Chapter 2 - Consequences

His parents had reached the principal's office before him. Aarick really didn't know what to do anymore because his plan had failed and he would have to face his parents' punishment without any preparation. But he thought about how his parents' car was home. How could his parents be here?

They couldn't have walked, could they? He thought as he went ahead and slowly opened the door.

He looked towards his parents and asked them, "How are the two of you here? I just saw your car back home before I left."

His parents looked at him and his dad went ahead and replied, "We came here in a cab after your principal offered to give us a ride. It is ill-mannered to refuse a free ride."

Suddenly, Aarick remembered what the cab driver was telling him, but he couldn't believe that such a coincidence would have occurred.

Before he could say anything more, his mom beat him to it and said with the slightest look of disgust in her eyes,

"Aarick, dear, how are you doing? What took you so long to reach here? We were just waiting for you to arrive. Your principal had something to show us, therefore we agreed to go in the cab he offered.

We are very sorry that we didn't discuss this with you earlier, it was an impulsive decision. Your principal went ahead and showed us your results. Can you check it and explain what happened here?"

Aarick completely froze and could feel the goosebumps all over his body because of his mom's slow, sarcastic and creepy tone, which indicated she was mad. He slowly and nervously took his mark sheet from his mother's hands, he was so scared he could barely hold the result sheet in his hands.

He started trembling a lot more than before as his jaw dropped to the floor. He failed. He had indeed failed, but not in one subject, not in two subjects, but in every single subject!

And that too so terribly that he got an F in all of them, he was not just terrified and short of breath because of what the consequences were going to be, but he was also extremely anxious and even felt a little bit of anger well up because this smelled like a setup.

Even though he was bad at most of the subjects, it wasn't that he was stupid, it was just that he hated studying. He wasn't that much of a failure; he would normally at least get a C or a D, he was also sure that he would at least score well in English.

He had an easier time in English which allowed him to always pass in it even when he didn't study. He had some doubts about who did the foul play if it really was foul play, but he couldn't voice his opinions in front of his parents or anybody else without proof.

Even if he did have some solid proof they would still probably never believe him. All he could do right then was stand on the spot and hope for the best.

Aarick took a breath and helplessly told his parents his side of the story even though he knew they wouldn't listen just hoping on the chance that he gets to redeem himself,

"I was sure that I would get better results than these, mom, I swear. I really don't know how this happened, I tried really hard for this test too. I'm really sorry. I will try my best to get much better results next time."

Just as he finished saying the sentence the principal interrupted him by cackling like an evil witch.

It seemed like he was really enjoying the show, he then said with a slight smirk, "What do you mean next time, boy? You have failed our school way too many times already, sadly we will have to expel you from this school. We simply can't keep a student like you, because it will simply devalue our school."

Aarick felt truly helpless after hearing that, because one after another bad news was piling up on his head and his temper started boiling.

He was truly fed up with his annoying life. He was not even angry at the wretched principal at this point, because he knew that it was probably a decision made by the council.

He looked towards his mom expecting her to say something, but what he saw was that his mom still had the same look of disgust on her face and didn't seem to have anything against Aarick being expelled

"Aarick I thought that you would learn a little from your little brother and be a better person. I even thought that you would do much better after I let you study on your own.

I never expected that you would break my trust in such a way. I expected you to do so many amazing things in your life"

Aarick couldn't help but feel a strong sense of untrustworthiness from her words because she spoke too many lies in just one sentence.

At the same time his dad said with a slight coldness emanating from his words, "I am not sorry for what I'm about to say, it just has to be done. This was the last time you have broken our trust.

After the last time you had done mischief, your mother and I had a discussion and came to an agreement that that would be the last time that we would tolerate such mischief and the next time you humiliate us in any way we will disown you.

As such, from this moment on, we are no longer your family or rather you aren't our family"

Aarick felt his brain cells exploding just trying to process all this new information being told to him. His eyes showed shock at what he had just heard, he could feel his knees go weak and his heart started to beat incredibly fast, he was feeling immense pain and could kill himself right now if he was just a little bit more brave, decisive and maybe if he had the proper weapon.

His dad looked at him coldly and said without any hesitation as if in a rehearsed manner, "Take these 20 Universal Coins, these will be the last bits of currency we will be spending on you."

Aarick was feeling so much pain he was shaking. After a minute of mustering up courage he looked his dad dead in the eye and said, "Keep your 'bits of currency'. I don't want even one coin. I'd rather end up on the streets than use money earned shamelessly by a wretched person like you."

Aarick could feel all his strength being drained as he turned around, opened the door and stormed off. His dad was visibly shocked as he didn't expect Aarick to lash out at him like that.