“Hello? May I speak to Jennifer please?”

    “This is Jennifer speaking. Is that Mary? What are you calling me for?”

    As I heard the familiar clear, tender voice of my teacher on the other side of the phone, I tried my best to control myself from bursting into tears once again. I didn’t want her to hear me sobbing. Keeping my voice as calm as possible, I spoke the sentence that had been spinning continuously in my mind for half an hour: “I’m so sorry.”

    For 10 seconds after that, it was complete silence. I felt like dying, like I was being strangled by the silent atmosphere on either end of the line.

    Jennifer cleared her throat a little bit and slowly, in a rather disappointed tune, said: “What could have been in your mind? I told you not to tell him — I told you not to tell anyone.”

    I didn’t answer. Yes, I’d been asking myself that same question minutes ago. Joseph was, indeed, a good friend of mine. Yet I should have known that he was not the kind of boy who would just laugh everything away. Joseph flew into a rage after I told him Jennifer’s choice and words and he kept on hollering: “Why you? Why not me? This is not fair! ...” And then he walked away and started deliberately causing trouble in Jennifer’s class.

    “Did you forget what I said?” Jennifer’s voice again. “Or didn’t I express my idea clearly enough for you to understand?”

    “No…I didn’t forget…I understood you…It wasn’t your fault…” I muttered, pressing down the tears. Jennifer really trusted me. She thought I was trustworthy enough for her to tell me the reason why she didn’t choose Joseph for the special occasion.

    “He is not suitable for such an important occasion. I’ll only let you know this, Mary. Do not tell anyone else, especially Joseph!”

    Yet I told Joseph every single word Jennifer told me. And before long, everything went into a huge mess.

    And then, sitting alone on the wooden bench in the shade of a tree, holding the mobile phone in my hand, I wished I had kept my mouth shut. But I couldn’t change things that had happened in the past.

    “Do you hate me?” I blurted out quickly.

    Jennifer was silent for a few seconds, and then she giggled — a hearty, genuine, amused laugh. “Of course not!” she said.

    “You need to cool down a little bit,” Jennifer’s voice was the best remedy for a regretting heart, “and wipe your tears.”

    I held the phone close to my ear long after the familiar “click” on the other end of the line signaled that the last chance to say that sentence was lost. I wiped my eyes again and stood up.

    The very virtue that is worth cherishing is forgiveness. It is a common noun with only 11 letters, yet one might take a lifetime to know what this simple combination of 11 letters really means to others.

    I stuffed the mobile phone back into my pocket and headed back home.