiated something quieter and heavier.
Authority.
"Sit," he said.
Chairs had been placed in two rows facing the desk. Kendra and her friends took one side; Dominic and his group took the other. Karina sat closest to Dominic. Up close, under the layers of concealer, Kendra could still see faint redness along her collarbone where the sauce had dripped.
Kendra tried not to feel satisfied about that.
Mr. Garrison let the silence stretch for a moment. His gaze moved from one face to the next, taking them all in. "I spent a good part of my evening reviewing yesterday's camera footage," he said finally. His voice was deep, calm in a way that somehow made it more intimidating. "From the hallway and the cafeteria."
Karina shifted in her seat. Antonio stared at the floor. Kendra kept her gaze steady.
"This is an elite institution," Mr. Garrison continued. "We do not tolerate violence, bullying, or public scenes that damage the reputation of this school."
His eyes cut briefly toward Kendra.
"However," he added, looking over at Dominic's side, "we also do not tolerate deliberate provocation."
He turned to Dominic first.
"Dominic," he said, "explain why you decided to trip a new student in a crowded hallway."
So, he had seen it.
Dominic's posture didn't change. "It was a joke," he said evenly. "I didn't think she'd fall like that."
Kendra's head jerked toward him. "I'm sorry, what—"
"Miss Atchinson," Mr. Garrison said sharply. "You will have a turn to speak."
She bit down on everything she wanted to say and pressed her lips together.
My. Bad.
Mr. Garrison turned back to his son. "A 'joke' that resulted in a bloody nose for a student on her first day in a foreign country," he said. "You are not a child, Dominic. You know better."
A flicker of something passed through Dominic's eyes, gone as quickly as it appeared.
Mr. Garrison shifted his gaze to Karina.
"And you, Miss Frost," he said. "Why did you pour a milkshake over another student's head in the cafeteria?"
Karina tried to arrange her face into something innocent. "She disrespected me," she said tightly. "In front of everyone."
"And that merited a physical response?" he asked. "Which you initiated, in front of even more people?"
Karina glanced at Dominic as if looking for backup. He didn't move.
Mr. Garrison finally looked directly at Kendra.
"Miss Atchinson," he said, "I understand you felt provoked. However, you cannot respond by slamming another student onto a table and threatening her."
Kendra straightened a little. "With respect, sir, I wasn't the one who started either of those things," she said, voice steady. "If your son hadn't stuck his foot out, and if your student hadn't dumped food on me, none of that would have happened."
There was a tiny pause after "your son." She didn't mean to emphasize it, but it fell heavily into the air between them anyway.
Dominic's jaw tightened.
Mr. Garrison studied her for a long second. Most principals Kendra had met before would've snapped at her for that tone. This one just seemed to file it away.
"You are correct that other people acted first," he said. "But everyone in this room contributed to what happened. That means everyone in this room will deal with consequences."
He laid them out one by one.
Karina: removed from a few coveted extracurriculars for the rest of the term and placed on behavioral probation. Her mouth fell open at that.
"You can keep your social life," he said, "but you cannot keep disrupting mine."
Antonio and Robin: a week of after-school detention for escalating and not stepping in to de-escalate when they could have.
Antonio flinched slightly, rubbing his jaw. Kendra didn't feel that bad about it.
Then Mr. Garrison looked between Dominic and Kendra.
"As for you two," he said, "you will serve mandatory joint support hours for the next month."
Kendra's stomach sank. "Joint?" she repeated. "As in… together?"
"Yes," he said. "Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you will report here after school at three o'clock sharp. You will assist office staff, teachers, and others with tasks as assigned. Organizing, delivering, preparing materials—whatever is needed."
"And if we refuse?" Kendra asked before she could stop herself.
"Then we move to suspensions," Mr. Garrison said calmly. "Which will not look good on the record of a scholarship-based exchange student."
That shut her up.
Dominic frowned. "Dad, this is—"
"Not negotiable," Mr. Garrison cut in, and this time there was steel under the calm. "You tripped a guest in this school. You will help make sure her time here is not made worse by your behavior.
The word guest landed with weight.
He looked at both of them again. "You don't have to like each other," he said. "But you will learn to coexist without further incident. Understood?"
Kendra forced out, "Yes, sir."
Dominic hesitated, then said, "Yeah. Understood."
"Good. You may all go. I expect better from all of you moving forward."
They filtered out into the hallway in awkward silence.
The second the office door clicked shut behind them, Karina spun toward Dominic.
"Are you kidding me?" she hissed. "You're seriously going to spend three days a week with her? Alone?"
Dominic's expression barely changed. "It's an office, Karina. Not a prison cell."
"She humiliated me," Karina snapped. Her gaze cut to Kendra, eyes narrowed. "You should've let me—"
"You poured a milkshake on me," Kendra said, stepping in before she could finish. "You humiliated yourself. I just finished the job."
Karina's face flushed under her makeup. She took an angry step forward, but Antonio caught her arm.
"Karina, drop it," he muttered. "We're already in enough trouble."
She jerked her arm free. "Whatever," she spat. "This school is literally crawling with trash now."
She stalked off, her two friends scrambling after her. Antonio and Robin exchanged looks, then trailed away as well.
Soon it was just Dominic, Kendra, and her girls in the hallway.
Kendra crossed her arms. "You trip me again," she told him evenly, "I'm not aiming for your friend next time."
