9- What cost?

Arielle.

The three tests were still sitting on the sink like they were mocking me and every second I didn’t look at them felt like a knife dragging across my skin. My heart kept racing so fast I thought I would faint and I kept pacing from one end of the tiny bathroom to the other hugging myself as if that would slow down the thundering in my chest.

I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to see it, yet. What if they said no? What if all of this (the reckless decision, the humiliation, the loss of my virginity and the risk of death) was for nothing?

I pressed my back against the wall, feeling the tiles cold against my spine and I whispered to myself to calm down but my voice shook so badly it only made it worse. The professor’s words came back to me like a cruel memory and the way he once looked at me with so much expectation telling me I had the kind of fire that could change the world if I didn’t let it go out.

I wanted that fire so much. I wanted greatness.

But greatness couldn’t come t