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"MARCUS!!"

The jackalope jolted awake, nearly falling off of the couch in the process. His head whipped around, trying to get his bearings. He'd packed up and come back downstairs to watch some videos on the big screen before the sun came up... and apparently fell asleep right where he was.

"Fuck," he thought to himself, not able to cobble together much more of a coherent thought than that.

His mother swiftly glided her way through the kitchen and into the living room, shedding her shoes, hat, gloves, handbag, and massive coat on the floor and kitchen counter without a pause in her step, leaving them for Marcella to deal with. Barbara Lewis was a woman on a mission.

The squirrel scurried over, quickly gathering up the discarded items.

"Coffee, Mrs. Lewis?"

The brown-feathered bird didn't break stride, calling back over her shoulder. "Ristretto, double, lemon twist."

Marcus, meanwhile, was still trying to figure out what had gone wrong with his plan. How long had he slept? Scrambling to check his phone, he saw it was still morning. Fairly early, as a matter of fact. He grunted, sitting himself up, doing his best not to make it quite so obvious that his mother had caught him sleeping. Once his eyes managed to focus themselves, he saw her seated primly on the couch opposite him, across the massive marble coffee table, her arms folded and her claws tapping the tiled floor impatiently.

"...well?"

The teenage hybrid glanced over at the cinema-scale television to his left, the idle display showing its fancy photo gallery to signal that it had been left running for the night. He wondered how many episodes of his show had played over the night. He also wondered why Marcella hadn't thought to, you know, maybe let him know his mother was about to come home. Frankly, he felt betrayed.

Marcus's mind blanked. All that time spent the previous night (well, morning) rehearsing the conversation, none of it managed to stick around. He sputtered, stumbling over his words, trying to pull together any scraps of memory to get started.

His mother's dagger-like stare didn't help. When she was mad, she gave him an earful. When she was furious, she said nothing and just let him stew. He wondered if the air was so tense during her appointments. He wondered why in the hell anyone would pay money for this.

The two sat in an uneven silence, until Marcus finally managed to put a sentence together.

"Everyone at school hates me!"

His mother sighed, drooping her head and closing her eyes. Barbara's feather coat was not the same inky black color of her husband's that made his face vanish into his shoulders when he closed his eyes. Her expression was much more visible and, in a way, that was worse.

"Marcus. We have been over this. Everyone does not hate you," she began. Barbara always spoke with a staccato cadence, whether in a session with a patient or having a sit down with her son. Each syllable was sharp, and the sentences were at a constant rhythm. Everything came out like bullets from an automatic rifle, all the while coated with a layer of faux empathy.

The jackalope sat up taller, his ears falling flat down. "They do! Every since I started at Gree-"

"Ever since you started at Greenwood," Barbara cut in, while taking her coffee from a hesitant Marcella, who was more than happy to scuttle away as soon as she had made her delivery. "We have done everything in our power to help you and it seems like you just want to start fights," she said, shaking her head.

Marcus moaned. "But I didn't start it! Didn't you see the jacket?" he asked, waving vaguely in the direction of the kitchen counter.

Carefully sipping from her tiny cup, an image that always caused Marcus to stare in slight perplexment as her beak poked in and out, Marcus's mother didn't so much as turn her eyes to follow his pointing.

"Did he throw the first punch?"

The jackalope paused again. "Huh?"

Barbara eyed her son sharply. "Did that boy throw the first punch?"

Marcus swallowed. This wasn't going anything like the rehearsals. "I mean... no, but that's not the point! He's b-"

"That is the point, Marcus," Barbara said, once again putting the brakes on his train of thought. "I'm sorry you've been getting teased, but your hand was not forced. You were fully capable of walking away and you chose not to. You simply cannot continue to blame everyone else for your decisions." Every period was nearly audible. There was no room for argument.

