Getting myself out of bed, I did not need much motivation. The day was ready for me, the same way I was for what it had in store for me. As far as I was concerned, there were no longer strips of lies and secrets that kept me from breathing the way I always should.

Dancing to the pop music inside my head, I couldn't care less about being half-naked in my kitchen. My routine couldn't start any better. Doo-doo-doo. My heart sang. Breakfast already tasted good in the tongue as I drizzled olive oil in the heated pan. While it took time to produce sharp, popping sounds, I defrosted the bacon by placing it near the open window where there was sunlight. 

When the pan roared ready, I took out two eggs from the fridge and cracked them open to the greasy rims of the sizzling nonstick pan. Then, like a hyperactive kid ready for her first day of school, I rushed to my slices of bacon to the side and placed them gently next to the good old eggs. I knew in myself I was no cook, but since I lived on my own for about a year, I had developed managing not to burn the house down.

La, la, la. The catchy tunes turned up again. I sat down on my dining table, comfortable as a sack of rice, enjoying the rest of the blissful morning. And with every spoonful that went in and out of my mouth, I relished in it. It tasted even better knowing my clumsy hands managed to cook a decent meal on a Wednesday morning.

And like always, to complete my idea of an ordinary day, I scanned through my journal and flipped to the next clean, unwritten page. Time to get these rocket thoughts on paper.

"Hi, Sarah. I can't believe I'm saying this but I feel different. A good kind of different. It's been a long time since I've felt this good about myself." It took a minute to internalize what I had written down. For once, I was happy to be alive. I guess it was true when they said what you write down on paper reflects on what's written in your mind.

"Today, I'm going to —" I paused. I lost direction in my writing. Somehow I couldn't write down the next word, probably because I genuinely had no idea what I was going to do today.

Audrey was right. Boredness was the ultimate reason that drove me to fix my family — a group of people metaphorically and literally strangers. The persistence I once thought was bold enough to deal with anxiety in the worst way was a mere fake. Maybe I only felt the need to reassemble gigantic pieces of a jigsaw puzzle was because I had nothing better to do with my life.

Damn it. So much for waking up on the right side of the bed.

Squeezing the bottom part of the pen in the gap between my upper and lower teeth, I pondered long and hard to fill in the sentence. I fidgeted my right leg up and down. I hated leaving my journal incomplete. Groaning, I skimmed through my previous journal entries and noticed the exact same word present on every page — freedom.

It sucked to realize just now that I had no day-to-day passion.

The only days I had a lot going on were when either Eric or Nathan was in the picture — or even Audrey. The girl who badly wanted to earn her freedom — risked almost all of her life doing the stupidest things, falling victim to the craziest lies, and pushing away the most real people — had no idea what to do with her life, now that she was free.

And today, I was literally alone — free to do whatever I want. So I had to do something.

Once again I skimmed through my journal and landed on 21st July entry: Brawston Awakening. Recalling the love-hate relationship I had for this particular professor drove me bonkers. Professor Brawston's rigorous front never truly intimidated me for some reason because I always had looked past the insults and dwelled more on why he had done those. I guess I'm deep that way.

Maybe that was the sign. I never finished my last year of college. As a matter of fact, I reacher my last year through cheat. Bribing the school with expansions and amenities was my way of scraping off my bad record of two years. And among all, it was Professor Brawston who kept walking along a thin thread. 

After quiet minutes of deep, deep thinking, I thought the best way to take this day to a turn was to talk to my favorite professor. I closed my journal and ran to the stairs to take a shower. And as much as I adored daydreaming in the tub, I had to get out and get ready. With a casual lady outfit and a pair of white sneakers, I went out the door.

While waiting by the road, a school bus was picking up students near the area. I walked towards it, then I realized I was no longer eligible to ride. Feeling bad about the situation, I put myself out of my inner embarrassment and hailed my own cab.

Wixton Academy — my alma mater since kindergarten, school to only the rich and to those who were intellectually gifted enough to grab a decent scholarship.

As I walked passed through the similar-looking mahogany doors, each with distinctive classroom codes printed in bold, students loitered through the corridors, heads down to either their phones or textbooks, like ants without the collective team building.

They were walking too fast, paying no mind to other people walking in the opposite direction. How unruly.

As the crowd began to disperse and into their respective, completely solitary classrooms, the scene shifted. It became more accessible to breathe. There were fewer obstacles to avoid. 

Suddenly, a little girl with shiny blonde short hair, probably eight years old, ran to me. By the way she was running and giggling as her head turned behind once in a while, I could tell she was being chased by someone her age in a fun game of tag. An incredibly adorable, innocent multiple shades in one kind of pink human ran towards me.

On her head was a glittery carnation pink headband with a bow, and as she was running faster than her own speed, the shimmering thing almost fell. She wore this Barbie pink jumper along with a small hot pink sling bag.

I was mesmerized by the fullness and vibrance in her smile. Genuine and oozing with hope. As her tiny little feet came toward me, I wasn't able to get out of her way. Little did I know she wasn't planning to avoid me either.

Her face bumped into my abdomen.

The sweet little girl managed to get back up on her feet and put wore her bow headband back on. As her eyes met mine, they were sparkling. The way she looked at me — rewarding gazes, it made me feel good about myself. It's funny how a mere child as innocent as cotton can give you the rarest kind of confidence.

It's no wonder why mothers glow from inside out.

"Oh— I'm sorry, Miss —" she gasped. "You're Avery!" She yelled with utmost joy like I had come home from five years working abroad.
She gave me the warmest embrace — her sincerity warmed even the coldest, cruelest parts of myself.

I was shocked. I had no clue who this child was.

