Vol. 6, Chapter XVIII — Dispersed Thoughts and Animosities

December was divided into four parts as a student: the first week was the last-minute crunch, the second week was the exam season responsible for that crunch, the third week was when teachers tried to get the evaluations out so that they had an easier time during the holidays and we knew how good or poorly we’ve done, otherwise we’d only know come January, and the fourth week was the holidays with Christmas and New Year. It always kept me stressfully busy, this time of the year, but with my very much improved school performance ever since Abby came into my life, it has, if I’m to be honest, become mostly a non-issue. That is to say, I had freer time to fuss over other things, which were a lot worse than school life.

“…”

I really, really didn’t feel like being in school right now as a result. Sleep hasn’t come easily, but I’ve been managing… somehow.

Studying had provided a good distraction for the first week, and now that we were in the middle of exams, those also kept me focused enough as I went through them. There was the odd intrusive thought of “why am I even bothering with this?” but Abby, unbeknownst to her, came in to save me from them. “If not for you, do it for her,” I’d tell myself as I took a quick glance at her. Even if it didn’t feel like there was a point to it right now, my will to stay by her side pushed me towards doing my best even when I felt at my worst.

Should I skip the rest of class?

For PE, we were doing our physical evaluations, this time running and stretching. One thing I sucked at, and another where I was freakishly good. Still, apparently, I managed to run a faster lap than before, and that is with me having my period and not-that-good sleep. Just how unathletic was I before? Almost to the level of a potato running uphill would be my guess.

As for the stretching, I also did better than before. I couldn’t care less about putting in the effort, which, funnily enough, resulted in me being even more pliable.

“I might give you an extra point for all the improvement you’ve been showing this past year,” our teacher told me while writing on the clipboard. It was good to heard that, but it just didn’t spark anything in me.

I glanced at Abby briefly. She tilted her head to the side, and that was all I needed to know.

“Erm, could I skip the rest of the class?” I asked. “I wasn’t already feeling all that well, and after running, I feel worse now.”

I was immediately granted permission to do so since our teacher knew well how I was during this time of the month. Before leaving, though, I wished the boys good luck on their evaluations and gave Abby a little smooch on her hair, telling her to behave while I was gone.

“I make no such promises!” she impishly told me as she rubbed my hand on her face. “Call me if you need anything?”

I assured her I would, even though she didn’t have her phone with her. Then again, Abby being Abby, I wouldn’t be surprised if just calling out to her in my mind wouldn’t be enough to “summon” her.

The locker room was as far as I went, plopping myself on one of the benches with my back precariously leaning against the locker I used to store my stuff.

“…”

The locker room smelled of teenage sweat and angst. It was lit with fluorescent lights that hummed and buzzed above me and joined the sounds of two classes having PE in the pavilion.

I stared at the windows on the very top of the wall opposite to where I was sitting, the grey sky being visible. No rain today, at least so far. A bit of a shame, as I enjoy the sound of it while thinking. Not that I was doing any thinking. Not really. My mind was as blank as a canvas.

Just then, I thought I heard my phone ringing, the sound of a received message. I’d look into it later. For now, I’d merely focus on simply existing in this place.

“You’re skipping class again,” I heard a familiar voice say, one that immediately shot anger into my veins.

I looked at Vanessa, who stood at the door to this particular locker room. Despite my anger, my face was too tired to do anything else other than stay blank, a blessing in this case. As I stared at her, I could see that she hadn’t meant that comment as a reprimand, just an observation.

“My body is killing me,” I told her as I went back to staring at the window, my anger starting to subside.

She stood there for a long while, doing nothing but stare at me. Finally, when I was just about to ask her if she wanted to take a picture, she moved to sit directly in front of me. Leaning forward, she asked if we could talk.

“I’m sorry, Vanessa,” I sighed as I too leaned forward, but to hold my forehead and dig my elbows on my knees. “I’m really not in the mood for talks right now.”

