Over the loudspeaker: “Dear senior students, your principal Ms. Smith is speaking, to remind you to bring home the brochure and decide on your future and perfect university. Enjoy your weekend.”

When I was leaving school, I heard a distant voice shouting my name. It was my friend, Mike.

“Michael what happened, I thought that somebody was jumping me,” I said, afraid.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Nat, I only want to know if I can accompany you home?” he asked.

“Yes, sure you can, but my house isn’t a little far from your home.”

“No it's far enough to accompany you home,” he said, sure of himself.

We were five minutes from my house when he asked:

“What university do you want to go to, Nat?”

“I don’t know, I mean I don’t really want to go to university; I want to paint and be free to express myself,” I answered.

“Hahaha you're joking, no? Universities are the future. I don't know a person that paints flowers and doesn't live under a bridge.”

“Hey, I don’t paint flowers, but look at van Gogh, he painted flowers and didn't live under a bridge,” I protested.

And when I realized we were home, I thanked Mike for accompanying me home, and with no time to blink I entered inside.

In that moment, I felt the tension of my parents, because of one of lots of fights. That fight always affected me negatively.

The first thing that I do when I get home is remove my shoes and say hello to the best person in this house, my cat Emilly. Then I prepare for the daily scolding of my mum.

“Natasha Williams, where have you been ? Your dad and I are so mad at you for being late. What do you want to say about that?” my mum shouted.

“Sorry mum, I am late because I came home with a friend,” I responded gently.

“Don’t shout at me and mostly with lies, I don’t care where you've been, now go to your room and don’t come downstairs until you have a good reason for coming late,” my mum shouted at me again.

Ironic, no? My mum is like that all day, blaming me for no reason. Wait until I tell her that I don’t want to go to university!

After my mum’s scolding, I went upstairs to my room, the only place that I can draw and be free or talk with real friends, not like Mike (he has had a crush on me since seventh grade). At that moment, my computer was ringing.

“Elli is calling me!” I shouted.

Quickly, I took my computer, laid in bed, and picked up the call.

“Hey Nay, you look really good, how is it going in Birmingham?” Elli asked.

“Thanks, you too, and you know, it was like every day, Mike always following me and my mum saying that drawing is a waste of time and that it has no future,” I answer in a bored tone. “And how is it going at the art university?”

“Oh I love it, you need to come one day to visit me and see the campus,” she answered.

“I wish, but my mum doesn't have a moment in her schedule to drive me to London or spend time with her daughter.”

“My campus is doing an art competition, and the first prize is a grant for the four grades, you should participate,” Elli recommended.

“Yeah I would love to, but only in my dreams would my mum let me, and how would I get to London?”

“I can drive you to London but the true problem is your mum, she would control you until your 40s,” Elli responded.

“Natasha, dinner is ready! If you don’t come downstairs in five minutes you don’t eat until tomorrow,” my mum shouted at me through all the house.

“I have to go, my mum called me for dinner,” I said with a sad tone.

“Ok, I don’t want Sharon to be mad at me,” Elli said with a joking tone.

“Ya ya ya, so funny, Elli.”

“Ok bye, but think about the competition,” Elli reminded me.

“I promise you I will. See you tomorrow,” I answered quickly, because I knew that five minutes for my mum was really 30 seconds.

When I went downstairs, my mum wasn’t waiting with the dinner like other mums. No, my mum is always so mad at me that she was in the position like when someone is doing a presentation and she was the classmate that needed to concentrate, like that.

“You know when I speak, I want people to listen to me, and if I said ‘come down, dinner is ready,’ what do I do if my daughter doesn’t come downstairs instantly?” my mum said with a rude tone.

“Sorry, ok, Elisabeth was telling me how Oxford is and about her medical studies,” I lied, because my mum mustn’t know that Elli studied art because, like Michael, she thought that didn’t have a future.

“And? I don’t care about that,” she responded with a sarcastic tone that could have been heard by anyone within three miles.

“But mum, I need to know what university I want to go to, because the school requires it,” I answered.

Already at the table, with my mum’s “famous” grilled chicken, I asked about the universities.

“Ok, your father and I think that the best option for your intelligence is to study law in Oxford, like your father,” she told me.

“Yes, but I think that I could visit some more universities to have more possibilities if Oxford doesn't accept me,” I answered.

“Ok, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t accept you,” she said with a real mum tone, as if her voice was saying that she was proud of me for the first time in my life.

“Right, so the visits start Monday, so I would go that day,” I said, thinking of the painting that I would present to the contest, if it would be something more otoñal (autumnal) or more musical.

Then my father stopped my creative moment, but it didn't matter because I thought of the perfect idea to win the contest and go to the perfect university, with a perfect friend, with perfect subjects.

“Who is going to drive you to London? Because on Monday I'm working and your mum doesn’t have a driver’s license,” he asked.

“Don’t worry about that, Elisabeth is going to drive me to London and bring me back when we’re finished,” I answered, holding back a shout of joy.

When I finished dinner, I went quickly upstairs to tell Elli the news and she was even happier than I was. Then I locked my room and I started painting, and started again, until I had the perfect painting, one painting that even my mum was going to be proud of.

And with that idea I spent day and night of my weekend painting the perfect painting, a painting that when the jury saw it, they wouldn’t continue seeing paintings because they would have fallen in love with mine.

When I woke up the next morning, I was so nervous, like when you're at the top of the roller coaster and you know that you are going to go down super fast.

I woke up, I picked my painting, I snuck out of my house, and I went to the meeting point that I had with Elli.

I had been waiting for Elli for about five minutes when I saw her small white car. In my opinion, that car in another life would be an egg.

The moment that I put my feet in that car, I could smell the ambient energy that was coming off Elli, and in that moment I realized that Elli was more nervous than I was.

“Natttt, are you nervous?” she asked.

“A little bit but not so much,” I answered.

“Ok so the competition is 20 minutes away from here, so relax and think about what you are going to say about the painting.”

During those 20 minutes I thought about how I would tell my mum that I’m going to an art university, because she can’t live all her life as a lie, no?

“Earth calling Nat . . . Nat are you ok?”

“Yes, it's only that I don’t know if I want to do art at university. Maybe my mum was right, maybe I should study law like my dad.”

“Hey, don’t worry, look we are going to go inside and show your work. If they like it you have a grant, and if they don’t, you will have another story to tell to your grandchildren.”

“You’re right, let's go inside and beat up all those Pinterest copy painters.”

And with that mentality, I went inside and I presented my painting. There were a lot of paintings and not all of them were “Pinterest art.” But with all weekend expended and a lot of money invested, I didn’t win. Bad for me, I know, but I learned a lesson: If you don’t try, how do you know that you're going to fail?