Sidenote: Uses themes of suicide and academic stress. Story is pure fiction, however very loosely based on Palo Alto High School suicides, where overwhelmed students would throw themselves in front of trains.

I woke up to the sound of a loud alarm clock at 6:15 in the morning, it was a monday, halfway through the school year. After getting dressed, I did my Spanish homework due that day for 4th period, and again reviewed my younger sister’s SAT prep book. I got a 2100 out of 2400, I was very disappointed in myself, the Ivys expects nothing but perfection.

Our official school dress theme today was college paraphernalia, of course more than half the school wore either Stanford, UC Berkeley or Harvard sweatshirts. I chose to wear my Brown University sweater, since I wanted to fit in with the other perfectionist students. “I got a 89 on my midterm! I’m so mad, if I get a B+, I swear I’ll die” my friend said frantically. The others wearing red or blue comforted her, exclaiming “We’re sure you’ll get it back up, you’ve finally hit rock bottom, so there’s nowhere to go but up”. Hearing this horrid conversation I rolled my eyes, since when was a B+ a bad grade?

After turning in my poorly handwritten Spanish homework, my teacher gave us back our language midterms. “No makeups” she repeated in Spanish as I saw that I received a 85%. My parents are going to get mad at me tonight, I could already hear their words of frustration about college and my future at Brown or Harvard. It made me sick. I knew that I should have stayed an extra hour last week, I could have received at least an A- if I stayed up until 5:30am.

Thinking about my terrible grade, I walked with my head low, waited in the lunch line for the Cafeteria, and ate lunch alone, frazzled and frozen, overwhelmed with all the work I had to do and the grades that I worked too hard for. When I caught a glimpse of my B+ Physics test, my lungs inflated faster and fast, uncontrollably for a couple minutes. At one point, the sky became blurry around me, until I heard footsteps and saw my friend’s face. “Why are you sitting all alone? Come join us! We are talking about where we want to get our graduate degrees! Jacob and Jonathan are debating whether Princeton or Harvard is better!”. My breaths slowed as I got up slowly, and walked up the stairs, dreading the indirect reminder that college apps are due soon.

I could see the intense disappointment and anger when I showed my parents my Spanish test. “An 85! Where are the other 15 points?” my mother shouted. “We don’t have you going to school for nothing! We don’t work long hours so that you can slack off your education! With these grades you’ve been getting lately, you might as well kiss college goodbye!” my father decreed. I quickly ran to my room in tears, since I couldn’t take the ridicule anymore. My sister followed me in and closed the door slowly.

“It’ll be ok. You have another 4 weeks to get your grades up. You know a B+ is closer to an A.” she said in her attempt to comfort me. “Well I do homework for 8 hours every day, am in 3 extracurriculars, and am repeating an SAT prep class. I mean isn’t that enough? Yes, I got a B+ on a test, but does that mean that I’m a B+ person? Or that I didn’t try? Because I see plenty of people not even do the readings, and get better grades than me. Why do I have to sacrifice myself, my well-being, because everyone else tells me to? My friends and parents push college down my throat, yet disregard me, my health and my sanity. Why is that? I mean, is my education worth more than keeping my sanity?”. “Yes, to get anywhere in life, you have to go to college” my sister answered, and I got up and walked straight out my front door.

The train tracks are about 6 blocks from my house, and with each block I walked, the more hope I lost. Tonight was no exception. I felt as if the world had surrounded me, and started to suffocate me. I was caught between two sides, 1. Where I work myself to death for college, and 2. Where I keep myself sane, but not get into a good college. Since the latter had been said enough times, it must be true right?

I then arrived at the train tracks, evaluating my life and choices. My younger sophomore sister got a 2400 on her SAT, always had straight A’s, but hardly slept. In fact, she got sick a lot, and since she couldn’t miss any classes, got other sick as well. Some days, she would just walk around lifelessly. I didn’t want to be like her, and walked up to the rocks, 4 feet from the rail tracks. Caught between two choices that would lead to two different lives. I didn’t know what to do. I then heard the sound of the train. I couldn’t find a way out, couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. I took a step closer. I realized that I had three choices, and this was the third choice. I then took another step forward. I then remembered my dreams as a kid, to be a history teacher, to change the world. The train became even louder, about 20 feet away. I took a step back. I was going to fulfill my dream change the world. Just as I was about to turn around, a strong wind that came from the direction of my high school pushed me forward, and I fell onto the tracks.

BREAKING NEWS: 18 year old Senior from Palo Alto High School found dead in apparent suicide on Caltrain tracks. Reasons for his suicide is currently unknown.