The jackalope's hands curled into fists, and pressed against his forehead in frustration. "What the fuck am I supposed to do??" he blurted out. For once, his mother did not interrupt him for his word choice. "I can't even get away! I have to live in the dorms with them!"

Marcus's mother watched her adopted son's posture. All that tension. So much anger, with no direction. She sat calmly, in counterpoint to Marcus, something that tended to get him more worked up. Where he was riled, she was composed. He was emotional. She was clinical.

"Marcus. Breathing. Ten count. Then we'll continue."

The ten count. Marcus hated the ten count. Whenever Barbara felt he was getting too agitated, she would halt everything and make him close his eyes, taking ten slow breaths. On the inhales, he would clench his fists as hard as he could. On the exhales, he would let go. Until he did that, the conversation was on pause. When he was little, she would make him sit on that couch until he complied, even if it took an hour. Barbara Lewis's patience was maddening in that regard.

Mostly he hated it because, once he was finished with the count, he did feel calmed down. The storm wasn't over by a longshot, but he certainly didn't feel as ready to burst as he did a minute ago.

Barbara nodded, satisfied. "Now then. You've been doing okay with your roommate, have you not?"

Somewhat settled down, Marcus was more agreeable, and shrugged, looking away. "Well... yeah, I mean, Corey's all right..."

As much as Marcus didn't want to admit it, lest he kneecap his own argument, he did get along pretty well with Corey. Although, he did get a bit irritated by Corey's fondness for declaring "Horn bros!" and clacking his large set with jackalope's smaller one whenever they crossed paths during the day. He wasn't fond of having his hybrid status highlighted, even if it was meant in a friendly way.

Barbara nodded once more, taking another jab inside her coffee. "So that's not everyone, now is it?"

Marcus huffed and fell back into the massive couch, his arms crossed over his chest. "Oh wow, one! One whole person at that school doesn't hate me!" he ranted. Back on track. "You don't get it, mom. Everyone's always staring, talking behind my back, starting with me, the teachers don't care, it's always my fault whenever something happens! I hate it there! Why can't I go to, you know, like... a normal school?"

The phrase "normal school" gave Barbara pause. Her feathers ruffled visibly, but she managed to keep her composure, simply eyeing her son. In that moment, Marcus had an appreciation for how his ancestors must have felt upon realizing a hawk or eagle was staring them down. Though not from such predatory lineage, Barbara's gaze must have been the same as theirs. He couldn't imagine it much worse.

"A normal school," she replied, repeating his words to let him hear what they sounded like as they traveled across the room. "Marcus, please listen to me. Do you think a public school will have the resources to accommodate so many different species? Do you think the public school students are going to be kinder to you there? What do you think will happen when you drive up in your Range Rover wearing all those clothes you buy from catalogs and they're taking the bus, wearing outfits they got from thrift stores?"

Marcus stayed silent. In the back of his head, he'd imagined public school as being so bustling and busy that no one had time to even look his way. That his affluence would make him somehow popular. He'd be that guy with the newest gadgets, the fancy car. The football team would want to hang out with him. Party at his house while his parents were out. A girlfriend he'd sneak up into the bedroom.

Barbara knew her son's fantasy all too well. The way he idolized all those punk rockers and, despite the price tags on his clothing, always made sure to buy the ones with manufactured rips and imperfections. She sighed, quietly.

"Darling," she began, making Marcus bristle faintly. "We didn't enroll you at Greenwood because it had a fancy pamphlet and we wanted to put a bumper sticker on the Lincoln. We did it so you would be given the best education and have as many advantages going forward as we could give you. How do you think you're going to fare in college if high school is this difficult?"

As angry as he was, Marcus had a small moment of satisfaction. This was exactly where he'd been hoping the argument would go. This part he had prepared for. "Who said I want to go to college?"

Now it was Barbara's turn to be caught by surprise. She sputtered, putting her small coffee cup and its saucer down on the marble table in front of her to avoid dropping them entirely. Once again, before speaking, she smoothed her coat down and took a breath to regain composure.