“I get that, but… I promise, I’ll be quick!” she insisted.

I leaned back against the locker again, this time to look at Vanessa. To really look at her.

Gone was the spiteful person who used to shoot glares at me and recriminate every single action I did, down to simply breathing. In front of me was a girl who seemed determined and on the verge of crying too.

“…I’m sorry, Vanessa,” I told her, making her flinch. “I’m sorry that when you came to talk with me in our first year of high school, I acted cold and distant towards you. I really don’t remember it, but I remember how I was back then. I’d get super anxious talking to people I didn’t know and would go into autopilot, answering everything with single words. I also only wanted people to leave me alone. I got better, mostly thanks to Abby, but…”

“So, it really was all just a misunderstanding…” she spoke under her breath with a sad smile.

“…And I’m sorry that I blew up on you when you walked in on Abby and me inside the storeroom. I’m… territorial, about stuff about my wife and I.”

“N-no, erm… I shouldn’t have asked that back then,” she stammered. “It was very stupid of me to have said that.”

We both shifted in our seats and looked away for a bit. This was… surprisingly civil.

“I guess… what I wanted to tell you… sorry. For being a bitch towards you all this time.”

“It’s ok,” I told her, looking her straight in the eye. “I understand why you acted the way you did.”

“You… you do?”

“Yeah,” I told her, looking towards where our class was having class, as if I could somehow see my wife through the walls. “If I had liked Abby and found out that she liked somebody else instead, I’d likely have acted the same way you did towards me, at least before. I was… a very jealousy-prone person back then. Still am, just not about Abby.”

She fell silent, so I looked at her. Vanessa was stunned that I’d be so willing to freely admit having such a bad personality trait. I was probably tearing apart more and more of her worldview when it came to me.

“Is that all?” I asked, a sharp cramp shooting through my body. “Sorry, but I think I need to go to the infirmary to lie down.”

“Y-yeah, that is all,” she blurted as she got up. “Sorry that I took so long.”

“It’s fine,” I told her as I too got up. “It was actually quite brief.”

“Erm… do you… want me to tell the teacher that you’re going to the infirmary?”

I thought for a moment as I held my uniform shirt. I asked her to inform our teacher, yes, since I had only asked to skip class, but also to tell Abby where I was going and that I really am fine, I just need a nap and maybe a painkiller. Since Abby doesn’t have her phone with her right now and might worry, you know?

Before leaving, Vanessa gave me a final thank you for having heard her out. After she left, I felt a bit bad not having thanked her for having come out to talk with me, but that thought only popped up long after she was gone and I was fully dressed in my school uniform.

“Haah,” I sighed once I stepped outside, a satisfying cloud of mist forming as the air left my lips. There one second, gone the other. “One less thing to worry about.”

“Hmm? Did you say something?” a junior who was walking by asked.

“S-sorry, just thinking out loud,” I told him, feeling a bit embarrassed to have done so with people nearby.

I looked up at the sky as I walked, and the sound of the gym faded as the distance grew. Where before I felt empty, right now, I was feeling… content.

Would Vanessa and I become friends now? I don’t think so. Would we at least become cordial towards one another? Very likely, and that’s all I asked for.

“Miss Maple?”

Inside the infirmary was none other than my homeroom teacher, perfectly sitting where the nurse usually would be.

“Hi, Violet,” she greeted me with a wave and a smile. “I was notified you were coming here, and since I had some free time, I decided to check on you.”

That was such a huge lie. A teacher? With free time during exam seasons? As if.

“You really didn’t have to,” I told her. “I really just need to lie down for a bit.”

“Still, it took you quite a while to come here, didn’t it?” she asked as she crossed her arms and legs. “I was notified of you asking to skip the rest of PE about twenty minutes ago.”

“Ah, yes, well… Vanessa and I had a talk,” I explained. “We cleared things up.”

“You did? That’s great news!”

