Words could fly, words could mean something else, but what she had just heard was incoherent. Her stomach came turning just as her head swirled around.
A grave had been dug before her and everyone else was ready for her to fall, and she was definitely going to fall in, but how could she? How could it even be possible?!
"I -i don't understand what you mean, ma'am" she stammered with a gulp, seeing a dagger being stabbed right to her heart.
The receptionist looked at her with pitiful eyes for the first time and the strength to say to her the dread that had befallen her wasn't present. "You have been expelled. I ask you again, what did you do?"
She grew speechless at once… it looked like the whole world was chanting for her downfall. She could see the earth open, ready to swallow her. She walked out of her sight toward the head of departments block.
"Where are you going?" The receptionist said out loud.
She turned with the dregs of her strength and parted her lips for words to fall out. "I'm going to see Mrs Monica"
"She just traveled during the weekend. Expected to be back next two to three weeks… you can talk to anyone else, if you like"
Valentine shook her head. "I don't know anyone else." She said as a tear dropped down from her eyes. The receptionist shrugged and looped back to her job.
The strength to even think of why she was expelled was absent. She trudged past the desk and out of the building; she had failed her father without doing anything wrong.
Valentine couldn't just walk home, but she couldn't just stay there. If something could be done about it, then it should be done fast.
But nothing was going to be done about it because she knew no one else other than Lady Ganja who was growing a like for her. In one week time their exams would be up, and she wouldn't write exams.
She stood at the sidewalk in front of the building while waiting for a cab to take her home, someone slipped in a paper to her hands from behind and turned their back.
Valentine looked at her hand and found a piece of paper, she turned around and couldn't see anyone, and her curiosity had high waves.
The content of the paper was read aloud in her mind once she parted the enclosing corners. "Do whatever you have to do if you want to keep studying at Liege. Besides, I think I like seeing you around"
Her head tilted up, Then she wondered who was watching out for her, a look at the sky one last time, and she hastened her way out of the school premises.
****
Lina wasn't aware of her best friend's peril. But Valentine didn't want to bother her.
The walk to home which took some good meters had many accompanyings, including a growing depression and a tumour of anxiety, a lump of sadness and a hat of weakness.
She reluctantly dragged the door open to reveal to her father, her bereaved looking self which pulled out the old man out of his chair on an instant, bringing his feet firmly to the ground and trudging with it to her distressed looking daughter.
"Valentine? What happened to you?" Was the first sentence his lips could carry out from the heap of conceives going on in his mind.
He could had asked her if she was raped, but how could he? Because her virginity is his pride as well; for the greater good.
She hadn't the strength in her vocal chords and lips comply for a speech because what her body requested was to rest; it's been an exhausting walk as well.
Her father led her to sit down on the chair and sat closely beside her, looking into her weak eyes to fish out a possible answer himself.
Her father became worried, it was the first time she came home like that, even if something was wrong other times, she knew how to pull up with pretence, but this time around it seemed like there was no need to.
"Are you okay?" He asked, holding her cold hands. "Why are your hands cold? Is it cold today?"
A nod with her head followed.
"Oh" Palemo grabbed two sheets of thick blankets and hugged them to her body. "You will be warmed up soon"
"Thank you" Valentine whispered. Only if he could let it all go for the day, maybe she would have enough strength to talk about it the next day.
"Are you hungry?" He asked. Setting the pace for the coming of the messiah.
"Is not afternoon yet. But I don't think I would be able to eat anything else today"
"What? … What went wrong in school today? Are the lectures over for today? I thought Mondays should have more works? Why are you like this?" He questioned.
"I wish I can answer all of them individually"
"Don't worry, you can answer them anyway you want"
She turned to her father and stared at him for a little while. It had already happened, so the need to keep it a secret wasn't in any plane of existence.
"Is going to sound like a lot to you, because is a lot. I don't think I can ever get better from this…" she sobbed.
His best guess was seeming to be what it is, But he wouldn't say it just yet. He gulped, "What did you say happened again?" Maybe he had just heard it and it slipped away from the other side of his ears.
"I have been expelled" she said, with the coldness of fear in her eyes. She took her two hands to clean the tears around her pretty face.
Palemo was immediately bewildered. Comprehension was a bit far from reach. "Expelled as in? I don't really understand" he trembled.
"Mr Keftedakia I said I have been expelled from Liege College! I have been thrown out never to study there again!" She cried out, falling into her father's arms.
Sketches of disappointment, hopelessness and helplessness coloured itself obvious on his face. His heart ached, almost halting to beat.
It stinged him more than it did to her; he had been waiting for eighteen years. He couldn't cry nor think, or move or talk, but his heart had been broken.
He moved his hands to and caressed her hair while the other hand patted her back. But nothing happens without a cause.
"Why?"
"Mmm?" She whimpered.
"Why, Valentine? Why?"
"I don't know, I don't know." She was crying her eyes out.
The heat of the matter had overtook Palemo and a mixture of sadness and anger was evident. "What did you do, Valentine?"
"I swear I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything…"
Palemo slowly pushed her away from him and edged to the corner. His redened eyes and face was propped with his hand on his mouth, holding back his tears.
Valentine looked at him with utter disbelief. "You too don't trust me?" She whimpered.
Was she going to lose even her father? She ran inside her room and locked the door, crying out loud which muffled strongly outside of the room, but Palemo would rather grief on his own and think of something other than console his daughter.
Valentine cried, both with the mix of the expulsion and the realization that her dear father was getting bittered toward her, and wouldn't believe her.
The cold night iced her tears, and she whimpered all night long.