The Sun, The Moon, and Their Stars

08 : Hurt

Kimberly

"But I didn't do it," I whisper.

I try to make my voice as quiet as possible while the rest of the editorial staff conducts a meeting. We're inside the small room next to the Science Laboratory, at the base of the journalism club, which also publishes a quarterly issue of the high school paper.

"I'm not saying you did," Angel whispers back. "I know you didn't."

"I wasn't even there. I just found out about it earlier today," I tell her as if it would matter.

She filled me in with the details on our way from the classroom down to here, and even as the meeting progressed. But I already knew it from the way those people looked at me this morning. I was sure of it the very second one of them whispered to the other's ear.

It's happening again.

Aldrin orders the meeting adjourned, and we start heading out one by one. I walk along the hallways alone, out of the gate, and to the jeep stop so I can finally end this day.

I look up, and the sky is already dark. No more sunset-y colors this time. It may even rain later. Thank you, sky, for feeling my pain.

It's happening again.

**

This is what really happened two years ago.

A week before the third grading periodical examinations, our class adviser and the other teachers of our grade started probing massive cheating modus that occurred inside all the classrooms. So, they decided to take turns proctoring different sections during the exams, hoping they could somehow get to the bottom of it. Because my classmates were idiots, and they somehow felt unstoppable at that time, they still managed to cheat on one exam under the watch of our English teacher, Miss de la Cruz.

Christmas break passed, and we went back to school in January. Things were normal at first. Then the following week, during one first period, the teachers started calling random students, one by one, into a small room inside the guidance office.

I was one of those students.

Three teachers interrogated me about the cheating scandal: how it happened, how it worked, who were involved, and who was or were the mastermind or masterminds. And because I'm a bad liar, I told them the truth—or a portion of it. I told them what I knew: the cheat sheets, the hand signals, the whispers, and other juvenile techniques that they probably already knew.

"We know that already," Miss de la Cruz said. "We're more interested in who were sharing answers during the exams, and the leakage of some questions."

I honestly did not know anything about that at all, so I just shook my head and told them I knew nothing. Then they ordered me dismissed from that brief intimidating encounter.

As I made my way out of the guidance office, I saw Mary Elizabeth seated on the couch near the door. Three hours later, inside our classroom, she started throwing insults at me for reasons I was yet to understand.

From the pieces that I was able to put together, Mary Elizabeth and her friends were the targets of that probe. Miss de la Cruz somewhat caught them, but they wanted confirmation from witnesses. And because luck doesn't go along with me, I had to be the one inside that small room before they talked to Mary Elizabeth. She and her accomplices were given a three-day suspension at that time.

They needed someone to blame, so they blamed me.

It did not help that she's also friends with Diane, who's friends with the Bad Girls, who are connected to other groups, such as the freshies, the guys from Ten Cents Short, and almost everybody else. So, words spread. And the insults, glares, and whatnot followed me everywhere inside the school.

Mary Elizabeth and Regina, this girl with a big robust body who's one of the Bad Girls, did not waste any opportunity in throwing insults at me in between and during classes. Some of our classmates even joined them when they called me names. Some refused to sit beside me in fear that I might 'tell our teacher what they're up to.' During an out-of-town field trip, I was left with no choice but to sit next to Miss Valero. Then they called me a teacher's pet. And according to their logic, it justified what they presumed I did that got some of our classmates in conflict with the disciplinary council.

Well, that year ended, and we were in Grade Nine. Darlynne and I were classmates, and I was just short of happy none of those things they did to me the school year before persisted. Or so I thought. Shortly after she became a member of that band, there was another cheating scandal that our teachers unlocked. But this time, my section was not in the limelight. So, there was no way I could have been involved again, right?

No.

Carlo practically shouted for everyone to hear that there's no hint of doubt that I was the one who gave the tip again to our teachers. "Who else could it be?" he added.

Regina was also my classmate then, and she's friends with some of those involved. So, it happened again.

For some reason, Darlynne stopped talking to me, and eventually to Lawrence as well. That was also the time when these people started hurting me physically.

First, it was Regina. And she made it look like a total accident. It was during PE, and we were doing team sports. I was on a break and just standing there near a concrete wall outside the gym when, like a quick flash of lightning, I felt something heavy on top of me. Her weight pushed me down, scratching my elbow in the process. I went to the clinic and had to be transported to the nearest hospital to get stitches. Not one of my classmates accompanied me there. None of them cared.

Of course, I hid the truth from my parents. I just told them I was clumsy, that I fell and hurt myself. And so, I used the same kind of excuse when these same people—with the help of Darlynne, I assumed—took my glasses from my bag during another PE class, and purposely hid them somewhere.

I had to live through a head-splitting migraine for a week. I even failed a Trigonometry quiz because I could not properly see what was written on the chalkboard, and I could not ask my seatmates because that would be cheating.

My mother was, of course, pissed that she had to spend an extra amount of money from our already tight budget because of my 'clumsiness.' But I got a new pair of glasses a few days later, just before I found my old one hidden and already cracked in the cabinet at the back of our classroom where we kept our textbooks and study materials.

But the worst of all, I almost ate a pack of Oreos Kathlyn gave me, that she asked my seatmate to pass to me, but that had dirt in the filling. Thankfully, my new prescription glasses allowed me to see the pinches of soil in between the cookies. 

**

I'm afraid it's going to happen again. And who knows up to what lengths they'll go this time. Plus, it's just the second week of August. Meaning, I still have seven more months of this version of hell.

After an awfully quiet, but normal, dinner with my parents, I go straight to my bedroom and start doing homework with the radio on.

If maintaining your concentration on homework and lessons while your classmates are raging a stupid one-sided war against you is a talent, it should be mine. It is, after all, what helped me survive the previous year-and-a-half.

The small clock on my desk says it's ten-fifteen, and the DJ is telling a sad story sent by some regular listener while playing songs to accompany it like a soundtrack. It's about a friendship gone wrong. It's not the usual tragic love story or a rip-off from a romance pocketbook, thank goodness.

My eyes feel tired already, so I close my books and my notes and start putting them inside my bag. The DJ plays Everybody Hurts, the cover version by The Corrs.

I close the bag and let it settle on the chair. I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the radio while the song continues. I turn it off before the last chorus because, as much as I hate not having closure to a story, I no longer feel interested in the ending of that stupid one the DJ is sharing.

I turn off the light and slip under the blanket that my grandmother made for me. My hand reaches underneath one of my pillows, and the rest of my body curls into a regressed position, so I'm wholly covered by the fabric.

I close my eyes. And for the nth time, I allow myself to succumb to the darkness.