It’s nine o’ clock in the morning, but I won’t wake up. Let me be late to school again, let the principal yell at me again, let him yell,

“Look at me when I am talking to you Miss Song! Closing your eyes won’t make your problems go away!”

I can’t open my eyes. I won’t open my eyes. What could be waiting for me when I do? Maybe my parents will be fighting, and I’ll stumble onto them when they’re yelling. Maybe I go to school and open my eyes to see my boyfriend flirting with another girl. Maybe I’ll open my eyes to see that my life is over, and that I’m a withered old lady with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I won’t open my eyes. I won’t.

It’s ten o’clock now. My mom is shaking me, threatening to pour a bucket of cold water onto my head unless I open my eyes. Her threats don’t change my decision. I don’t open my eyes, even when the cold water makes me gasp with surprise. I only close them tighter.

It’s noon now, and I still won’t open my eyes. I wonder what I will see if I open them now.