The Turning Point
The Turning Point
“Hi there, what’s up?” he said into the speaker.
His friend shouted out, “Where did you put your phone all this while? I've been calling you like a hundred times now. I haven’t picked up the call. What’s going on, buddy? Talk to me,” he said.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down. What’s going on? Why have you been calling me?” James asked.
“Didn’t you hear the rumor that has been going on in school. Dude, what was that picture all about?” he said.
James just said, “Just forget it already. It’s nothing I want to deal with right now, and besides, I don’t care what the counselor thinks because I dropped my resignation letter already, so I don’t care about any of those things right now,” he said to him.
His friend was shocked over the phone. “What do you mean by dropping your resignation letter? Why didn’t you tell me that you resigned already?”
“Well, just forget about it. All I know is don't come to school tomorrow. I’m begging you, please don’t come over,” he said to him.
James just coughed. “Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine,” he said as he ended the call immediately without waiting for him to respond.
James immediately tossed his phone aside as he went to bed.
He woke up early at the sound of his alarm, tripped up, dressed up, and was ready to go to the university. He got into his car and drove off.
On getting to the school’s gates, he met his lecturer friend who had called him late last night. As he got down from the car and walked towards him, the lecturer said, “What do you think you are doing, James? I told you not to come to school today. You’re only going to pull up more trouble for yourself. Please don’t show yourself in front of the counselor,” he said.
“Just pick this chance now, turn around and go back. Or maybe before next week, he will calm down and everything will be resourceful. Now he’s very angry, and he might just make a bad decision on impulse,” he said to James.
But James didn’t want any of it. “Just forget it. I already told you I’m going to sort everything out, even if it means confessing to everything that they saw was the truth,” James said to his friend as he looked at him dumbfounded.
James walked back to his car and drove into the buildings. He immediately went into his office and saw the counselor approach him.
“I can’t believe you could do this kind of thing, James. I’m very disappointed in you,” he said as James just walked past him.
James knew that this was bound to happen sooner or later, so he didn’t really care about it that much as he walked into his office.
Not long after, a lecturer came to knock on the door, informing him that there was an urgent meeting for all lecturers and he had to be there because it was the main point of the meeting.
As James nodded his head and said, “I’ll be there shortly,” he stood up from the chair and walked into the meeting room.
Meanwhile, everybody was already present here, and as soon as James walked in, they looked at him displeased. All of them felt really disappointed at what he had done.
He didn’t really care about anything as he greeted them and immediately sat down on the chair. The counselor looked at him, puzzled, thinking how he could remain so calm despite what he had done.
But James didn’t even care. He sat down on his seat and looked up at the counselor, gazing at him directly.
Meanwhile, as James sat in a state of calm, the counselor was surprised that he was even unbothered about everything, not scared that he might lose his job due to what had happened.
So the counselor spoke up. “So what do you have to say? I guess you were already informed about what is going on and what this meeting is about. What do you have to say to defend yourself?”
James stood up and cleared his throat. “Okay, first, yes, a picture of me with a student was posted. But did you closely look at that picture? Is that picture too intimate? Like, is it a kind of intimacy that is not supposed to be seen between a lecturer and his students?”
As everybody stared at their phones, looking at the picture intently, the counselor immediately took out his phone, searched for the picture, and looked at it closely. He saw that though it was intimate, it was not the kind of intimacy that can't actually be seen. Something might have happened to Isabella at that point in time, maybe she was crying, that made James comfort her.
“Oh God,” he thought.
“To comfort her, every part of the picture had a lot of meaning. And besides, aside from the picture, there is no other proof that Isabella and I are actually having a secret affair together.”
James continued talking without even allowing any of them to respond. “So I don’t see any reason why everybody is concluding that I am actually having a secret relationship with Isabella. Please, before you guys come out to blame somebody, you have to look into the evidence very well. And if there is no supporting evidence to strongly support that your claims are actually right, you don’t have the right to judge people.”
He said, “Everybody in school is already judging Isabella and calling her all sorts of names without even knowing what really happened back there at my office to make me hug her in that way. That picture has a lot of meaning. It doesn’t clearly mean that I was intimate with her or that we’re actually having a secret relationship. I guess someone is just doing all of this out of jealousy for either me or Isabella. Someone actually wants to tarnish one of our reputations.”
He said out loud to the counselor as the counselor looked at him, feeling proud of him again as he smiled. “James actually didn’t disappoint me. I only overthought this,” he thought to himself as the counselor just kept on staring at James.
“Mr. Counselor, I saw your message. You said I disappointed you. I never disappointed you in any way. You were the one who didn’t investigate this matter clearly, and I’m very disappointed in you that you actually judged me without knowing the truth of the matter,” James said to the counselors.
The counselor dropped his head in shame. Yes, he had actually misjudged, and this was something that could have ruined James's career if he hadn't been patient and asked for him to clear up his name.
He thought to himself as a lecturer stood up. “We are very sorry, James, for judging you without actually knowing the truth. Please, I’m begging all of you, in case this kind of thing happens to another lecturer, even before the person is able to come out to defend himself. What if the person had already gone into a mental condition? This kind of accusation is possible to make someone actually lose their own self-esteem or fall ill mentally.”
James said to all of them as they looked at him dumbfounded. They didn’t know what to say. They had actually come here thinking that at last they would be able to boo James because he had been all high and mighty. They were envious of him because the counselor always favored him the most. Some of them even hated him for that reason. And they thought this was their chance to humiliate James and show the counselor that he was not actually who he thought he was.
But James didn’t even care about any of them. “Besides, I did not come here just to defend myself because I want to keep my career. I am still going to submit another resignation letter, Mr. Counselor, even if you revoke my other resignation letter. Seeing as all of you can’t even stand up for me and try to hear my opinion before judging me as this kind of person, I don’t think I want to work with any of you because I know that all of you have always been envious of me because the counselor favored me the most. I don’t want to be in this kind of working space anymore.”
He said to them as he stood up and walked out of the meeting room. Everybody just sat there, dumbfounded, as the counselor immediately stood up also and walked out of the meeting room. Everybody started walking out immediately.
James came out of the meeting room and went into the hallway. On his way out of the school building, he saw Lily. “Wow,” she smiled. “I hope you have already been suspended by now. I know that after seeing that picture, the counselor will suspend you or better still, fire you from this university.”
She said to him sarcastically, feeling very happy. “Yes, now I know my plan has worked. If you would just beg me to forgive you, and if you would allow the both of us to be in a relationship, I can easily tell my dad to help you speak to the counselor so you can get your job back. All you just have to do is plead with me,” she said to James.
He just looked at her and laughed out loud. “Who do you think you are, Lily, for me to beg you? Why would I even beg you? Even if my career is on the line right now, I will never be in a relationship with you because I love only Isabella, and I will never fall in love with you with this idiot character.”
He said to her as Lily looked at him. “And for your information, I wasn’t suspended. I already cleared my name, but still, I’m not going to stay in the school. I was actually the person who dropped a resignation letter, and they didn’t even suspend me. They are all begging me to come back to school, but I’m not going to stay in this school any longer,” he said to Lily.
At least they were shocked.