No More Innocence

SEVENTEEN

As a student- I was a chirpy one – the energetic one. Emily became my best friend when she started a year later- though couple years older she was a child at heart. Her heart remained pure until the day her mother died of  cardiac arrest- I was fourteen when I decided Emily Gagnon wasn't just my friend, she was my sister from another mother- who died and left me a broken daughter to heal.

While healing her- the things I began working on became more complex than ever. It would even sometimes took me a day to figure out just what my thoughts on them where. When I turned fifteen – the bell to my dorm rang. It was a letter addressed to me from Mr. Ikeda.

They were my grades.

A gasp had left my lips when I recognized the academies symbol embossed on top of the papers. I had topped them all. When I read the small note that came with it in the familiar scripted writing of old Mr. Ikeda I couldn't help but grin like fool as I read.

Miss Davies. I had been on this profession for more than twenty six years now. Hundreds of students walk in with dreams and what they believe Is extraordinary skills that they wish to be guided with. I help them towards their goal. But with you- you were different since the day you walked in, you were just here to paint. To enjoy. To live. And to adapt. You weren't here for you. But for others. Kind, bright and filled with life. Your work blossoms with hope and longing. A very rare phenomenon to be seen in the world of arts. We celebrate the tragedy with so much passion then we often forget the thing that keeps us alive.

Hope.

We annihilate the idea of hope while romanticizing complexities.

But you- you do it your way. But I am afraid that this will change as you grow. As you begin to respond to your hardships the way it would want you to. I would not wish for the face of a Judas Iscariot on your line. As I decide to quit my career at sapphire at seventy one year of age- I may die or loose my diminishing eyesight before I would get to see you being recognized by the world. But I heartily pray for the peace and prosperity on your part for I can't lose a pupil like you to the evil this universe has to offer.

Mr. Ikeda

I like to think it was the last anyone ever heard from him in academy- the news of him passing away a month before my graduation circulated- that day I had read the letter for the second time, it's when his existence had hit me in reality. Juggling between puberty, teenage and schooling it took me his death to pay him the respect I must've bestowed on him for all those years.

I cried and slept with guilt clogging mind that night.

After the graduation I had received another letter, this time it wasn't the soft recycled paper and fancy writing from Mr.Ikeda. Rather a hardened copy of printed letter with a college kit book from oversees. London to be exact.

A scholarship that I had applied for.

Being accepted wasn't a surprise.

What surprised me was forgetting everything that had happened next-

Did I celebrate? Was I a good student? What did I even learn? Who did I meet?

I remember the Chadler guy who was at the hospital, who had supposed I was his friend. Did I attend parties? What life had I lived for two years in an alien country? Was I accepted? Did I date?

As I sat touching the sewed wounds and meddling with it I wondered if this had become my identity.

A failure.