"Marcus, don't even start with that. We have had this discussion more times than I would care to recall," she began. Arguing with Barbara Lewis was always an uphill struggle. It was less of a discussion and more of a fencing match. Everything she said was practiced, and she knew better than him how to poke through the defenses. It was, after all, her job.

The bird-of-paradise continued. "Your father and I have done everything to make sure you are prepared for the world ahead of you," she said, adding a small dollop of drama to the phrase. "You know that it's going to be difficult going out into the world as a hybrid, and that's why we want to make sure you're set up as well as we can. Finding a good job will be impossible without a college education, and getting into a good college means having an application that doesn't involve being suspended for fighting."

Marcus tried to butt in again, to protest his innocence, but Barbara was having none of it. "Whether or not you started it doesn't matter, Marcus, because you could have walked away. You could have ignored him. We've gone over coping mechanisms, ways to settle your nerves when you feel threatened. I promise you, a bully in a public school would not put in the effort to make a prank gift, they'd be just as likely to assault you in the bathroom. When you go out into adulthood, you need to be able to handle yourself. That means taking responsibility for your actions, and understanding your role in a conflict."

Attempting to cut in would have been pointless, and so Marcus stayed quiet for the time being, allowing his mother to finish up her speech. "Now then. This is an important crossroads for you and you will be taking advantage of that fact. You and I will have nightly discussions about anger management, and you will not be treating this as a vacation."

The jackalope snorted. "What, like, stay in my room?"

Barbara narrowed her eyes. "With your computer and all of your games? Oh no. During school hours, you will be downstairs, at the dining room table, with your laptop, and you will be observing your classes. I know Greenwood allows for remote instruction in case of emergencies so I will call them and get that arranged. Now I don't know if that means that you can actually participate in the class, but we can find out. If it does, I don't care if that means they have to set up a little robot Marcus and put him in your seat. Until you go back to campus, you are going to be an absolute model student, and Marcella will be here to make sure you don't even go to the bathroom without raising your hand, do you understand me?"

Marcus's gaze flicked over to the forced teacher's aid squirrel, who immediately put up her hands and went back to cleaning the kitchen, silently removing herself from the discussion entirely. The teen hybrid groused, fidgeting in his seat.

"They already said they'd send my assignments home," he huffed, by way of correction.

His mother blew a short breath out through her nostrils, faintly deflated. She picked her coffee up once more. "Fine, then during school hours you will work on those, downstairs, at the table. Outside of school hours you will be helping Marcella with her work around the house. If you can't be on campus, you will be helping here. You aren't getting rewarded for fighting, mister. And you should be grateful I haven't told your father about any of this."

Marcus eyed his adoptive mother, suspicious. "...pretty sure he's gonna notice when he gets home."

Barbara's posture softened, a layer of her professional posture stripping away. "Mercifully, he had to make an extra stop in Dallas before coming home, so he won't be back until Friday evening. I already told him that you would be home for a weekend visit because you wanted some time away from the dormitories, so as long as you can keep yourself composed between now and Sunday evening, your father will not have to know about any of this."

The two sat in silence for a short spell once again. Marcus had to admit, it was a stroke of luck that he'd be able to get through his suspension without his father knowing about it at all. He considered thanking his mother, but stopped himself. Besides, when it came to discipline, Charles' most common strategy was to say something along the lines of, "we'll see what your mother thinks of this." So maybe it barely made a difference.

Marcus's mother stood up, straightening her suit pants and doing her best to keep herself as elegant as she could. "I'm glad we've come to an understanding. I have another flight to catch this afternoon, because I have to be somewhere in the morning since, unlike you, I have managed to get through my disagreements without throwing fists." She nodded one last time, satisfied that she had closed the deal, so to speak.

While the jackalope fell into sullen silence, the bird made her way around the giant table, along the tile floor, and then stood in front of him, holding her hand out.

