Vásquez Renjifo Nicolás, The Paradox Of Trust

THE PARADOX OF TRUST

Written By Nicolás Vásquez Renjifo

Will it be a good day today? Will it be a sunny day? I think everyone asked themselves that particular questions on the 18 th of September 2019. And it did. Everyone wanted that day to be perfect “first day of school” to the last one at Montgomery High. That particular day was a very sunny one; in fact, it was 107.6 ºF at noon. The sun was so intense that you could feel each of your pores secrete each droplet of sweat. The sunrays were in such direct angles that it felt like a magnifying glass on top of you. Everyone was arriving at school, and I was the first one to touch base. After myself, Greggory showed up on his Mustang GT, then Jorge on his Lamborghini Roadster and Veronica on his Audi Q7 after him.

I was in the parking lot, standing under the tree of the entrance, I was waiting for the bell to ring to go inside, and while waiting, I was reading a pretty exciting but bizarre book my English teacher from sophomore studies asked us to read. I am not sure if you’ve read it, but I’ll give you some clue, it’s a story of a weird kid that likes red, he hates yellow and poop, there is a murdered dog that he tries to find out who killed him. Oh! And he knows how to predict the future with cars passing by on the driveway. Pretty weird, isn’t it? You should read it. You’ll get to love it.

After a short instant, I heard some loud noise, and immediately I thought of Duke Ronalds Dickenson. He and his lovely ritual of arriving at school as if anyone cared about him accelerating on neutral his Mclaren P1. I thought.

With him came in his best friend Christian. And after him in a Ford Raptor F150, 2019 came in all of his other folks playing in the car at full volume this song “Losing it” from FISHER with the windows pulled down. The noise was so loud I felt the bass echoing and making my chest bump. But I enjoyed it because I like the song.

I quit reading the book and decided to walk inside. It was a

quarter past eight in the morning, and the class started at 8:30 am. People were talking about their summer vacations with their friends and laughing and hugging.

Suddenly; the sound of a Yamaha MT-10 broke the silence in the classroom, and the atmosphere in the room made my blood as cold as the brisk air that crept through an open window. There was no whispering noise or rustling from the rest of the students. It was from Harry James Buttwillowe. He took his helmet off with the weird painting of Venom teeth on the mouth area, showing off his straight blond hair glowing like the sun. He was a good looking guy. Students stared at him, getting off his bike as if it was a TV show. All of the girls were whispering between them about him.

Harry James got down to his feet from his motorcycle, left his helmet on the top of his lovely bike, and started walking to the entrance of the school.

When he was inside the main hall where the lockers were, Duke and Harry met. Duke approached him with all of his football team, folks.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Asked Duke. “Hey.” Said, Harry.

“So you are the new guy, huh, let’s get to know each other” Duke asked while grabbing Harry around his neck.

“Leave me alone, man, gotta go to class.”

Said Harry while getting Duke’s hands off of him and leaving for the classroom.

“Oh, look at this little asshole.” Said Duke mocking around with his folks.

“I was just trying to be nice, huh.” He added.

Later that day, some people did meet Harry James. They said that he was brilliant, amusing and kind; except that he didn’t like jokes.

The students later found out that; on his other school, he

used to be maltreated and experienced bullying, and on the basis thereof, he heartily despised such bad behaviors. People didn’t get to know him very well; he was kind of reserved about his life.

Everyone was outside in the parking lot, screaming and laughing about something, so I ran to see what was happening. Harry was with Mrs. Peterson, asking somethings about the class. Still, when everyone was shouting, he came out of the room and went to the parking lot.

When Harry arrived, everyone hopped onto their cars and left. And the only thing that left behind, in the parking lot, was his Yamaha MT-10 on the ground painted and vandalized. He just cleaned it up and left.

Along the school year, time passed by; Harry and Duke didn’t get along with each other. There was always some tension between them because Duke has always been trying to intimidate and produce fear in Harry, but he didn’t care about it; he was very determined on those things. Also, Harry hated bullying, so; he tried to evade him at all costs. Duke was always with his football team, folks. On the other hand, Harry was well known for helping people at school with different classes and also on extracurricular hours with some math and sciences, including some of Duke’s loyal friends in secret.

Students started to feel and to think that Harry James was a good friend. Unlike Duke; they started acknowledging that he wasn’t the best person, everybody thought he was, and that he should stop being a bully.

A month later, Harry James gained popularity at school and enlarged his group of friends. People started to spend time with him; at parties, he was the life of it. And Duke as always; he was trying to beat him down in all aspects.

Someday, as I can’t recall the exact day, everyone was hanging in the cafeteria at Montgomery High, and Harry

James had grabbed his lunch to sit down with some friends, and Duke approached him and started yelling.

“Hahaha, I know about you now, you asshole.” Said Duke while dripping some juice on the floor on purpose.

“Come and bring your mop, groomer.”

“Yeah, I know that you mop Mcdonald’s floor to pay your house bills.” He added.

Anyone understood what Duke was saying. But obviously, Duke had done some investigating on him, and he discovered that he lived with his mother in some lousy neighborhood, and he needed to help with the house bills. Additionally, his dad had left them on their own because it turned out that his father was having an affair with another man.

Everyone after that felt compassion for him and felt that Duke was a terrible person in values for what he had done just to regain his popularity. They continued hanging out with Harry James. Unlike Duke, he Finally had some of his soup of crap. He was now left alone.

After the holidays, back at school in January, Harry was now the popular kid with lots of friends. They all spent the new year’s eve and had some incredible parties that looked like a “Project X” the movie. Days passed by, and all stayed the same. Duke Ronald and his money and attitude didn’t matter now; students grew to understand that not everything in life is about money. Harry James, instead, was pleased with his new friends and new social life, but even like that, people trusted him but didn’t know him completely.

As people believed him, he knew some of the top secrets things on each of his friends, which empowered him in many aspects as time went by; some conflicts broke-out in paradise; and Harry’s allegiances were placed in questions unexpectedly.

One day at school, Harry James betrayed the trust of one of his friends by exposing a very complicated and messed up

secret that he was privy with; while having lunch with his new friends in the cafeteria. Unintentionally, this intended act led him to the same familiar position Duke ended in, the day he exposed Harry in the cafeteria.

Harry James found himself alone again, which was very heavy for him, and people thought that they might get back to Duke because he made some mistake, but he showed his true self and the way he is. And well, that happens in life, sometimes we trust people by what they seem to be, but on their inside, they can be another story.