Not Seeing The Obvious (NSTO)

Chapter 1

While some people are lined and queued up outside the school gates to get their final year results like crazy girls waiting to enter a sold-out concert, my mom was smart in the sense that she rather took my sister and I on a vacation to the island of Vieques.

This was so that I do not worry too much about the burden of waiting for my final results and I am highly grateful for this. There is just too much stress and pressure that comes with waiting. You are anxious every day for a month to find out if you can actually graduate from high school and amount to someone in life. 'High school is not the end', is what they say but they really make it seem like it. If you don't know who 'they' are, don't worry you are not the only one who is confused. I'm still trying to find out who they are. All I know is that we should stop listening to them.

A statement of results should not matter to anyone because it is a piece of paper but it is that same piece of paper that makes a difference in your life. So basically it is a big deal. It is the difference between getting into a community college, private college or university. Going to a proper state university is still a major deal in my family. There is a certain class to it. If you can make it into a university, you have truly made it in your academic life is what my family told me and believe in.

It is not like we often go on vacations all the time, this is actually the first one we go to as an intimate family and I am in love with every second of it. Just the three of us. Mass family holidays are fun too but they end up becoming impersonal and not a lot of self-growth can be done. There is no time to think because everyone is doing whatever the younger kids want to do. Children just make everyone run around crazy like head-less chickens wanting to try anything and everything. I am always the awkward one in the family. Everyone is either too young or too old to be around. Then I always end up with the children because they need to be watched as the adults relax.

Islands just have a way of putting you at peace with yourself and the world. I can forget all my problems without feeling guilty. It is probably the palm trees but especially the clarity of the beach. Having a sea view room just makes it easier; I am sitting outside by the balcony area and watching the beauty of nature. Islanders also have a care-free spirit which rubs off on you when you are in their turf. I feel I should travel more often and I believe that this trip is only the beginning of that. You also cannot be on holiday forever and have to go back to face reality sooner or later. So I went online to check my final results and as the network is still loading, more like buffering; I got sucked into the spiral of the loading swirl which hypnotised me into having a flash back.

I remember how Lincoln and I had planned to open our results together. If we were too scared to check our marks we were going to swap envelopes and just give a nod for confirmation that you have been promoted out of high school. Grade 8 was torture and to set a goal was the only reason why I guess I stayed in school for that year. Not only was there the goal, but there no way in hell my mom was going to allow me to drop out of school. Lincoln and I were going to go to our favourite hangout. The park outside the art gallery.

We discovered this park, when one of Lincoln's cousins, Antonio, was presenting a new art exhibition for what he was currently working on. Children were not really allowed, professionalism issues, and friends and family were going to support. The exhibition was a day display, early Saturday afternoon. To keep Lincoln and I entertained the adults suggested that we go to the park and play. Technically, I just tagged along because I only went to Lincoln's house to visit and his mom forgot about me coming for a play date and allowed me to accompany them because she did not want to leave children home alone. Since that day we have been going to the park countless times over the years. The park was not really anything fancy and there is not much to it. Just a lot of grass, a lake, a few trees, a few park benches, a little play area for the little ones and if you are lucky an ice-cream truck.