Lavado

Tigre Blanco

"Degama,stop passing love letters to your boyfriend,"Teacher Arlee said.

Nobody respected madam Arlee,No one took her solemnly. The girls did not respect her and so did the boys. She always lost her voice after each class lesson. Madam Arlee had to scream her lungs out.

"I'm not,"Degama refuted.

Her eye caught many eyes, everyone stared at her almost like she was some breaking news on a screen. Degama bowed her head low to hide from the stares but she could still feel them.

"Degama has a lover!"Gris jeered.

"Shut it,"she told him.

"No harsh language, Degama," miss Arlee warned.

I looked at the note she had passed me, mind wondering what could be inside. I opened it without any eye watching.It read ;

Hi Louis,

I thought you could stay after class and help me out with some chemistry.

Degama.

To what my eyes could see, there was no love word in that letter.Where had miss Arlee gotten her assumptions from? Was it always about love to her?No matter how hard I'd convinced myself what a good teacher she was, she proved me wrong each time.

All the time.

I opened my mouth to defend Degama.

The class' attention shifted to me. They all paused in silence to hear what I had to say.

For the first time I felt heavy to draw a word out of my mouth, to say a single letter in the alphabet. So hard, I almost withdrew but I didn't.

"Madam,the note had nothing to do with love she was just asking me for some aid in Chemistry."

I'd finally done it.I felt my heart beat again, it'd stopped beating for a few seconds. Like everything else within me.

At the sound of my words everyone bursted into laughter.l could not make out why. I sat back in my chair only to receive an awful eye from Degama, she seemed cross.

"What?" I asked perplexed.

But I got my answer in her silence. I had said everything wrong, how could I embarrass her like that? She'd been known for coming out last in class and now I'd put it in her face that she really wasn't smart enough.

I hated such times.

I caught a glance from one of my other classmates,Yves. He just had a way with his eyes that threw waves of more guilt within me.

He was the quietest and most truthful. He was also rumoured to like Degama, but I don't believe it. I looked away from him.

Why did he always look at me with that eye? The eye of guilt, anxiety.... and who knows what else?

"The bell has rang," Alegria told me.

I hadn't heard it. I hadn't even noticed when the class had walked out and that it was only Alegria and I.

I looked at her and she looked at me.

"I should apologize for making her look that way," I said.

"You should have put your words together before anything,"Alegria advised.

"I never think before I speak," I confessed.

"You'll never make friends then," She warned.

Then a grin captured her face.

"Aren't you going for lunch?"

"I would never leave food for anything."

"I have a huge craving for rice today,"She said.

I stood up and so did she.

She was tall but I was taller. We grabbed our backpacks and hedded out.