Chapter 34
That day was the day my little sister had returned from the hospital.
I was just a ten-year-old child, still drenched in hope, who had come home early from school. As my mother sat at the dining table drinking water, I carefully pulled out my perfect-score test paper and showed it to her.
My hands trembled, a mixture of fear, hope, shyness, and excitement.
“What’s this...? A test paper? A perfect score?”
She absentmindedly took the paper from me and slowly scanned it. Then, without hesitation, she tore it apart.
A single sharp rip, splitting it in two. Then another, and another—until it was nothing but shreds, unrecognizable. I held my breath as the pieces fell. My mother brushed her hands off, as if she had touched something dirty.
Her eyes glowed with something dark as she looked down at me.
“Your sister just got back from the hospital... and you have the nerve to bring home a perfect score?”
I didn’t understand the connection between my test score and my sister’s hospital visit, but all I could do was apologize.
The small hope I had—the tiny expectation of praise—was torn apart, just like that test paper.
With a rough push, my mother shoved me aside and went into my sister’s room.
I stood frozen, watching her back, pressing my fingertips against my eyes to stop the tears from falling. Then, I crouched down and gathered the scattered pieces of my test. Those little circles of perfect scores... I crushed them in my hands, then stuffed them into the trash.