Chapter 1
*Although none of these events are real, this is how I see the educational system told through a fictional story.
The sky, she thinks, is so blue.
Or it would be during the humid, almost musty, smell of summer and glaring rays of the sun beating down outside.
In the moonless night, she glances back to her broom, feeling a nonexistent breeze brush against her arm.
“Lily.”
“Ah- Yes!” She stumbles slightly, straightening at the sound of her broom clattering on the wooden floor, sweat trickling from beneath her hat.
Her mother sighs exasperatedly at the sight of clumsy appearance, leaning gently against the creaking door. “Come in. It’s time for lunch.” Her mother’s dim mouth crawls into a smile as Lily rushes inside, pulling a chair and sitting in it promptly.
“There’s no need to hurry you know,” Her mother says as she stumbles her way across, the cane sturdy beneath her frail and thudding against the ground.
“It’ll get cold,” Lily says as she lifts her chopstick in the air.
“Not in five seconds.”
“It will be if you don’t eat,” Lily argues through a mouthful of rice, eyeing her mother with a warm glance.
Her mother picks up the chopsticks with a sigh, “Alright then... Have you thought about it?”
“About what?”
“Your graduation’s a week. What are you going to do after it?”
“I’m going to draw.”
Lily’s reaching for another piece of meat when she hears something fall onto the ground, turning to see her mother’s bowl on the ground, the sound echoing all through the still house.
Yet, her mother’s terrified expression, filled with horror.
Lily didn’t know what to make of it.
She watches her mother’s shaking hands release the chopsticks, a thundering sound that felt far away but shook her ears until they were ringing.
Lily sat down silently, staring away at the table. “It’s not like you didn’t know I drew.” She mutters stubbornly, but her voice trembles.
“I thought you’d drop that hobby eventually.” Her mother leans down to pick up the bowl, setting it on the table.
“Well, I’m telling you I’m not. Can I not?” Lily asks, hesitantly swallowing a bit of rice.
“It’s not like you can’t...” Her mother trails off, nervously twining her fingers together. “But they don’t make much, and if you don’t have talent, you won’t make it. I was hoping you’d go into other things... like being a Ring Maker.”
“You know that I hate that. You knew all of it.”
“I was hoping you’d think about it more thoroughly.” She sighs, leaning forward on her arms.
“Do I look like the person to do that?”
She sips on water through a straw, twisting it around in her fingers and blank expression, “Lily. Listen. I know who you are, but that doesn’t deny me the right to think differently.”
“It should though. You’re expecting me to be a different person so I can fit your expectations.”
Lily watches her mother’s mouth grimace as her fist flies down, slamming on the table, blue veins bugling against her tight, white skin.
“Lily!”
She wishes she could say that the food that had gone cold was the greatest shame that night.
