Skin Deep Enough
Copyright© 2026 by Danielle Stories
Chapter 3: The Mandatory conference
The tile floor leached the warmth from my skin. I sat there until the hammering in my throat subsided into a dull, persistent ache. The encounter played on a loop behind my eyes: the boy’s grin, the phone raised like a weapon, my own frozen defiance. It felt less like courage and more like a seizure of the soul, a system-wide lockdown where the only function left was to not flee.
My mother found me there. She didn’t say anything at first. She just looked from my face to the front door, then back to my face. She’d heard the car, the music, the laughter. She’d probably been watching from the kitchen window, a silent sentinel.
“Get up off the floor,” she said, her voice devoid of its earlier fury. It was flat. Resigned. “You’ll catch a chill.”
A chill. As if that were the paramount danger. I almost laughed, but the sound would have been hysterical.
I pushed myself up, my muscles stiff. She didn’t offer a hand. We stood there in the foyer, two women sharing a space but occupying different, hostile planets.
“They’ll be back,” she said, stating it as a meteorological fact. “Or others will. The video ... It’s a map now. You’re a tourist attraction.”
“I know.”
“What’s your plan, Amara? To stand on the porch every day until they get bored? Until the police come for indecent exposure? Until someone does more than just film?”
The questions weren’t rhetorical. They were desperate. She was asking me for a plan because she had none left. The mother-playbook grounding, lectures, and confiscating phones were useless against this.
“I don’t have a plan,” I admitted. The truth was a cold stone in my mouth. “I just know I can’t go back.”
She sighed, a sound that seemed to come from the foundation of the house. “There’s an email,” she said, turning and walking toward the kitchen. “From the school. You’re required to attend a ‘mandatory disciplinary conference.’”
I followed her, the cool air raising goosebumps on my arms and legs. She handed me a printout from the kitchen counter. The school district logo glared at the top.
FROM: admin@mesamiragehs.edu
TO: Amara Delane & Guardian
SUBJECT: Mandatory Disciplinary Conference
RE: Incident on 10/14 – Disruption & Conduct
You are required to attend a meeting with the school administration this Friday at 10:00 AM to discuss the recent incident and your subsequent behavior. Please arrive dressed in a manner that complies with the Mesa Mirage High School Dress Code (Section 4.7). Failure to attend will result in immediate escalation to a Board-level hearing.
Sincerely,
Vice Principal K. Daniels
I stared at the words. “Subsequent behavior.” As if my nakedness were an unrelated, secondary crime. “Dressed in a manner that complies.” The mandate was the whole point. It was the gauntlet thrown.
“It’s tomorrow,” I said.
“I know.”
“You’ll come?”
“I have to. It says ‘guardian.’” She leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching me. “So. What’s it going to be?”
I knew what she meant. Would I break? Would I put on the uniform of the penitent? Would I walk into that office in jeans and a modest top, my hair brushed, my head bowed, and accept my scolding and my suspension like a good girl who’d learned her lesson?
I looked down at my body. At the faint pink lines from the floor tiles now imprinted on my thighs. At my bare feet on the linoleum. This body had been entered into evidence without my consent. Now they wanted me to cosign their verdict by hiding it.
“I’ll go as I am,” I said, the words quiet but clear.
She closed her eyes. A long, pained blink. “They’ll suspend you. Formally. It’ll go on your record.”
“My record is already a video with eighty thousand views. What’s a suspension note next to that?”
“College, Amara! Future jobs! This isn’t just about now, it’s about”
“My future?” I finished, a sharp edge returning to my voice. “You think I have a future where this doesn’t follow me? You think a college admissions officer won’t Google my name? ‘Subsequent behavior’ is all I have left. It’s the only part of this story I still get to write.”
The argument was old, but the terrain had shifted. Before, it was about principle versus practicality. Now, it was about survival versus surrender. We both knew it.
She pushed off the counter. “Fine. Then we went in together. And we face what comes.” There was no solidarity in the statement. It was a grim pact between prisoners headed to the same gallows.
