I felt like I was going to lose it. I began to run.
I ran into a restroom and locked myself in a stall. My palms were sweaty and the thin layers of skin that I called my cheeks were red. I was sweaty and I became weary. I was malnourished, sleep deprived, I was dying. And no one asked me how I’d been really feeling. Not my grandmother, not my friends, not the teachers. Not one of them made an effort to discover the full brunt of my anxiety.
I never asked my grandmother for help, because I never wanted her to think less of me academically. A student in the top ten percent of her class should be able to handle herself as a student, I would tell myself. Always try your best would echo in my head. I’m supposed to be a grown up, I told myself, I don’t need other people to help me, I told myself. You’re intelligent, you’re independent, I told myself. There were so many things running through my mind. I didn’t know what I should have done, what I should do, what I should believe.
I held tightly onto my backpack and bit it, holding back my cry and muffling it with the material. It hurt. It hurt to cry. To feel powerless. To have no one really asking how I felt. It hurt. And it still hurts. And I cried and I tried my best to muffle my sobbing.
“I’m never good enough,” I thought. Bloodshot eyes, gasping for air, concealing my voice. I had messed up and I needed help and I didn’t know who to turn to.
I whimpered and the tears kept sliding. It hurt, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. It hurt.
Chapter 24
A week after that incident, many students began to apply to the Universities of California. The application process lasted for exactly one month—starting on the first day of November and ending on the last day of November. Throughout the whole month, we had Late Nights, which meant that administrators stayed late once a week to help us apply.
Finally, my moment to prove myself worthy was here, but I couldn’t help feeling that it had been tarnished by my entire senior year. I didn’t know the outcome of my whole grade situation, but I tried to apply nonetheless.
After I had my stress-induced breakdown, I began experiencing strange incidents. About two days later, I remember being home late at night doing one of my AP Statistics assignments. I had my textbook open and I was punching numbers into my graphing calculator. My grandmother was asleep, and I was alone. I was calculating some numbers and constructing a graph, when all of a sudden, I heard a strange sound. It sounded almost like someone was exhaling. I got chills across my body. The hairs on my body stood up and goose bumps covered my skin. It was so sudden. I wasn’t sure where it came from and I shook my graphing calculator to make sure nothing was wrong with it. I looked under my desk and under my bed, but nothing.
My eyes were exhausted from reading so late into the night.
I poked my head outside my room and found nothing unusual. I heard something brush up against my window, so I moved aside my curtains, expecting to find something, but again, nothing was there. It was just a light breeze brushing up against my small maple tree outside my window. I made a rather daring move and slid the window open just a tiny bit. My eyes peered under the crack to check if there was anything outside, but nothing—just the dry autumn weather. Maybe someone was walking outside, I thought to myself.
I shut the window again and went back to analyzing data from my calculator. And I remember that I had to do something with a ‘regression’ function on my calculator. I remember I had notes on the subject in my backpack, so I began digging to find my notes. Taking out my binder, I began flipping pages in hopes of finding it. A minute had gone by, and another, and another. I was getting tired and I looked over at my clock in my room. It read 1:26 A.M.
Damn. I thought to myself. It’s getting late. I have to finish.
I began digging some more, and no luck. I even began getting frustrated for a bit. Another minute had gone by, and still no luck. 1:28 A.M. the clock read.
My heartbeat increased a little, as I couldn’t seem to find it. I bit my lips in hopes of remembering, until I remembered that I had written the information in my notebook.
I grabbed it, and there it was. I hit some more buttons on my calculator, but then I got stuck again. I didn’t know how to use the functions very well on my calculator and I was at a standstill.
I stared at my calculator and my notes. My eyes felt tired.
“You can do this, Sam,” I remember telling myself.
“Well, what happens if you don’t?” I heard a whisper which I assumed was my own.
“Well, I get in trouble and my grade keeps dropping,” I answered.
“But Sam, you can’t do this” said the whisper.
“No, I can. I just need time. I can handle this.” I said out loud.
“You know Sam, it’s true what you were thinking earlier. You’re right. You are struggling.”
“I know. But I have to try to make it into an exceptional university. I made it this far. I just need to send in my application later this month and not fail my classes, and then I am set. I can enjoy my life once I am in a good college,” I said.
And after all, that had been my motivation all throughout middle school and high school especially. I always tried hard in my academics, never did I falter in effort or quality. I was ranked 35 out of a class of 550 students.
I finally finished my homework at 1:57 A.M., and as I turned, I saw this dark figure outside my window for a quarter of a second. I couldn’t tell if the figure had any specific clothing. But I remembering small glistening, ruby-red sparks surrounding the figure. It was the strangest thing ever. I blinked harder as my eyes were overworked, but nothing was there, I wasn’t even sure if I had seen anything to begin with.
I turned off the lights and finally went to bed.
Chapter 25
When the UC application deadline approached, it was much harder to balance school and the college process itself. I remember one of our AP teachers getting mad at our class because none of us did a reading assignment that we were supposed to complete. Most of us didn’t do it because we had the applications going on at the same time, but he didn’t take that into consideration.
