Acumen: Riddling Life

Late fall of Junior year high school [pt2](13)

That night

I close my textbooks and walk out of my room and down the stairs, for dinner; the paper clutched in my hand.

I walk into our dining hall and sit in the middle with Mom and Dad on either end of the table.

Avery hasn't come yet, or maybe she won't be joining at all. With Theo off to college, the table feels too empty.

Mom starts typing in her phone and dad hardly looked up from his tablet since I've entered and sat.

I stare at the paper in my hand.

It's now or never.

I inhale sharply and fix my gaze on the vase in the middle of the table.

"I need to tell you something," I start. Mom and Dad's heads snap up immediately.

"Is something wrong?" Dad asks as he puts his iPad away.

"Is it your reflux again? Do you want us to take you to your doctor?" Mom worriedly asks.

I shake my head no, "No mom, it's not that I'm fine, it's something else," I say. Mom sighs as she puts her glasses away, waiting for me to continue.

I glance at dad to see he's leaning into his chair, waiting. I feel my heartbeat steadily rising, my palms starting to get sweaty. I inhale sharply, gathering my courage as I place the paper on the table.

I notice both of them narrowing their eyes.

"It's a notice... to join USAAAO, astronomy Olympiads... school has decided they'll get tutors for me and..."

"And then what?" Mom snaps.

"We've talked about this already, you'll focus on your school works... only." Dad says.

"I know! But just hear me out..." I begin but mom shakes her head.

"No Eleanor! You said you don't want to study biology, you don't want to enter medical science, fine! But this? No. Absolutely no."

"But I enjoy this," I say, trying my best not to sound desperate.

"Let's imagine you take part in this... then what?" Dad asks.

I look at him perplexed, "And then I'll start studying astronomy and if I work hard enough for it I might win a gold medal and go to international level." I say, with a small smile.

"Then what? You already are part of two other extracurriculars." Dad flatly says.

"I know... but I like physics, I like astronomy," it's actually 'love physics and astronomy' but I don't want to push them, 'like' will suffice for now.

"And then what? Imagine you get international gold... then what? You'll head off to MIT and study physics?" Dad asks.

Mom shakes her head I open my mouth, the words stick to my throat. "Yes, probably," I manage to say.

Mom huffs, "You want to study physics? After everything?"

"Physics makes me happy!" I say.

Mom rolls her eyes, "And after ten years you want to be a physics professor?" Mom asks with annoyance.

"Eleanor, we're not saying being a professor is a bad thing, it's just not the lifestyle you've been brought up in," Dad says. "Right now, you're a teenage, you think you know what's right but you don't, you can't live like that,"

I know that it makes me happy. Isn't that enough? "I don't understand, what does this have to do with any of those things? I feel happy when study astronomy, it feels right," I try to reason with them.

"So should saving lives, being useful and earning money." Mom snaps. "Look around you, a comfortable house in the best part of New York, this is where you've grown up, you don't even know what financial problem means! Your father and I are providing everything for you!" she moves her hand around, indicating the house.

"We save lives, why doesn't that make you happy? Today you want to enter this nonsense and tomorrow you'll come and say you're going to major in physics, that's what it has to do with this. We are giving you everything you ask and don't ask for, and yet here you sit and act ungrateful, I'm very disappointed." Mom's clipped voice feels like a knife stabbing my heart.

"Being a professor is very honorable, but Eleanor not everyone will reach breakthroughs like Einstein and other famous scientists, the rest are forgotten. Why waste your potential over something with no certain outcome." Dad calmly but firmly says.

Why don't they understand me?

"You said you like maths and physics, we agreed that you'll make yourself ready to head to Harvard, engineering faculties only. When you have the potential to become someone important and make a difference, why are you risking it? Why do you want to waste it?" Mom says with annoyance.

"It's the only thing that makes me happy," I plead.

Mom's stone-cold gaze fixes on me, disappointment shadowing it.

"You'll be risking everything... for absolutely nothing!" Dad says, incredulously. "I thought you were smarter than that," he says, shaking his head.

"This is the only thing that makes me happy, the only part of the day that I look up to is the time I put aside for this," I try to explain.

Mom shakes her head in disappointment. "After everything we've given you, all we ask is to not ruin your life! Is that too much to ask Eleanor?" Mom's voice cuts through the room and me. Her loud voice like claws scraping the inside of my skull.

When I'm studying astronomy, it's the only time I don't feel alone, like an error, an outcast, I feel good about myself. Why are they taking it away form me? Why don't they understand? I'm telling them that it makes me happy, and still, they don't care. Still, they want to take it away from me.

"How about we do this," Dad suddenly starts, I look up to meet his green eyes. "You will participate in its exams and classes under one condition, your grades mustn't change the slightest, and you have to give your hundred percent to those competitions you're already in. If your As turn to A-minus, you'll cross it out," Dad firmly says.

That's impossible!

"She won't be able to manage that, it's clear as a day," mom says.

"Well maybe she needs to see it herself since she can't understand it any other way, she has to have weeks of sleepless nights to understand what we're saying, then let her have it," Dad replies.

Mom sighs and shakes her head.

"That's the only condition if you want to do this," mom says after a long pause.

"I can do it," I say as I look up from my fiddling fingers and hold dad's gaze.

'If you really desire something deeply from your heart, the whole universe sets towards getting you to that'... I'd read that somewhere, it's time to see its accuracy.

It's impossible and the odds don't favor me, but my will and passion will cover it up, it has to.

I stand up and place the paper in front of dad, "I will do it," I say and he sighs, shaking his head as he takes the pen out of his shirt's pocket and signs the paper.

After dinner, I walk back into my room unable to hold back the huge grin on my face as I start planning my studying schedule and later that night facetime with Jace.

+++

((Again a slightly dramatic chapter :)) I had to show her parents this side too. So what are your thoughts on this chapter? Thanks for reading and don't forget to vote!))