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18. Irony

“Judas” didn’t hear me when I knocked on his door. He was hunched over his desk, scribbling at something.I stepped in, looking at the walls. They were forcibly plain and bare. His bed comforter was gray, his carpet a neutral navy blue. It looked like a guest bedroom. I knocked on the door again, just to see if I could get his attention.
He couldn’t hear me. His headphones were stuffed in his ears.I quietly walked up behind him, peering over his shoulder.
He was working at a thick piece of paper, drawing a flying bird. It looked like a robin to me. I waited a few seconds, watching the picture starting to come to life. He still hadn’t noticed me after half a minute.
I tapped his shoulder. He whirled around, almost knocking me in my gut.
Judas yanked his headphones out, glaring at me. “What?”
“What are you working on?”
“Cards to promote optimism. I get, like, a dollar for each of ‘em.”
And this kid wrote some of the most depressing crap in his journal. I leaned on his desk.
“You draw a lot?”
“Yeah, not as much as I used to.” He flicked a piece of hair out his face. “What do you want?”
This ruined my whole approach plan. I shrugged.“We need to talk about your principal, Paul McCannon.”
A quick smile formed on Judas’s face. “You’ll have to ask my dad about that one.”
“Really.”
He snickered, shaking his head. “Really.”

They're easy mistakes to make.
I'm horrible at catching typos. Just see what I meant, instead of what is actually there.

20. Identity Crisis

Mr. Sam Andrews sat back in his seat. His eyes flicked between Jay and I. I sat just opposite him, and Jay sat a little more to the side of him, but not by much. Bringing someone to the interrogation room can help with two things,One, intimidation and two, impression of confidentiality. From the way that Mr. Andrews was staring me down I doubted the room was helping with the intimidation aspect.
I looked him in the eyes. “You were sleeping with Paul McCanon.”
His eyebrows furrowed and he gaped at me. “Excuse me?”
“You were seen together,” I lied.
“Where?”
“That’s confidential.”
“I’m not gay.”
Lies. Jay leaned forward, interlacing his fingers on the table. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“I’m not gay.”
“It must be so hard.”
Jay should have won some sort of award for his false sympathy. He had this way of making his eyes look sad, a small twitch of a sad smile to make someone burst into a tearful confession, he knew exactly when to give someone an encouraging touch, when to call them ‘honey’, when to let a tear sneak out of his own eye—one time I watched him weasel away the last doughnut from the chief of police.
I almost felt sorry for Mr. Andrews as he shook his head, repeating that he was married, they were just friends, it was nothing.
I stayed silent as Jay gave him a small twitch of a sad smile. “How did it start?”
Mr. Andrews swallowed. “I’m a happily married man.”
“Of course you are.”
“I’m not that guy. I’m not.”
“But, you are, Sam.”
I considered ditching the whole soggy mess, but that’d give him a distraction, give him a moment to compose himself. While Mr. Andrews had his face in his hands Jay shot me a smug smile. It would finish quickly.