Before the sleep

Epilogue

Baby

22 years later

Graduation day. How fun! Why can't they drop me in the bottom of a fire pit instead and tell me to climb my way up? That sure sounds less scary and risky than them dropping a business degree in my hands and tell me to find my way in this world.

Mom and dad dropped me in this campus for me to find my own way like they did. What they don't understand is that I'm not like them – I'm not a fighter. It's bad enough they named me Clovis, which apparently means renowned fighter in German, but they actually expect me to live up to the name.

I've heard the story at least a dozen times, the story of how I came to exist. I get it. They fought for me. I'm their miracle child, their fighting prize but seriously why can't they put as much pressure on my two younger sisters? Either one would be a fighter than me but no, I'm supposed to be the freaking warrior.

Just kill me already!

I don't want to be a fighter. I don't know how to be a fighter. I want someone to tell me what to do because I have no idea what to do. I have no plan, no aspirations. I completed a business degree because business was the first major my eyes fell on. I don't even know what I'm going to do with it but I just can't tell my parents.

I came to FU because it's the one they went to so I thought it would bring me as much luck as it had brought them but apparently it's one luck charm per family. I'm one generation too late.

I watch my family sitting in the assembly. My parents hand-in-hand as they smile at me with pride and joy, and my two sisters sitting by them while looking as bored as ever especially the youngest, Lea. She's the rebel. My grandparents stay behind them with a whole row separating my mother's parents and my dad's. The Clarks always look uncomfortable whenever we're all together as if they don't belong in this family. They don't want my mother in this family but they can't speak up.

I walk up the stage to pick up my degree, my heartbeat hammering as I'm handed the paper that's supposed to mean I have my shit together. Now, I have to start to execute a plan that I have yet to come up with.

My mom's arm lock around my neck as soon as they find me at the end of the ceremony. Her usually candy apple perfume assaults my nostrils. I'll never understand her attachment to such a fragrance.

She's crying again. She does that whenever I make the slightest achievement – birthdays, graduations, first date, first break up, and school dances. It annoys the hell out of me to have my mother hold me so tight in public but it's not like I can push her away. I'm her miracle child.

Seriously, can one of my sisters get that title already? I know Lea would love it. That'd definitely appease her need to rebel against any family tradition. She thinks that she doesn't belong in the family because her skin is lighter than Joy and me.

I blame her middle school classmates for that. She had once came home crying because one of them told her she wasn't our sister. Since she didn't look mix therefore mom had to have been cheating with a white guy.

Ughh, if only I had my way, I would have made sure that little smart mouth never sees the light of day again. Yes, Lea has green eyes and pale skin. So what? That's how mom looks like. Is there a certain way we all were supposed to come out in order to be consider the legit offspring of Joseph and Irene Pierre? Dumb people!

"I'm so proud of you," mom hugs me tighter. "I can't believe my baby is all grown up."

"Great, can we leave now?" Lea groans in the background.