He looked at her for a moment, something unreadable lurking behind his eyes.
"Noted," he said.
Then he turned and walked away like the hallway belonged to him again.
After School – Joint Service
Third-Person Limited (Kendra)
By three o'clock, Kendra had almost convinced herself detention-with-a-fancy-name couldn't be that bad.
Then she saw the stack of papers.
"Here you go," Miss Hall, the receptionist, said cheerfully, placing two large piles of worksheets on the desk between them. "These all need to be collated and stapled. Two-class sets each."
Kendra stared at the stack. "This is child labor," she said.
Dominic, already leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, gave a small huff of amusement.
Miss Hall smiled. "Consider it character development," she said. "Dominic, you can help her with this, and then I'll need one of you to tackle the supply closet."
Kendra followed her gaze to the half-open closet door.
It looked like a stationery tornado had died in there.
She sighed. "Of course."
Miss Hall went back to her computer. "I'll be right here if you need anything."
Kendra dropped into the spare chair behind the counter. Dominic slid into the one next to her.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
She grabbed the first pile and started sorting. He did the same with the second.
The only sounds were the soft thud of paper and the occasional click of a stapler.
"So," Kendra said eventually, eyes still on the pages, "is this, like, your usual after-school routine? Making life harder for people and then sorting paper?"
Dominic's mouth twitched. "No," he said. "Usually, I'm not forced to share oxygen with someone who assaulted my friend."
"Your friend shoved me," she reminded him. "In what universe is that okay?"
"He was stopping you from hitting me," Dominic said.
"Oh, right," Kendra said. "God forbid the prince of the school get a bruise."
"I'm not—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," she cut in. "Principal's son, not an actual prince. My bad."
He went quiet again, jaw working.
She finished a set of worksheets and thumped them into a neat stack.
"Just so we're clear," she added, "I didn't ask to be stuck here with you, either."
"Could've fooled me," he said.
She shot him a look. "Excuse me?"
"You seem to enjoy causing scenes," he said simply. "Hallway. Cafeteria. Office. It's day two and everyone knows your name."
Kendra snorted. "Trust me, Garrison, if I wanted attention, I'd pick something that didn't involve dairy products and threats of suspension."
He didn't answer that. Instead, he grabbed the now-smaller pile and carried it over to the far side of the desk to make room.
The distance helped. Just a little.
Miss Hall popped her head up. "Kendra, when you're done with that stack, could you start on the closet? Dominic, keep going with the packets."
"Yes, ma'am," Kendra said automatically.
She caught herself.
Ma'am. Jamaica really followed her, huh.
She pushed away from the chair and walked over to the supply closet. Up close, it was even worse—open boxes of pens mixed with unopened reams of paper, random art supplies, and things she didn't even recognize.
"Who died in here?" she muttered.
"You're allowed to complain less and work more," Dominic called lightly.
She grabbed a box and turned just enough to glare at him. "You know you're the reason I'm even here, right?"
He met her glare calmly. "You threw the punch."
"You stuck out your foot," she shot back. "Actions, consequences. Ever heard of those?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "You're not scared of much, huh."
It wasn't really a question, but it hung there like one.
Kendra bent to slide a box of pens onto a lower shelf. "I'm scared of plenty," she said. "I just don't let people who don't know me see it."
"Is that what this is?" he asked. "You… performing?"
She laughed, a short, sharp sound. "You think way too highly of yourself if you think any of this has anything to do with you."
He didn't push it. For a while, the only sounds were boxes sliding and papers shuffling.
Kendra found a rhythm: pull a box out, call what it held, let Miss Hall point where it went. Every so often, she'd feel Dominic's eyes on her, but if she turned, he'd be looking somewhere else.
It was annoying.
And weird.
And a little unsettling, like one of those feelings you get right before a storm hits.
—
By five o'clock, the supply closet looked like an actual closet again instead of crying for help. The stacks of worksheets were sorted, stapled, and labeled.
Miss Hall clapped her hands together. "You two were a miracle today," she said. "Thank you. You're free to go."
"Free," Kendra echoed under her breath. "Love that for us."
She slung her backpack over one shoulder and headed for the door. Dominic walked a few steps behind her.
The late-afternoon light slanted through the hallway windows, painting long rectangles on the floor. Most students were already gone. The building felt quieter, emptier, like it belonged to someone else now.
Outside the main doors, she could see Sofia's car in the parking lot, her friends waving.
"Kendra! Move yuh big head!" Alrreah shouted, beckoning.
Kendra smiled despite herself.
She took a step down the stairs, then paused and glanced back at Dominic.
He was watching her, his expression unreadable.
"So," she said, "see you on Wednesday, I guess."
"Looks like it," he said.
"Try not to injure anyone before then," she added. "Especially me. I don't like repeating material."
Something like amusement flickered across his face, there and gone in a heartbeat.
"I'll keep that in mind," he said.
For a second, it felt like the world narrowed to just the awkward space between them—two people who'd collided way too hard, way too fast, and were now stuck in each other's orbit whether they liked it or not.
Then someone yelled her name again, and the spell broke.
Kendra turned away and jogged down the steps toward her friends.
Dominic watched her go, hands in his pockets, jaw tight, thoughts louder than he liked.
He didn't know what to do with this girl from another country who didn't flinch when he glared at her, who hit like she meant it, who refused to move when he told her to.
He just knew one thing:
She wasn't going to be easy to ignore.