#5
The girl was once again sitting calmly in her seat. She looked relaxed and awake, despite it being the early hours before school. Her slender fingers were curled around a branded coffee cup and her long legs were crossed as she leaned back. Her brown eyes showed no signs of her being sad.
"Are you truly sad?" Anne-Marie couldn't help but ask.
"Why do you feel the need to question whether I'm sad or not?" the girl wasn't accusing Anne-Marie, nor was she upset. She was simply curious, as she cocked her head to one side, her thick brown hair tumbling down her shoulders.
"Your life seems perfect. Why would you feel sad?"
"What do you define a perfect life as?"
"A life without troubles and sadness. A happy life."
"I am sad. Yet you think my life is perfect."
"You are the captain of the football team, one of the best players our school has had in years – out of both genders. You are a genius in every subject, straight A's through and through. You have an abundance of friends and not a single enemy. Your peers worship the ground you walk on. Your parents are rich and they are known to be a power couple. You can have anything you want. And your beauty cannot be rivalled. How can you not be happy with all that you have?"
"Is that what you see?"
"Yes."
"I'm good at football due to the countless hours of practice. My entire football team relies on me. The pressure of winning, and the disappointment of losing a match are on my shoulders. Once being deemed the best striker our school has had in years, the pressure of not missing a single goal has been added upon my shoulders. If my team loses, it is on me, if I miss a goal, I am a disappointment to my peers, despite their condolences."
"I'm not a natural genius. I have to study long hours everyday. My parents want me to go to an Ivy League school, some uni like Harvard or Cambridge, else I'm a disappointment. I am to take a respectful degree like medicine or engineering, else my life has gone to waste. I am to become valedictorian, else my studying is of no use.
"My peers have put me on a pedestal so high, that anything less than a perfect style, perfect looks, perfect grades, and perfect life is shocking. The supposed friends that surround me are only there because of the accomplishments that anyone could achieve, if they tried as hard as I have.
"My parents being rich is nothing short of a coincidence. I was only lucky to be born into luxury. They are controlling, and have my life mapped out. My parents are normal. They fight, they scream, they laugh, they love. They are no more or less perfect than the next seemingly happy couple."
"Is that what you feel?"
"Yes."
"Do you feel that the pressure is sometimes too much to handle?"
Silence.
"Do you feel that when you say things like that, people will think that you're being selfish and that you are being arrogant. People will think that you are ungrateful for complaining about the blessings that you have been granted in life?"
For the first time, Anne-Marie saw a crack in the calm exterior of the girl.
"Why are they considered blessings, when they do nothing to make me feel happy?"
"Because more often than not, they would make other people happy."
Silence.
"Do you think money can buy happiness?"
"I haven't really thought about it."
"I think that it can buy joy, not happiness."
"Are they not the same thing?"
"I think joy is more temporary."
Silence. Anne-Marie marvelled once more at her maturity.
"What is the point in living?"
"Do you feel that living is pointless?"
"I feel that life is pointless."
"Why?"
Silence.
