The Class Clown

07 - Divergence

Pearl wonders how Jay and Lara are doing by themselves.  Neither has checked up on her since her absence. Never mind their radio silence, however, after pretending to be friends and a team. What stings the most is Dylan's silence after pretending to be friends, if not something special. Between her suspension, her desolation, and her parents' separation, it has become hard to reframe how her life may just be a tragedy waiting to play out.

While temporarily out of school, Pearl occupies herself with college applications and an online freelance.  Ghostwriting pays her pebbles but it has kept her mind busy, provided her space to escape reality. She believes her writing skills are acceptable and her vocabulary range, at best, average.  But getting 300 clicks and 100 completed reads per article may be considered effective writing in this age.

One Saturday, she receives an offer to write a couple chapters for a book.  In the email, a self-publishing fiction author has asked her to write as the protagonist awaiting trial in an underwater den.  As half-god, half-fish, Pearl translates her supposed rumination into human language.  From posting reviews to writing for customer service, she delves into literary prose to tell the world a story.

What is my story? The cursor on the white screen goes on blinking as if it fails to see her or hear her mind screaming into empty space.

Wait.

A light bulb flickers to life. She types until the small hours of the morning.

The next Saturday, she receives her first and longest love letter from her client. Long, running sentences fill her screen with condescension and sadness. Regrettably, the email further says, Pearl's writing is a few paces shy of acceptable in the 'respectable' publishing society. The delivery was 'very natural'. The content might be reflective of the protagonist's emotional maturity, but was wrought with clichés and tropes. For that, she will be paid but half the stipulated offer.

She had poured out her own feelings and thoughts to that character. She might not be a writer (yet), but she believes knew enough of drama to deliver a soliloquy. Even as she writes as a half-god, half-fish, it seems to her that people just keep on invalidating her experience, her existence.

Pearl withdraws from the agreement and launches her own site: Divergence.

I'm a spring from which energy flows. She founds her pet project on the premise of liberation by art. But instead of writing as a fish, she breathes her thoughts into Jorgelina Nadal. Feel my touch and know that I exist.

As she spends more hours belabored on her project, her father grows irritable by day. In alcoholic rage, sometimes he throws or breaks objects within reach. One day, he calls her down for lunch. When she yells back from upstairs that she cannot, he storms into her room and slams her laptop on to the floor.

"I told you to stop this nonsense, did you hear? Thought you were smart. But what? You almost killed a boy in school. You bring nothing but trouble!"

Fighting back tears, she picks up her computer and holds it to her chest.

"You're just like your mother," he says with passion, then disappears into the hall.

She replaces her laptop on the desk. Relief washes over her after seeing the screen flicker to life. Her files remain intact.

She pulls out her phone from her jeans pocket. Sobbing, she records a voice mail: "Mom, I miss you."

Then she comes down to dine with her father.

When her father is looking, Pearl prepares for the National Achievement Test next term; when her father is out, she continues to write content for online enterprises and her website.

Six weeks into the launch, Divergence begins to earn her a modest income. The monetary compensation is far from sustainable but her consumers' feedback has given her validation on her work and the emotions invested. With one more week in suspension, she spends the morning scouring her mails for better offers.

One email stands out on her screen. The sender calls himself an attorney. She is about to send it to junk when the title sends a chill into her heart: "Restraining Order". The email does not contain the document itself but a notice from the legal representative of the Aquino family.

He never said anything at all.

She is only to be kindly informed to keep a 40-ft distance from Mr. Dylan Aquino outside school premises. The restraining order will arrive soon. No formal charges have been made about the 'incident'. Lastly, the school promises to cooperate with her probation as a minor and will have the power to send her to a juvenile correction facility when deemed necessary.

Bitter tears fill her eyes as she shuts her laptop.

The telephone rings. Her father yells for her to answer. She quickly rubs her face against her shoulder and runs down to pick the receiver.

"Hello?" Her voice quivers.

"Pearl? Is this you, my dear?" A middle-aged woman speaks in rhythmic Spanish on the other line.

She recognizes her mother's sister in Argentina. Purposeful and quick, her aunt tells her about Mrs. Fariñas's road accident. She is in critical condition abroad but wishes Pearl to stay in the Philippines and finish high school. Should her mother succumb, she will come to her inheritance and full rights to her trust fund.

♠ | ♥

"It does not matter anymore whether I chipped a tooth or torn a lip.  I have lost the last memory of Papa when the dirty foul-smelling pathetic excuse of a man threw his sixth punch on my body, the most recent one landed on my face.  I have no idea where that box of cigars is; I have never seen it in this house.  But he has been accusing me of stealing it, selling it off and hiding the money from him.

"Since he discovered my savings hidden in a shoe, his hatred of me has been increasing exponentially by day.  Eight weeks since Mama died, Papa has already called me a thousand vile names, but he has yet to call me his daughter again.

"I feel exhausted.  I have cried since Aunt Ilka called to pass the news.  I have cried every day as Papa sinks deeper in his grief, drowning in guilt, anger, frustration and alcohol.  I have cried every night as I nurse my wounds and bruises from his volcanic projections.  I am out of tears and joy, yet I may have something left still.  I have hope.

"I hope that his sleep is long and peaceful.  I have watched him transform from a timid affectionate husband and father to a tempestuous monster.  My heart calms now as I watch him shrink into a sleeping docile figure on the couch.

"I hope that his sleep is long and peaceful."

—Jorgelina's Diary, in Divergence.org

♠ | ♥

Pearl studies her father's peaceful face as he drifts into an alcoholic obtundation. Then she closes the front door behind her and takes a cab to school.

After two months of being suspended, she steps into campus grounds again. With renewed determination, she returns to Section D. In compliance with the restraining order, she is physically forbidden from entering the Star Section again.