At The End of the Line

<p>"Your child is very smart, she easily understand the lessons and is also very talented."<br/><br/>I saw my parents smiled when they heard what my teacher said. They look at me, happiness and pride reflecting their eyes.<br/><br/>I felt exhilerated. Proud. And happy being complimented. Just simple things that a child would feel in their more simpler mind.<br/><br/>Maybe, that's where it started. At the back of my head, the version of me who must always excell with eveything started to form. And so, I worked harder than everyone else to improve and be the top of eveything.<br/><br/>At the age of 4, I already memorized the multiplication table and can do some division. <br/><br/>At the age of 5, I stopped reading kid's book and start reading a dictionary. <br/><br/>At the age of 6, I was top 1 of our class excelling in every subject.<br/><br/>At the age of 7, I was praised not only of my intellegence but also because of my talent in art and dancing.<br/><br/>At the age of 8, I was receiving awards from multiple quiz bee for district and division levels. <br/><br/>At the age of 9, I won my first national Math quiz bee and was awarded with the division dance competition that our school partook in.<br/><br/>At the age of 10, I became a member of the our school paper, focusing on news writing and editorial cartooning.<br/><br/>At the age of 11, I became the president of our school news paper and went straight to the nationals, being the pride of our school.<br/><br/>At the age of 12, I graduated with flying honors and march as the valedictorian of our class.<br/><br/>Everything is going smoothly as planned, I imagined going to high school achieving the same things when I was in grade school. Graduating valedictorian and making my way to my dream college with my dream course. But life isn't easy just like that. <br/><br/>I don't know if it was because my family fell apart during highschool. Or whether it was because we were suddenly buried in debt. Or because I went in a school full of smart kids, top of their classes in grade school (like me) that I slowly realized that I was nothing special. <br/><br/>That there are real monster in this world. People like our highschool valedictorian Mia who won every quiz bee she participated in, who always almost perfect on the exam even if she don't review. People like Aubrey, who draw like a pro, naturally born talented and self taught. People like Sam who is not only talented in dancing but is also an excellent singer.<br/><br/>It's like I only blinked for a second then woke up and became average in everything that I do.<br/><br/>I'm nothing special like I thought I was. <br/><br/>I was average.<br/><br/>Fucking normal.<br/><br/>That's when everything started going downhill.<br/></p>