“Y-yeah, so, you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

She asked if that meant me and her where now friends. I shot that idea down, stating that we just cleared things up, and that was it. Honestly, she was far more excited about that than me.

I wonder if I’d be more excited if I felt normal today…

Then came the expected line of questioning: do I need anything? Do I need to notify one of my parents? Has Abby been notified that I was there?

I just told her that everything is fine and that she should not waste any more time with me.

“Violet, it’s never wasted time when I’m checking in on my students,” she told me with that grown-up authority that made me regret my choice of words. Kinda reminded me of Sophie, turning this into more of a “big sister, little sister” kind of feeling rather than a “teacher-student” one.

I thanked her instead, saying that I appreciate her worry, but I meant it when I said that I was ok and that I just needed to lie down.

“That’s better,” she quietly told me. “Now, lie down, and if you need anything, you can just text me. You still have my phone number from the school trip, right?”

I did, yeah, one of the… maybe ten or twelve phone numbers I have on my phone.

Finally, I was left alone. The question is, for how long?

“…Not long enough.”

I needed a vacation. Somewhere quiet and away from people. Then again, I’d probably just wallow more in my own misery if I did that. Ever since I got married, it feels like I haven’t had a moment of quietude lasting for more than a couple of hours at most. To be clear, I’m not faulting the marriage for it, just… It might have contributed, but there are a lot of other things, and my marriage is my sanctuary. In a way, at least. There are some worries associated with it, but there’s plenty of good that far, far outweighs that.

“…What am I doing with my life?”

With that thought, I drifted to sleep.

I woke up some time later, feeling like no time had gone by at all. Abby was by my side, but so were our friends, so I couldn’t just reach out and reel her in or pull myself up into a hug.

“Is it time for our next class?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

“Next class?” Stephen chuckled.

“Babe, it’s time to go home.”

“Huh? But… what about the exams?”

“You did all that we had today,” Abby told me. “Remember?”

“Yeah, Biology and PE, birdbrain,” Mathew added. “You guys really aren’t kidding when you say that you’re useless after waking up.”

I blinked at them as things settled in my mind. As they said, we had Biology for the first period and the PE exam for the third period.

“Hungry?” Abby asked, sinking her hands on the side of the bed as she leaned closer to me with a playful smile.

“Starving, actually,” I told her as I patted my stomach. I had slept through our lunch break too and had a light breakfast early in the morning, so that meant that my last meal was about ten hours ago. “I could really go for some meaty and fatty hamburgers right now.”

Abby very much enjoyed the idea, slurring a bit as she grabbed her phone to text Sophie about us going to eat and asking our friends if they’d care to join us as she tapped away. They all agreed to it, saying that it sounded great as an exam mid-week refuelling. Not exactly something I thought we should be doing at a time like this, but I told that side of me to shut up. It’s because I’m always taking stuff so seriously that I worked myself up into this state.

“You look better,” Abby told me as she hugged my arm as we followed behind the rest of the group.

“I feel better,” I told her. “Apart from the hunger cramps, but I’d rather have those over the other ones.”

“Ah! Evelyn!” Mathilda shamelessly called out the moment she spotted our homeroom teacher, rushing out to her. “We are going for hamburgers! Wanna join us?”

“It’s ‘Miss Maple’, Mathilda,” Miss Maple cried out. “And I don’t have time for that! Can’t you see it’s Exam season right now!?”

“What, so you would join if you weren’t busy?”

Miss Maple gave me a look, and I took charge by grabbing Mathilda by the back of her collar and dragging her away, telling her to leave Miss Maple alone.

Mathilda shouted out to her that she’d have to join us next time if she scored higher than last time on her Math exam.

Miss Maple rolled her eyes, but something told me that next time Mathilda asked, she’d be joining us since she’s such a pushover.

“Anyway,” I began, looking back at Abby. “As I was about to say, I have something to tell you when we get there. You and the guys, I mean. And I don’t think you’ll quite believe me.”