I have a photographic memory. It's a perk in my life--sometimes. I get 100% in everything. If someone asks me a really hard math problem, like 187,694 divided by 6.284, I'd finish it even before they even finished saying it. The answer is 29,868.5550605. I memorize every phone number by heart. I know every single word that I have spoken, and every single word someone's said to me. My brain is like a camera that never stops recording, which is why I remember this day so well. The first semester had just passed, and as usual, I got pretty good grades. I was kind of upset from the 94 I got in social studies, but overall I think I did just fine. It was lunchtime when I finally stopped overthinking about my grade. My friends had brought their lunch. Salad with strawberries in it. Chick-fil-A sandwiches. My family's always too busy to pack lunch with me, how do people even wake up early to pack such a nice lunch? It didn't matter anyways. I was used to the school's crummy lunch with "fresh" cheese pizza. on the website, it was reviewed as a 10/10, but I had always wondered if that was the principal himself. The pizza tastes like trash. The principal's voice came on the loudspeaker, "Emerine Bates, make your way to my office," he said softly but somehow maintained the sharpness in his voice "immediately." The whole cafeteria became silent. Oh no. What went wrong this time? I slowly made my way to his office. Inside I saw Dad crying softly. "Mom died, Emmy," his voice was breaking, "A driver went at a red light and killed two people." I wasn't the one to cry. Normally I would just stand there, letting my black straight bangs cover my eyes from the rest of the world. But that day I could feel a droplet of water rolling down my cheek. The only key to open my usually hidden self that day was looking. Looking at the tears. Looking at my father. Just looking was the key to everything by @lavqnderr, no taking inspo please <3
