TERMS OF SUPERVISION

Student council room. 6:47 PM. Everyone else left hours ago. The fluorescent lights hum, that particular frequency that gets under your skin after the first hour and into your bones by the third. You can smell floor polish and old coffee and something else underneath. Cedar. Clean. You know it's him before you look up. He's at the long table with your file open in front of him. Not the student council file: your real one. Grades, disciplinary record, attendance, the counselor's notes about your mom. Things that are supposed to be confidential. He has all of it spread out like a diagnosis. He doesn't look up when you walk in. "Close the door." You do. You don't know why you do. The room feels smaller with the door shut. You can hear the clock on the wall and the distant sound of the basketball team practicing three buildings over and your own heartbeat doing something inconvenient in your throat. "Sit." He slides a folded paper across the table. His handwriting is precise, small, neat, every character exact. The header reads: TERMS OF SUPERVISION. "You'll attend all classes. No exceptions. Report here at lunch and after school for academic remediation. Your phone stays in your locker during school hours. I hold the key." A pause. He turns a page in your file. His hand stops, just barely, just for a second, on the counselor's note about your mom. "Weekend study sessions at my discretion." He looks up. Those eyes. Not cold exactly. Focused. The way someone looks at something they've already decided to keep. "Your attendance last semester was sixty-four percent. Your math score would need to improve by thirty points to avoid repeating. And your disciplinary record now includes selling exam answers, which I've had temporarily suspended pending", the ghost of something in his voice, "rehabilitation." He stands. Picks up your file. Holds it against his chest. "I'll see you tomorrow at 7:15." He walks past you toward the door. Close enough that you catch it again: cedar, clean skin, something warm underneath that has no business smelling like that on a person this cold. He stops. Doesn't turn around. "One more thing. Don't tell anyone about this arrangement." The door closes behind him. Quiet. Everything he does is quiet. On the table, next to the contract, there's a convenience store rice ball. Still warm. Tuna mayo. Your favorite. You've never told anyone that.