Garden Lights

Garden Light - Chapter 11

Life is so unpredictable.

“Vivian.”

Life is so cruel.

“Vivian!”

Why? Why must things like this happen?

“VIVIAN!”

“YES!?”

She looked up to see a pair of furious eyes standing in front of her.

“Did you hear me calling you ten times!?” By the tone of the math teacher’s voice, he was extremely mad as if he was erupting like a volcano.

“I-I’m so sorry!”

“Apologies aren’t going to get you anywhere! I told this class many times that I dislike students who daydream instead of learning when it’s time to learn!”

She was shaking all over by the teacher’s awful scolding. “I’m so sor-!” she gulped, “I mean, it won’t happen again!”

The teacher kept glaring down at her, his eyebrows still narrowed.

“It better not.”

He walked steadily back to the blackboard, and then turning his gaze on everyone.

“As I was saying, in order to solve this, you have to move X here and…”

He continued on with his lecture. Vivian could only pretend that her focus was on the lecture, but how could the images from the drastic incident a day ago disappear forever from her mind?

Why can’t I forget? It’s affecting me badly!

The incident that took place yesterday was one so horrible that she wished that there was such a thing as a time machine and she could use it and go back to stop herself from ever going to the shower room due to the heat, and accidentally seeing a boy’s nudity who also came to take a shower.

The boy saw her naked too. That did not make things any better for her.

And that boy was Victor, the poker-faced boy sitting in front of her.

Unlike her, he didn’t fidget. He didn’t twitch. He didn’t daydream. He was calm and reserved as ever. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking about. She was the only one who kept recalling such indecency.

I hate this! I want to forget too. Wait, if I keep thinking about him, wouldn’t that make me a PERVERT!!!!???

She screamed in horror. “NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“THAT’S IT! GET OUT OF MY CLASS!” He teacher yelled with annoyance and fury.

Vivian was forced to stand in the halls just outside class.

Mother, Father, Sister, Gracie. Please forgive me. Vivian is a pervert.

And she silently wept.

After math class, Vivian had no reason to stay outside anymore. Before the next teacher came, she went back inside. A few people stared at her and whispered to one another, probably saying that she’s a whack screaming in class out of the blue. She can’t blame them though. They didn’t know her reasons for feeling weird since a day ago. On Sunday, she had been stuck in her room all day to avoid meeting Victor.

But she couldn’t stop herself from seeing him today. Just seeing him made her feel weirder. She couldn’t put her feelings into words, but it was there. Looking at him from afar talking to some boy, the images she tried to push away came back. It was almost like it happened not a day ago, but just recently. She desperately and literally wanted to bang her head against the hard concrete wall to stop her from seeing them.
“Vivian, are you okay?” It was Cindy who called out to her as she approached her. She looked really worried.