The night was a long, cold crawl. I lay in the dark, imagining the conference room. The polished table. The disappointed faces. VP Daniels with his carefully trimmed mustache. Principal Bloom with her “I’m-disappointed” voice. I practiced holding my spine straight. I practiced breathing. I practiced not crying.
When morning came, I didn’t dress. I performed a different ritual. I washed my face with cold water. I combed my hair with my fingers, letting it fall dark and heavy down my back, my only cape. I looked in the mirror and repeated my new mantra, silently: I am not the crime. I am the witness.
My mother was waiting by the car. She wore a tailored jacket and slacks armor for the professional world. She looked me up and down, a flicker of something unreadable pain, maybe, or a terrible, reluctant pride in her eyes before she masked it. “Let’s go.”
The drive was silent. The radio was off. We were a hearse carrying a living body to its own sentencing.
Pulling into the school lot was like diving into a memory of trauma. The squat, sand-colored buildings. The limp flag. The shaded walkways where, just days ago, I’d been a person with a backpack and a schedule. My breath hitched. My hands trembled. I curled them into fists, pressing my nails into my palms. The pain was an anchor.
We walked from the car to the main office. The sun was high. It was between classes. The campus seemed eerily quiet, but every window felt like an eye. I felt the weight of the gaze before I saw it. A face pressed to a second-floor glass. A group of students by the bike racks, their conversation dying as we passed. A teacher, carrying a stack of papers, did a double-take so violent he almost dropped them.
My mother walked beside me, her posture rigid, her gaze fixed ahead. She didn’t try to shield me. She was there. A witness for the prosecution, or the defense? I couldn’t tell.
The main office doors hissed open automatically. The blast of overcooled air was a shock. The secretary behind the desk, Ms. Gable, who’d always given me a peppermint when I had to pick up a forgotten permission slip, looked up. Her smile of routine greeting melted into a mask of pure, unprofessional shock. Her eyes bugged. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again.
“We’re here for ten o’clock with Vice Principal Daniels,” my mother said, her voice crisp and loud, cutting through the stunned silence.
“I ... uh ... of course,” Ms. Gable stammered, fumbling with her keyboard. Her eyes kept darting to me, then away, as if I were a bright light that hurt to look at. “Just ... have a seat. He’ll be right with you.”
We didn’t sit. The chairs in the waiting area were orange plastic, designed for brief discomfort. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me squirm. I stood near a fake ficus tree, my back to the wall of college pennants. My mother stood beside me, a statue.
The door to the administrative hallway opened. Vice Principal Daniels stood there, his expression pre-set to stern concern. It faltered, then shattered completely when he saw me. His eyes widened. His mustache seemed to twitch. He looked at my mother, as if for an explanation, but she just stared back, impassive.
“Ms. Delane,” he said, recovering, his voice tight. “Amara. Please, come in.”
He held the door open. We walked past him into the hallway of power carpeted, lined with framed sports team photos and “Character Counts” posters. He hurried ahead of us, his shoulders tense. I could feel his discomfort like a heat signature. My bare feet made no sound on the carpet.
He ushered us into a small conference room. Principal Bloom was already there, seated at the head of a laminate table. She stood as we entered, a practiced gesture of authority. Her smile was a thin, stretched line. It vanished when her eyes landed on me.
“Amara. Ms. Delane. Thank you for coming.” Her voice was the one from morning announcements, all false warmth and synthetic calm. Her eyes, however, were darting, taking in the reality of me. She gestured to two chairs. “Please, sit.”
We sat. The chair was cold and hard against my skin. I placed my hands on the table, palms down. A deliberate act. Here are my hands. They are empty. They are not hiding.
Daniels sat heavily across from us, fumbling with a manila folder. The air in the room was thick with unsaid things.
Bloom cleared her throat. “We’re here today to discuss the very serious events of this week, and the path forward for Amara at Mesa Mirage.”
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