The Strength Of the Heart

The Absence of Love - 5

Sometimes I can see that she's better off without me. In some ways, it gives me comfort, knowing that even though my life's stopped, her's still goes on. It's as if I never even existed. Not in the ways that mattered. Love, the conqueror of evil, reduced to a word. Just a four letter word in the dictionary, one that should be described as an unobtainable feeling. Because I realise that it cannot be true love if someone doesn't love you back. And that, is the worst feeling. You must come to understand that the one thing love cannot conquer, is unrequited love. For love can, and always will be, defeated by the absence of itself.

The absence of love.

The days after the debate were...... unusual. I have never seen someone get as much underground attention as Chloe did that following week. Everybody heard the news of the new girl who rose to the top in debate. 

Well.... top-ish. I mean, it was an average conclusion all things considered. But, you know how these things go.

 Stories were a bit exaggerated, some saying that she took down a whole team on her own, but it didn't seem like anybody cared. Chloe's friends looked more agitated than usual, at least one of them with Chloe wherever she went. Like personal bodyguards.

Not that I made an effort to see her. It was just coincidental bumping into each other. 

It's just that I would bump into her and she wouldn't notice my presence. Perfectly normal.

Anyway, her friends weren't used to being the top gossip for something that wasn't....... well....... how you say.........dumb. What made it worse was that, they were only being talked about because they were friends with Chloe. I guess it made them see her as a threat, because for the next week no one saw Chloe on her own. 

Ever.

Apparently they even walked her to her Mum's car door. And, I'll be honest, it felt good to see them bothered like that. Revenge for all their sarcasm, insults, and rolled eyes. But after a full week of that, it just got boring. It didn't feel authentic anymore. It started getting weird, like the "friends" refusing for Chloe to talk to anyone who they didn't know or like. And coincidentally, one of these, unworthy people happened to be the counselor's kid. So on Tuesday in the middle of history class Chloe got called to the office.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Chloe Jefferson to the principal's office. Chloe Jefferson to the principal's office."

And just like that, Chloe went from being the next teacher's pet to a potential bad girl. The room filled with "oohhs" and snickers as she stood up fro her desk. She picked up her purple Adidas bag, threw it over her shoulder, and catwalked out of the room. The principal's office was down the hall from the history block so we heard everything.

5 minutes after she left the classroom, it began.

Our ever so calm deputy principal, was shouting at the new girl. Now one may fail to get this but it was so loud that some the sound bounced back in echoes from the end of the block. You could barely hear what was being said, only catching the occasional "disappointment" and threats of expulsion. Our history teacher stopped teaching because it was clear no one was paying attention. It got to point where people started blasting their music to drown out the noise.

This went on for 6 minutes.

Then our history teacher stood and paced to the open door, stepped out, then slammed it. Before he left, I saw 3 other teachers walk up and join him.

A few seconds later, the shouting stopped. Everyone stopped talking, music stopped playing and we sat there in silence so thick with tension that the walls seemed like they were sweating. All the girls had worried looks on their faces. Some were already on the phone with people I assumed were their parents. After another few seconds of silence the teacher walked back into class. Following her was Chloe holding her head in her hands.

When she looked up her eyes were red and filled with tears.