The Ultimate Chance-Chapter 100

It took all her strength to stop herself from causing a scene. Hadn’t the teachers and school leaders agreed to have Angel before? Why were they acting as though he was a problem that they needed to get rid of now?

"What exactly happened? Can I speak to my son?"

She looked baffled for a moment before she stood. "Of course. I’ll get him."

Avery watched her leave and wondered what exactly was going on. It was almost as though the teacher didn’t expect her to want to meet Angel, which was odd. How could she not have expected a mother to want to see her child who was basically being expelled?

She waited patiently and when her son finally came in, looking down dejectedly, her heart broke.

"Baby, what happened?" She asked gently.

He walked over to her in slow steps as though he was scared she would get mad, and showed her the drawing that had been described by his homeroom teacher earlier.

Just as described, he had drawn a headless boy with a bloody head at his feet. She didn’t think it was funny either but Angel wouldn’t be showing it to her if he didn’t get into trouble for drawing it.

"Baby, why did you draw this boy without a head?" She asked.

He glanced at his teacher and shrunk next to her before explaining by tapping his temples.

She thought deeply about what he could mean by that. "Is his head so heavy it rolled off?" She tried to think about it from the perspective of a five year old probably intending to make fun of the other kid.

He shook his head so she tried again. "Because his head is heavy?" She instantly understood once she said that aloud. "He’s brainless so he doesn’t need a head?"

He nodded and hung his head in shame.

"If you are mean to other kids, they will be sad. Do you want to talk about why you thought that way of him?" She continued asking gently although it was clearly irritating the homeroom teacher that she was so patient with him.

He flipped to a page on his book where he had drawn a girl with pigtails and a flower in her hair.

"Because of Aubrey?" She asked, to which Angel nodded. "What did he do to Aubrey?"

"As you may have realized from that unnecessarily lengthy conversation, the teachers have a hard time communicating with your son. Who has all the time in the world to read his signs?

"I’m speaking to my son so shut up!" She snapped and immediately regretted it, but that didn’t matter. The teacher was hiding something and Angel probably knew more than his teacher wanted her to find out.

Angel was no longer willing to talk after hearing his teacher’s description of him, infuriating Avery all the more.

"If I find out you are intentionally causing my son trouble, I will no longer be very kind." She warned. "I would like to have a word with the principal."

"That will not be necessary. I am in charge of his class and any matters related to it. We don’t need to involve the principal in such trivial matters."

"My son’s mental and emotional health is not a trivial matter and I have enough reason to believe you are deliberately jeopardising that." Avery then wondered why she was sitting in the office asking to meet the principal when she knew her way to his office.

"I meant it when I said we don’t need to do that. Why don’t we talk about it?"

"Yes. Right after you show me the surveillance footage of this crayon battle you spoke of." Seeing her flabbergasted face, Avery laughed. "Angel didn’t fight any kid, did he?"

"No."

She had expected it but it still hit her like a ton of bricks. It finally made sense why Angel was so scared of his teacher. She was accusing him of something he didn’t do and trying to punish him for it. She sat back down. "Why did you do this?"

Since her sabotage was already too evident, the homeroom teacher could only sit down to explain. "Angel, go back to class while your mother and I discuss, okay?" She instructed.

In response, Angel stood in front of his mother to shield her.

She smiled despite how sad she felt. "Are you trying to protect me? That’s so brave of you. However, I will be alright. Go to class first and I’ll pick you up when I’m done, okay?"

The boy shot a warning glance at his teacher, made a slitting throat sign with his thumb and ran out, leaving the teacher gasping and Avery’s jaw dropping. Gabriel must have taught him that.

"Did you see that?"

"If you dare call my son a psycho, I’ll kill you before he does." She threatened, effectively shutting the teacher up.

"I didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be when I said yes to having your son in my class." She admitted since there was no point hiding it anymore. "I’ve had kids my class before who wouldn’t say a word out of shyness. However, Angel is too different. He didn’t say a word yesterday and whenever I spoke to him, he would give me this look that would make me self-conscious, then he would proceed to ignore me. I don’t think he even heard me at any point. He is in his own little bubble. And the fact that he didn’t seem to pay attention to anything but still managed to get everything right in his classwork is terrifying." She looked scared as she talked about it but she was not done. "Then today, he was silent the entire time as I asked why he had not done his homework. Knowing he is not verbal, I asked about every possible reason including forgetting it. The boy suddenly looked like he had finally taken notice of me and said, "Blue stilletos don’t look good on you." Do you have any idea how terrified I was?"

Avery had to admit she would have been scared if she didn’t know Angel was a little stylist. Five year olds weren’t supposed to be that precise in their fashion sense.

"So you took his drawing as a chance to get rid of him."

"It’s sounds horrible hearing it but yes. That’s basically it."

"Okay." Avery stood to leave.

"Okay?" She was baffled.

"I’m taking my son with me. Isn’t that the whole point of your little scheme?" Avery was trying her best not to blow up and if this conversation continued, she would cause a scene and probably make things harder than they already were. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Understandably, Angel wasn’t thrilled about going back home when he still wanted to be in school. He glanced back every few seconds and the farther they were from the school, the sadder he looked. It broke her heart even more. If he was this sad about leaving the school for what he thought was a day, how could she tell him he may never go back?

.....

"You look sad." Damon observed when he dropped by to pick Angel up. It was his day with Angel and she was somehow relieved. She couldn’t keep faking smiles around her son. He would notice eventually and that would break him more than the inevitable news.

She threw herself into his arms and explained everything, her eyes stinging the more she spoke. "Why didn’t I think about this before? What’s going to happen to our son? If I knew before that this would happen, we should have taken him to a special needs school right from the start."

He patted her back. "The homeroom teacher was being a jerk. Not only is our son better off in a regular school, but he has also made many friends who will help him learn."

She agreed, but that didn’t help. If more teachers kept picking on him, he would eventually shut down thinking something was wrong with him.

He held her shoulders." How about instead of worrying ourselves, we take him to school tomorrow while we figure out what to do? We can have a word with the principal and let him guide us." He suggested.

It was merely a bandaid that wouldn’t help much but she nodded. Anything was better than telling him he couldn’t go to school the following day.

____

The following morning, Damon had an early meeting and had her take him to school, which she thought was a perfect idea. Heaven knew the homeroom teacher might be fired overnight if Damon made an appearance. That, or her body would be found in the woods.

She was nervous when she was informed that the principal wanted to have a word with her. She let Angel go to class first and as soon as she entered his office, she started speaking.

"If you are going to dismiss him, please give me a day to figure out how to break it to him. He is so happy here." seeing the baffled expression on the man’s face, she was relieved. "Is that not why you called me?"

"It’s unfortunate that you think of the worst that could happen but after what happened yesterday, I understand. Yes, I found out about it."

"Okay..."She didn’t know how to feel about that.

"It’s not your fault. We strive to take care of the needs of every child and she was reluctant to do her job so we dismissed her. She has other incidents if incompetence too." He explained.

Avery nodded in relief. She wouldn’t be able to take it if her son was the cause.

"I’d also like to inform you that we hired a new teacher for Angel’s class. She specialised in teaching children with special needs and has had experience with mildly autistic children. I think she is perfect for your son."

She was overjoyed. Did this mean Angel was not being dismissed? Her first reaction was to want to tell Damon the good news, but then she stopped when she thought about it. This reeked of his way of doing things.