Author: @AldubUnlimited
Prompt: Alden has a son with special needs and separated from his wife while Maine is a special needs educator
Prompter: @sunshi_fairy
Six Valentines ago, Alden and his then-pregnant wife Lana were cuddling in bed on the fourth morning of their honeymoon inside a fancy hotel room in Nevada. They were both nineteen then, young and promiscuous art students on the throes of reckless love and idealistic ambitions. Six Valentines later, they are now sitting as far away from each other as possible in a leather couch inside the cold, intimidating Principal's office of St. Mary of the Holy Rosary Special School for Children—the academy their five-year old son Nikko attended. Nikko was born blind; a plot twist his painter parents had never seen coming. They flew home to the Philippines after he was born to try to build a home where their extended families live close by. Just a month after Nikko's third birthday, Lana had packed her bags and flew to Barcelona, Spain, leaving Alden only a brief note about how she wanted to pursue the dreams she had put on hold when they got married. Let's stop breaking each other's wings, Alden, she had written. She is now the hottest new thing in the European Art Scene and had come home to conduct her first gallery exhibit in Manila. This is the first time they are seeing each other again in three years.
"Nikko, okay lang sabihin mo kay Principal kung bakit mo sinuntok si Jacob."
It was the calm, gentle voice of Nikko's homeroom adviser and Language teacher, Maine. She was sitting beside the boy, holding his bruised hand: the fist that smashed into the cheek of a first-grade student (from a class of kids diagnosed with ADHD) named Jacob who had been constantly bullying Nikko in the school playground for the past couple of months. Nikko have silently endured the demeaning nicknames, the occasional stolen lunches, the physical pranks but what Jacob told him that day had been the last straw.
"S-sabi po kasi ni Jacob...ano...iniwanan daw po ng m-mommy ko yung daddy ko kasi... kasi daw po... kasi daw po bulag ako," he stuttered as his lips crumpled into a pout and his voice trembled.
Maine looked at the bruised hand of the boy, her heart aching. It was one thing to see a wound on a child's skin and another to feel the scars in the brokenness of a child's voice.
At the far end of the office, Alden and Lana are listening intently, trying their hardest to hold back their tears while understanding at the predicament they have gotten their son into. They silently kept their heads bowed as the principal talked to their child. They have already been briefed prior to the child entering the room, and they have tacitly agreed to pretend they were not there while Nikko was being asked questions. When Teacher Maine escorted Nikko out of the principal's office and back to his class, Alden and Lana followed but stayed behind in an empty corridor just before the hallway that led to their son's classroom.
"If only you have been picking him up on time, he shouldn't have had to wait by himself and linger in that despicable playground. How can you not have an idea that Nikko is being bullied all this time?" Lana questioned Alden in a shrill voice she desperately tried to keep low but still echoed in the air nonetheless. Her stiff, elegant grey coat remained unruffled despite the tremor on her chest and the hysteria in her voice.
"And how about you, Lana? Do you even have any idea what's going on with your son at all?"
"This is not about me, Alden. Stop making me an excuse for everything that's gone wrong in your life,"
