Never Have I Ever

Chapter One: The Game

Vanessa smiled as her friends exploded into hysterical laughter around her. It was lunchtime, and they were sitting in a circle on the floor playing 'Never Have I Ever'. It was Gloria's turn to choose the question, and the girl frowned in concentration as Vanessa waited in anticipation of her turn. The rest of the group quickly tired of Gloria's seemingly complex strategising and heckled her as she thought, but Vanessa welcomed the delay. It was hard to walk the line between being boring and oversharing, and today Ness just couldn't find the energy to work out what to say. At last Gloria's frown disappeared. "Never have I ever... liked cheese!" Groans echoed around the circle as her friends were caught out. But now all eyes were on Vanessa and her mind was completely blank. She had absolutely no idea what to say.

"Umm..." There was a reason why Vanessa couldn't keep her mind on the game. Next period she had music class, and she was dreading it. Ness loved music, but her school's music program was somewhat less than incredible and her teacher took every opportunity to put her down in front of her classmates. The parts of music that Vanessa loved seemed irrelevant when she was about to face over an hour of sitting through basic theory that she already knew. While her friends would be counting down the minutes of this last class before the weekend, Ness wouldn't catch a break until the holidays - no, not even the holidays. Her weekends were filled with rehearsals, concerts, lessons, rushing to finish assignments and homework, and it didn't stop there. Vanessa's mum had a violin technique camp booked for the summer, so it was basically non-stop until next year. And next year, well... The constant rush would just start back up again.

One of her friends snapped her fingers in front of Vanessa's face. "Hello? Earth to Ness? Your turn started ages ago!" Vanessa took a deep breath to clear her thoughts. "I'm sorry! I'm just finding it a little hard to concentrate with all the screaming..." Her friends giggled and looked at her expectantly. "Okay. Never have I ever..." Vanessa felt a wave of overwhelming tiredness. She was just so done with life at the moment. This morning, her parents had told her that they had entered her in another competition, which meant that what little respite she currently had was about to disappear. She just wished that for once in her life, she could have the freedom to choose what she did with her time... And all of a sudden, she knew what to say. Ness cleared her throat dramatically. "Never have I ever felt truly happy."

Silence. Then an incredulous giggle sounded from the other side of the circle. "You can't possibly mean that, Ness! What about all the fun we've had together?" Others chimed in with fond recollections, and Vanessa didn't have the heart to tell them that the problems in her life never really left her mind. Her continued hesitation must have registered, because one by one her friends stopped laughing. Gloria looked at her uneasily. "You were joking, right, Vanessa?" Ness looked at her with a shuttered expression as she nodded. Her friends always seemed so carefree, and it was hard for Vanessa to try and make them understand the crushing pressure she felt from her family to practice, to perform, and to succeed. Vanessa grabbed her lunch and stood up. "I'm heading to class. See you guys tomorrow, okay?" Her friends nodded absentmindedly but soon turned back to their game. Ness could hear their laughter echoing back towards her long after she had walked away.