"...what?" Marcus asked, looking at her upturned palm as though he were trying to find a secret hidden in it.

"Give me your car keys."

"WHAT?"

Barbara was insistent. "We have plenty of food in the house, there's no reason for you to need to drive anywhere while I'm gone and I don't want you out getting into even more trouble while you're supposed to be on your best behavior. So give me your keys."

Marcus fidgeted. He looked at his mother's feathered hand in front of him. The boy's mouth tightened up into a frown.

"...no!"

Barbara's head pulled back, as though his refusal had hit her in the face physically. "Excuse me?"

Marcus stood straight up. When they were shouting at each other from one couch to another, their height difference was less pronounced. Face to face, Marcus stood a head over his mother, yet somehow still felt as though he was speaking up to her.

"No! That's not fair! I'm already suspended and you have me sitting down here at the table all day, I should be allowed to at least go for a drive if I want!"

Although she would never use her beak aggressively against him, Marcus couldn't deny that having that sharp point up so close made him slightly uneasy.

"Marcus Lewis, we bought that car brand new off the lot for you, you do not get to decide i-"

His adrenaline surging, Marcus grew more bold. "Why is it about money? Why does it always come back to that?"

Barbara huffed, throwing her head back and stamping her foot against the floor. "It's not about the money! Stop acting like that!"

Marcus wasn't listening, though. A switch had been flipped in his head, and he wasn't going to change course now. "Of course it is! It always is! You always talk about how expensive everything is! How much the car cost, how much the tuition is at Greenwood, you're always holding that over my head!"

For once, Barbara was defensive, stepping back a pace. "That... that's not fair! We work hard for you. Yes, it is unfortunate that we are not home as often as we would like, however these are the sacrifices we make. We love you, Marcus. You know that."

It was the first time that word had entered the conversation so far, and it stabbed Marcus in the chest. "Do you? Then how come you're never home? Why did you throw me at a school with dorms instead of letting me stay here? I'm stuck in that fucking school where everyone hates me and whenever there's a problem you just get mad at me like it's all my fault! Why was the first fucking person to say happy birthday to me the piece of shit at school who gave me a fucking stapled up jacket??"

Barbara blanched. She was aghast. There were years of frustrations bubbling out of Marcus and she had no idea what to do about them.

"M... Marcus, now you... let's just sit down again, and go over the breathing again... work on visualization..." she stammered, trying to regain control of the situation, to calm her son down now that she saw all the anger in his eyes.

"Stop that! Stop talking like I'm a patient for once! Why do you even care? You're at work all the time, I barely even see you! I've spent more time with Marcella than either of you! Why did you even adopt me in the first place if you were never gonna be around? Am I some kinda case study? Or is it just because I was expensive? Is that why you wanted an exotic?"

Marcus's adoptive mother was at a loss. She had nothing to say, but couldn't stop herself from blurting out, "Oh stop it Marcus, you weren't even the most expensive one there!"

The air between Marcus and Barbara froze instantly. Seconds passed by as slowly as they could manage to without time stopping entirely.

Shellshocked, Marcus turned and began marching his way back upstairs. He could hear his mother behind him, shouting at him, possibly pleading with him but it was all white noise by now. He stormed into his room and grabbed his duffel bag, putting it over his shoulder and stomping back down the stairs, all the while Barbara flitted around him, desperately trying to get his attention.

"Marcus! MARCUS! You look at me right now! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that! But you do not just walk away from me when I'm talking to you! Marcus! Where do you think you're going? You listen to me right now! I am your mother, and I will NO-"

The jackalope stopped in place, standing at the door that led out into the garage. He was furious, nearly dizzy from it, his heart pounding in his throat.

"You are not my mother," he seethed, looking over his shoulder, before slamming the door behind him and getting in the car, driving off. In his rearview mirror, if he had cared to look, he could have seen Barbara Lewis standing in the driveway, shrieking at him before she disappeared in the distance.