Eventually, November 26 approached. We had just come back from our Thanksgiving break and were finishing up our applications as the website usually crashed in the last two days.
On November 28, a Wednesday, I was finishing up some last details on my UC application. I remember it was very late again, 11:47 P.M.
My grandmother was asleep and so were most of my friends. I had my desktop computer on. The monitor’s screen was incredibly large. I remember I had music playing that night, and I was working on my UC application. I was typing in some of the awards I had gotten over the past three years into a section labeled ‘Awards.’
I was filling in my volunteer work into another section called ‘Community Involvement,’ when all of a sudden, I stopped typing. I was staring at the luminous screen.
Everything that I had strived for in the past three years of high school was here. And for some reason, I stopped.
“Sam,” echoed in my head. “Go to sleep. You’ve worked enough for today,”
“I have to keep going,” I said. “I’m almost done. And the deadline is almost here. I can’t mess this up. My future depends on this.”
“Sam. You are always too busy. Call it a day already,” said the echo.
“No. I said no,” I remember my voice peaking a bit.
“Sam, it’s just this one time. Look at you up so late at midnight,” the echo had become more solidified. It transformed into a voice. It had an obscure low-pitch tone and was a little warped.
“Sam, you are withering away. Just this one time, take a break,” it continued.
I didn’t budge. Finishing and submitting this application was my most important priority, even more than my school assignments and any other project for that matter. Submitting this application meant a great deal to me. It was my stepping-stone into the future that I had fought for all these months. Submitting the appl
ication meant that I would be able to finally prove that I was a champion student, that I had made exceptional efforts to get to where I was.
At the time, I didn’t qualify for any fee waivers, because my grandmother generated too much income to qualify for them. Because I did not qualify, I had to pay about $70 for every application. After talking it over with my grandmother, we came to the consensus that she would only be able to pay for one. And with only one option, I knew what school I was going to decide to go to. The school that I had envisioned throughout the past year had been UC Berkeley. I chose a school that was compatible with the type of student that I was. I was motivated, intelligent, committed, and had a large capacity for endurance. I did everything that I needed to get what I wanted. I had a cumulated a 4.4 weighted GPA over the past three years. My entire transcript consisted of almost all straight A’s, abundant honors and AP courses, and a rank of 35. I was an ambitious student with a ferocious transcript. I had it all—the grades, scores, club involvement, community service, and personal statement. I wasn’t just ‘well-rounded,’ I was merciless in every way as a student. I was ready to conquer the world, and UC Berkeley was going to be my school.
“Sam. You’re dying. It’s despicable. You’re embarrassing,” I remember the voice saying. I felt a sudden shock run up my spine from the bizarre comment. I felt paralyzed. The voice kept speaking. I didn’t know what was going on. The low-pitched voice had become so distinct. It had taken this dark turn, and I knew that it wasn’t my voice or my thoughts.
“Sam. Don’t apply to UC Berkeley. You’re just going to disappoint yourself. Don’t even apply anywhere else,” it said. “You can’t handle it, Sam. You’re a joke. You’re a joke to everyone. To your counselor, teachers, grandmother, friends, every single one of them. You’re an embarrassment, the sad little laughing stock of your damn school. Everyone is doing great, and you’re just there embarrassing yourself Sam,” the voice said.
My heart had been thumping heavily in my chest and through my ears, but the voice continued.
“Everyone is doing great, and you’re just sitting there trying to justify your life as if you had a future. You’re not like your peers; you are something less, something insignificant, Sam. You will never amount to the successes of the intelligent students in your class. You can’t even handle the classes you are taking now. You can’t even catch up, your work isn’t good anymore, and you’re just withering away, Sam. I bet all of your peers talk behind your back. I bet they talk about how stupid you are,” it said to me, and I had no way to disprove the voice. I had no evidence to prove that anyone still liked me. No one even bothered to ask about me anymore.
“You don’t even have friends anymore. They left you, and you’re all alone now. No one can stand you and your pathetic little spectacle as a ‘so-called’ prodigy. Trying to play yourself as an overachiever, but the truth is that you aren’t achieving anything. You aren’t the spectacular Sam Azalea of the school anymore. No one is there for you, Sam. Your grandmother can’t even stand you anymore. Her life would be easier if you just disappeared like your mother,” it said to me. I felt hollow from the inside. And tears began to pour down my face silently.
“You make me sick. You. Are. Disgusting.”
“You’re wrong,” I said feebly. “You’re wrong,” my voice began to increase in volume. “You’re wrong!” I shouted as it cracked and screeched.
I pressed my hands to my ears, applying immense pressure, but that didn’t stop the voice. And all of a sudden, a second voice began whispering, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. They kept whispering so many things at the same time; I couldn’t keep up at that point. I could only make out fragments of their phrases.
“…Pathetic girl,” one voice said.
“…Imposter,” another one proclaimed.