"That's me." Totally awkward, I didn't know what to do. I hugged her back.

Her feeble arms broke free. "Wow, you're really pretty," she told me, putting emphasis on every compliment. "Awww, thank you. You're really pretty, too."

"Pretty and kind...I wanna be just like you when I grow up."

"That's very sweet of you to say," I said, patting her head. I kneeled down so our eyes would meet the same level. "What's your name, darling?"

"My name is Rachel."

"Hi, Rachel. Who were you running from?"

"My dad. He wants me to stay inside my room with Grace but I don't want to because I get really bored. I just want to run around and play with the other kids."

"Oh...well, how come your daddy doesn't let you play with the other kids?"

"Because I have bone marrow disease," she said brightly. The way she said that fatal illness like it was nothing sounded like a special talent or a really cool gift she got for Christmas.

"You see, two years ago, I was very very sick that I needed to be at the hospital for how many years. Every part of my body hurt and I could barely sleep," Rachel said, twisting her body sideways.

"And then my dad said the doctor needed to slice me open and put someone else's blood inside me so I wouldn't be with my momma too soon. My momma's now in heaven. I told my dad I wanted to go be with momma already but he wouldn't let me so I said 'why don't we all go?'"

"Uh...Maybe you should listen to your daddy. He knows what's best for you."

"Rachel!" called a semi-bold middle-aged man in a black, well-ironed suit. "How many times have I told you not to run around without Grace to watch over you?"

"But Grace never lets me play, and I hate taking pills!"

Professor Brawston was my new friend's Rachel's dad.

"Go inside your room, Rachel. Come on, be a good girl now," Professor Brawston told her daughter. Rachel nodded and ran along.

"What do you rich folks want this time?" He said with a condescending tone.

"What do you mean this time? I only asked you a favor once, and yeah it was a huge one but Professor Brawston, it was—"

"Just call me Frank." He interrupted. "Listen, Miss Carter, let me be as frank as my name. I don't want anything to do with you or your family anymore."

"Everything you and your family have done for me, my family, and the school I work in, I appreciate it. My family very much enjoyed the benefits, but whatever deal or relationship or transaction we had, it's over now. It's over," he added.

"Wait, I'm confused. Why do you keep saying my family? I asked you to get me back to school and in exchange, I give the school whatever improvement it needs. The administrators agreed, even you were in on it. I admit what I did was awful and—and privileged, and unfair, and...my worst regret ever, but —"

Professor Brawston signaled me to stop. "What's done is done. We can't alter the past. We can only move on and learn from it," he said. "I love my job, Miss Carter. I love being the most hated professor in this university for being openly and brutally honest about my students' plagiarized term papers. It's in my blood to help students reach into their potential and grow from there, no matter how cruelly I show my passion. But as much as possible, I will not spend my thirty-plus years as a Literature Professor to be my students' parents' puppet."

He turned around and shook his head disapprovingly, walking away from me. "You rich people, you could do whatever you want in the whole damn world. Must be nice."

"B-but, Professor Brawston, you don't understand. We're on the same page here."

He let out a loud, sarcastic laugh. "No, we are most certainly not, Miss Carter. And I'm afraid we will never be."

"We can try. I—I'm not like my parents."

He did not take another step. His head faced down. After a couple of seconds, he turned around to face me again.

"Miss Carter, when you stopped going to school for two years without any written notice or perhaps even a message on Facebook explaining your absence, you were already kicked out. You knew that."

"And I assumed your parents were knowledgeable about your whereabouts. But, I was wrong. I was very, very wrong. One day, your father just surprisingly called me, giving me the holy answer to my prayers. An offer I couldn't dare refuse, at least in this lifetime."

"What was it? What did my father offer you?" I asked.

"A promise to save my only daughter's life."

"I—I didn't know that. So...that's why you hosted the Founder's Ball?"

"Rachel is the only family I have left. My wife is dead. My sisters despise me. My only brother's in jail. I wasn't allowed to see any of my nieces nor nephews."

"Not you," he pointed at me, "or anyone can degrade me anymore. I am not one of your servants or lackeys or however you say it!"

"I suffered long enough to know it was like a gunshot to the head seeing your only daughter of seven years old fighting for her life on the operating table and doing absolutely nothing to take her pain away. Dignity is a man's treasure. And for the sake of my daughter, I let you folks use me like I'm some scum." His tears fell when he mentioned Rachel. "I love my daughter so much."

"So no, you can't just say you and I are on the same page because you don't know how it feels to be worthless, to get your dignity snatched away from you. And right now I'm trying my very hardest to do things right on my own. Not with your help. Nor your parents. Mine. If I have to juggle six jobs to get my child another bone marrow by the next day, then I'll do it!"

He panted after every word. His cheeks were full-blown red. It was clear to me Professor Brawston noticed he was undressing himself in front me, one of the many people he loathed fervently, but he continued to do so.

I guess he really wanted me to know that he has had enough.

"I don't want my daughter to find out that it was some rich man and not her own father who did everything he could to make sure she lives another day to walk on stage with medals hanging around her neck."

Anger crept into his throat from the veins in his heart. The hatred he hid inside reflected his inability to forgive himself. For the right reasons, he had grown mad at us, at our family. But he had grown madder at his bent, possibly in the precipice of being unfixable, ego that had been crushed a thousand times, in a time when it was all he had.

He walked away, possibly feeling good about himself for shooting me with enough bullets to kill me right on the spot. He said the right words to hurt me in the most sadistic way he was best at. Usually his words barely affected me, but this time, it's different.

It's the truth. And I needed to hear it.

He walked away, but this time, his head did not turn back.