Better Than Dreams

Timothy Nunez

For the sixth time since I'd first received it, I carefully opened Harrow Secondary's program and rigorously read it through, front to back.

I'd already visited the campus three times.

It was becoming a slightly unhealthy obsession to be honest, seeing as the chances of getting into Harrow were practically non-existent. So many smarter kids applied yearly. I didn't have a chance.

Still, I had to get in, irrational as it was. It just had to happen

I had been studying my whole school life to become a doctor, just like my mum. My dad wanted me to become your stereotypical jock, play rugby, get a scholarship for athletics, and spend all my abundant free time getting sweaty and bloody, and come home covered in blisters. Summary: not my thing.

I'd always been the short, slightly pudgy thing that everyone thought was still in elementary school. I was one of those kids who hit puberty, just never very hard.

I looked up from the page and stared into the mirror leaning against the wall in my room. God, who was I kidding. All the kids that get into Harrow are tall, dark, and handsome nerds that spend all the day reading. Probably wear glasses, too. I didn't fit a single one of those requirements. I was small, with shortly cropped hair the color of dry wheat, unassuming hazel eyes –which I hated- and a face that would only end up on the cover of a magazine entitled 'Ugliest, most average kid in the entire world's hopes and dreams get crushed by college.'.

I was the kind of person that you never hear anything about in adventure books. The kid that wasn't smart enough or handsome enough to be the hero, I was the guy that sits on the bleachers and unenthusiastically cheers when the main character scores their big goal of the season, or wins a big award. Always on the side-lines.

My thoughts were beginning to depress me, and even my reflection looked disappointed in me. Oh, Tim, there you go again. Getting your hopes up about something that will never happen, it seemed to say. I tossed the paper across the room, in the general direction of the garbage can and fell backward onto my bed. I closed my eyes and slipped into the realm of sleep.