“…Your life is a hoax,”
“…You damn counterfeiter,”
“…You will never be as intelligent as the other students,”
“…You piece of crap overachiever,”
I kept pressing my palms against my head. I kept thinking that if I pressed harder, then maybe I could mute the voices, but they did not cease their assaults. I was covered in tears and my eyes felt scorched. But I refused to give in again. I wasn’t going to be reduced to tears again. I was exasperated from always feeling like some sort of powerless rag doll. This was the last time I was going to let someone criticize me for trying my best. I always tried my best, and I swore that I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me otherwise—to let someone tell me that my best was not enough.
I had been gritting my teeth so hard that they felt like they were about to shatter into pieces.
“No,” I managed to mumble. I kept pressing my thin hands against my skull, and bit down on my teeth even harder. “No,” I began shouting. “No! No! No!” I began to scream. I couldn’t catch my breath, and I began crying as tears fell down onto my desk. I couldn’t breathe. I felt an all-too familiar knot in my throat, but it felt as it had been twisted so tightly, that I would never catch my breath. Tears fled down my face in a wild frenzy—trying to escape the inner turmoil in my head.
With one fist, I began pounding my wooden desk. I felt hopelessness and rebellion inside of me. I felt powerless and turbulent at the same time. I kept banging harder and harder on the desk. I had never been in so much pain, and my chest carried a heavy ache, and I felt shriveled up, but at the same time, I felt like I had to resist and fight for myself. My hand bruising and began to turn violet.
“When you die, Sam, no one will give a single ounce of interest in you. You are what a moth is to a flame. Dying for what you will never have!” the voice professed to me.
I screamed “No!” louder and louder. My voice screeched and cracked. The walls began to warp. Branches blockaded the window from the outside and the room grew darker. My heart was about to burst out of my chest, and I felt this immense terror inside of me. The door flew shut and locked itself. The walls of the room began to warp as dark shadows danced on the surface. Then all of a sudden, the walls began to grow these mouths with sharp teeth that smiled and seemed to chomp at the air. The walls had turned into a dark skin like substance and the mouths began to scream at me. They screamed and groaned and screeched at me, and I didn’t know what to do. Every ounce of my body filled with terror as the mouths grew in numbers, surrounding me. Menacing eyes began to grow out of the walls, and soon, these fleshy deformed faces began to emerge. Almost as if they had been pressing their faces against a small thin layer of hot wax. They had broken jaws and missing portions of their faces as if they had been torn off. Soon, arms began to press against the walls until they too, emerged. Their skin began to drip off and I couldn’t distinguish their screams. I couldn’t distinguish the motives of the shrieks, whether they had been prompted by some sort of fear, pain, or just simply, to intimidate me.
Suddenly, my heart seemed to have skipped a beat by what I heard. They began to scream my name.
“Saa-mmm Aza-lea!” was screeched from wall to wall. Rats began scurrying around the floor in the dark room. The second I looked up again, entire torsos were emerging from the walls. They were injured, bones exposed, and burned.
And suddenly, without any notice, I heard a faint, ghostly groan. The sound that was produced seemed like a result of a gruesome breathing complication. It was an eerie and choppy exhale that came from just behind me. I turned over, and there was this large dark figure that had been burnt, standing right in visible sight. It stood tall, but it slouched to its side. This dark figure had ruby-red streams of heat running all over its body. As it inhaled, a burnt crevice across its body released sparks of fire, and as it exhaled, smoke seemed to escape its charcoal body.
The room was almost pitch dark except for my dim computer monitor and a lamp on my desk. The figure made an eerie groan, which caused me to fall silent in fear. I quivered as I realized that the burnt figure had its neck dislocated along with several gashes on its throat. Blood seemed to
flow out from the wounds with every little movement the dark figure made.
It took a step closer towards me. The figure coughed and choked as blood gushed down its throat. It cornered me against my desk. Writing utensils and papers began to drop to the floor as my body leaned further onto the desk. I kept pushing more and more objects, a binder, keyboard, and my dimly lit monitor screen, which suddenly turned black from pushing it to hard.
The figure continued to approach me and I began screaming with immense mania and terror. This wasn’t something to win against. I needed help, so I began screaming with an even greater force.
It grabbed my shoulder and I let out an even louder cry. I felt my shoulder sting as it began to burn. With its other hand, the charcoal figured grabbed my neck and pressed it tightly. There was so much pressure, and I couldn’t make sense of anything; it felt like my neck was about to burst. The figure kept approaching me and opened its mouth, revealing its dirty, jagged and broken teeth. Other arms seemed to stretch from behind my desk and grabbed for me as well. They began laughing and screaming at me. The figure reached my shoulder with its teeth and bit down. I screamed even louder. I felt blood running down my skin, but at that point, I couldn’t tell if it was my own or if it was from the figure.
There were almost seven different hands reaching for me along with several bodies melting off the walls. In a moment of survival, I grabbed for the few objects I had left on my desk. All that I was able to clutch was my one singular source of light in the room, my small little porcelain lamp.
The figure bit down harder, and I scratched its face. Its burnt skin would flake, but it didn’t budge. Arms surrounding my desk had now seized my hair. They pulled me from different directions. Another figure, much smaller, began to climb on top of me, and opened my mouth with its burnt arms. It attempted to climb into my mouth, and with one final swoop of my free arm, I smashed the porcelain lamp onto the miniature creature.
Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl Page 11