After College

Caged

All the things I could never do, you have to accomplish them for me.

I gasp in the middle of the night and wake up in cold sweat. No, I tell myself. No more. I'm living my own life now.

"W-W-Will . . ." Aurora gently tugs my arm and stammers in a shaky, cracked voice. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I answer quickly, hoping that she wouldn't ask more. I don't want to talk about it and I don't feel like talking about it at all. Talking won't resolve anything. Instead, I choose to get up from bed and go for a run.

As I open the closet to grab my gym wear, Aurora murmurs, "Where . . . where are you going Will? It's . . . like four in the morning. Can't you go back to sleep?"

"No," I only reply and proceed to change into my shorts and t-shirt.

"Will you be back for breakfast?" Aurora asks.

I don't answer her and leave the apartment. I start running at a steady rate. I don't know when I got into the habit of running. Maybe it was Etienne's fault? He recommended that I work out to get rid of my stress. He said it helps him take his mind off of everything, yet I find that when I run for a while, I keep circling back and forth to the events of my life and asking myself what went wrong. Why am I so annoyed nowadays? Why can't I just be happy?

Objectively, I should feel fortunate. I graduated from a top university. I was the President of the Student Council. I competed in many business case competitions and won them. I had a few internships with the top banking firms in the country. My grades were stellar; I had a 4.0 GPA throughout all of my college. I was on the varsity team. My girlfriend, Aurora, is beautiful, smart, and friendly. She is also successful, perhaps even more so than me.

Then why do I feel so . . . incomplete? Why can't I continue to be successful? Did I hit my mid-life crisis far earlier than others? Why do I get so irritated when I see Aurora now?

I met Aurora Sasaki during my first year of college. I actually noticed her before we officially met since she was in our faculty and had been the target among my friends. She was known as the Ice Queen because although she was pretty, she seemed unapproachable. She didn't smile so much and hardly went out clubbing. She also rarely approached guys first, but she still participated in a few student clubs like the Consulting Society, the Debate team, and the Badminton club.

My friends all wanted to date her or at least sleep with her. Several of them joined the clubs she was in to get closer to her or asked her to be in their group projects; however, many became disappointed with her personality. They complained that she was too blunt and too uptight. She didn't do anything against the rules. She lectured whenever someone wasn't doing his or her share of the work. She was too bossy and wanted to be in control of projects and assignments.

However, there were still other guys who adored her from afar. I secretly thought those guys were either masochists, wanted her to be the bread winner later, or simply liked strong, independent women. One of those guys was Etienne Beauchamp. He lived on the same floor as me, but we weren't close back in first year of college. He was a bit of a loner like Aurora and kept to himself. However, I could tell that he liked Aurora because if he overheard a few guys talking badly about her, he would tell them to stop and not to judge someone based on gossip. He would always argue that her negative characteristics were actually positive ones. People gave up arguing against him because Etienne was clearly superior to them.

Etienne was blessed with all of the good things in life. He didn't do much intensive exercise, yet he was still very fit. He could eat anything and his metabolism would be able to take it. On the other hand, I always had to be conscious of what I ate. I weighed my food, calculated the calories, and stuck with a very rigorous regime to be able to achieve my six pack. Etienne also didn't have to study much and still got excellent grades in class. I often overheard a few nerds ask Etienne for his grade and he would say something like 92% or higher. This was achieved from not consistently attending class and sometimes even sleeping through them. What was worse was that he didn't seem to be bothered by anything in his life. He was perfectly fine being the lone wolf and seemed to enjoy that role with that nonchalant, smug expression of his.