[fiction] Destiny
by Bella Feng
It was the last day of the College Entrance Examination. Wearing faded school uniforms, a tall and thin girl stepped out of the exam room with heavy, reluctant paces. She knew that her parents were waiting for her anxiously outside the school gate. However, she didn’t want to see them. To be exact, she didn’t want to see anybody.
“My life is over,” the girl said to herself when walking. She thought she had just screwed up the most significant exam in her whole life. “Why? Why am I always unfortunate?” The girl jumped to conclusions that her fate was totally miserable and hopeless. She was just 19 years old. The wind in early June was still a little cool and the breeze, like a naughty child, seemed to dishevel her hair and clothes deliberately, which made her more upset.
Although she was unwilling to see parents’ eyes so full of anticipation about her, she still walked up to the school gate and waved to them. Beyond her expectations, they even had a gift -- a bunch of beautiful flowers. “Congratulations!” her mother said with excitement, and then gave her a big hug.
Nobody noticed that the girl slightly frowned. She didn’t show her reluctance obviously. In fact, she was not accustomed to her mother’s enthusiasm and sudden, intense love. “What the %^$*!” the girl was silently thinking. “ I’ve had enough of this kind of hypocrisy--they always wear the masks... --that makes me sick.”
“How was your exam?” Her father asked eagerly, and then intended to help the girl take her bag.
“Not bad.” The girl responded to her father calmly, but rejected her father’s kindness. She pretended to be delighted with a barely smile on her face. Sitting in the back of car, the girl shook her head, glancing satirically at that bunch of flowers. Her parents seemed in harmony: outwardly united, yet actually alienated; best performers with strong acting skills, and even could win Oscars. “Yes, Oscars should be awarded to them,” the girl nodded silently.
She did know that her parents hadn’t divorced only because of her; they didn’t want to disturb her study. To be exact, they never tolerated the girl’s grades going down. Her parents firmly believed that a divided family would influence her academic performance, and ruin her whole future and life.
Unfortunately, she knew the truth. She knew everything!
“If not for my child, I was already finding a new husband and left you away, you big jerk!” This was her mother’s shout. Then, the girl heard the harsh sound of breaking vases. In that midnight, her world totally collapsed. Living under the spell of an illusion every day, under huge pressure, the girl was almost mad. “Maybe this is my destiny,” she grumbled, “and I just need to accept it.”
Her parents considered themselves perfect parents, because everything they had done was good for their daughter, regardless of her thoughts. “They were moved by themselves. But they didn’t move me,” she wrote in her diary. She even gave them opportunities to to confess everything. To her huge disappointment, her parents were all but lost in this false image of an ideal family.
Later, she found happiness through this farce. The harder they acted, the more happiness she would obtain. In her eyes, they were like clowns. Watching them play-acting became one of her enjoyments.
Suddenly, her father’s voice interrupted her wanderings.
“Can you predict how well you did in the exam?” Her father kept asking while driving, wanting more and more information.
However, this time only silence responded to him.
Three years ago, the girl had experienced the first failure of her life. She didn’t perform as well as she possibly could have in the Middle School entrance exam. At the time, her goal was to go to the best high school in her hometown. On the contrary, she was admitted to the worst high school. “This is my destiny, beyond my command, she said to herself, in tears. Her parents questioned her with astonishment, instead of giving her comfort.
The fifteen days spent waiting for final scores were boring and stressful. To the girl, it was a kind of torture as well. She estimated the score of every subject according to standard answers, and the estimated scores were extremely low. “Maybe I would have no chance of becoming a student at the university,” the girl thought desperately. She thought she was like an animal who was stuck in a swamp and seemed increasingly bogged down. Three years, she had spent preparing for the College Entrance Exam. Ironically, it appeared her efforts would be in vain.
During the days when she stayed with her parents, they were always intimate, chatting with each other with laughter. In the nights, their room was completely silent.
The day was still coming when students could search their final scores online, after 8 p.m. In the darkness, next to the bunch of flowers withering on the bedside table, the girl lay still in bed like a dead body. She felt like her body without control was going down, down, down, the breeze disheveling her hair.
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