The Two Middles

Chapter 10: Happy Dad Day

 I remember this one time when I was ten. My dad and I had been watching this movie, The Ice Princess. It was about this girl who wanted to be an ice skater, but was also brilliant at academics. Her mom wanted her to get accepted into Harvard and become a genius or something like that, the details are fuzzy. So this girl hid the fact that she would go ice skating everyday from her mom. Eventually, her mom found out and was furious and wouldn't let her skate. But gradually, she convinced her mom that Ice Skating was her passion, and her mom let her pursue it. Oh yay. After the movie, my dad had told me that I could be anything I wanted to, in life, and to never let anyone become the boss of me. Guess that was just small talk. It'd been a good day, the one I'd seen the movie with my dad. We'd had fun that day. He'd bought me an ice cream and told me I could be whatever I waned to be. I called that the Happy Dad Day. It was really accurate. It was a happy day, I was happy with my dad, my dad was happy, hence, The Happy Dad Day.

"So?" I said. I was confident about this. I'd done well.

"Hm...it's good, I guess. But not the best." my dad replied flatly.

"It's an A!"

"I know, I can read. But you've gotta buck up. An A is simply not enough when you and I both know that something called an A plus exists."

Oh, wow. Just when I thought I'd done well. 

"If you want to get into a good medical college, you'll have to buck up, Aubrey. You're already in Junior High, and these grades won't do." 

Ok, so funny story. My dad somehow had the idea that I wanted to become a doctor, and had to. I'd tried to explain to him that I didn't want to become a doctor and in fact, wanted to do Music. But no! Father dear here had ceased to ever listen to me. How did he even get the crazy idea of me becoming a doctor? Did I look like a doctor? No! Was I as brainy as a doctor? No! Did I have the skills? No! Did I want to become a doctor? Hell frikin NO!

And what the hell did he even mean by These grades won't do?!!? What the hell did he want from me? He was looking at my Biology test, which had come back to me with a huge A written on its top right hand corner in red ink. How much more did he think I could do? 

My mom turned around and shot my dad a look, "Leave the girl alone, George. She's done pretty well."

It was times like these I loved my mom so much I wanted to hug her. 

My dad turned to look at my mom, opened his mouth to say something, decided against it and then turned to me again, "Just study more, okay? I won't accept grades like this one. What grade was the highest in your class?"

"I don't know, an A+, I think."

"Well, see what this proves, Aubrey? This shows that you're not the best! This shows that you're not good enough to top your class! You're capable of more than this! You need to study more. Much, much more. You need to show the world what you can do! You cannot let them think you're dumb! They'll JUDGE you! And that is not good for us."

Aaaaaaand here it comes! The I'm-paranoid-about-our-family-losing-its-reputation card! Poorly played, dad.

"Dad," I said calmly. "Why do I need to show people that I can get an A+? Why do I need to care about what they think of me?"

"Because you don't want to get judged! You need to start caring, Aubrey! You're not a kid anymore! You can't be little Miss. I-don't-care-what-the-world-thinks-as-long-as-I-am-happy, forever! You need to grow up!"

"I AM grown up! I just don't understand why I should care about what they think of me! I don't care! I will never care! So you don't tell me to care, okay?! Can you just please hear me out? I don't want to do medicine, dad, please! I rea-"