Three weeks. That was all the time left before the scholarship application deadline. For most people, it was just the time needed to stress themselves out. For Aurora, it was the time she would spend obsessing over it. Every free second, she spent searching online to research and writing and rewriting and questioning herself. Which meant the essay. The part she was asked to write that was supposed to say: "Why am I deserving of this opportunity?" Aurora hated it. She was one day in the library and had spent the last thirty minutes trying to write a single sentence. Which she eventually deleted five times after. She knew that wasn't how long it was supposed to take. She knew it wasn't supposed to be this hard. "This is too difficult." Noah looked up at her from her desk. "What is?" The essay," Aurora said. Noah looked down at her laptop screen. "Oh, the scholarship one?" "Yeah." "It can't be that bad." "You should have seen me at this page. It is literally blank." She turned her screen around to show him. The whole laptop screen was blank. Noah looked at the screen for a moment, then burst out in laughter. "Maybe it is that bad." Aurora grabbed a pen off of her desk and threw it at his head. "This is serious!" Aurora said through a frustrated sigh. Noah put the pen away and asked, "What is the problem?" Aurora shook her head. "I don't know what they want." "The truth." "I don't want to write the truth. It won't seem good enough." Noah shook his head. "The truth is good, but I think you're just afraid to write it." Aurora's eyes widened as it clicked. Noah had known exactly what she was struggling with. The truth involved dreams. Expectations. Disappointment. Fear. The truth involved a girl who wanted more from life than the path already chosen for her. And she was trying to write all of that in one short paragraph. She returned to her room that night to continue working on it. Sitting in silence while the rain tapped softly on her bedroom window. And as the words finally poured into her head, it wasn't as hard to write as she made it out to be. She wrote about what she was hoping for, what she was looking forward to having happen in her future, and how she was just hoping to seize her own opportunities because it is her life. For the first time in her life, she didn't have to stop and write, but it seemed like the whole time she was typing it the whole thing was just falling out of her head in front of her eyes. Aurora spent the whole night finishing writing and by the time the hour of twelve rolled around, Aurora had finished her first draft of the essay. The next morning when she went to school and saw Noah at his seat, Aurora handed him the printed-out copy. Noah picked up the page and read it over. One page. Then another. Then another. Aurora was watching every single movement of his head from left to right as he read. "Good?" She asked when he finally put it back down on his desk. It was quiet for a bit and Aurora began to wonder whether it was good enough. He nodded. "Yeah, this is good." Aurora looked confused. "That's it?" "No, the essay is good. This is honest." Aurora sighed again. "How do you know when I say something stupid and how do you know what I actually need to hear sometimes?" Noah was always right about what she was struggling with. Aurora couldn't help the fact that she was always surprised that he was always right sometimes. The next week the entire school went crazy about who was going to get the scholarship. People were talking about whose grades were the best and whose essay was the best. Some people were confident they were going to get it, while some were terrified and didn't have high hopes. Aurora was feeling the two emotions in the exact same moment. Then in the afternoon, Aurora had the whole class sitting there when the principal came in. "Aurora Hayes?" Aurora straightened herself up. "Yes sir." He told her to meet him in his office. When the principal asked her to go to his office, she could feel everyone's eyes on her as she got up from her seat. Aurora was getting really confused. Had she done something wrong? What had happened? All Aurora had been thinking about all the way there was that she might've been sent there to get in trouble. She began thinking about what rule she broke and what kind of punishment she was going to receive for that rule she broke. She walked up to the principal's office and opened the door to his face. He smiled. "Hey Aurora. Just wanted to see how you were doing." Aurora looked confused. "I wasn't in trouble." She said. She was trying to think of what she did wrong to even be there for a reason. The principal looked like he knew exactly what was going through her head and was ready for her to start laughing. He said, "Just relax." Aurora took a deep breath and he handed her a sheet. "Your essay was selected as one of the strongest submissions in the school." "What?" Aurora said. The principal looked at her again and said, "The scholarship committee was impressed." Aurora could feel a smile spread across her face. She spent so much time writing about things that were important to her, and then worrying about whether they sounded like they were important to anyone else. Aurora began to walk out the door and when she exited she began to run all the way to where Noah was sitting in the hallway. She had seen that he was walking over to the library when she saw her and she stopped to talk to him. "Noah." Noah stopped walking. "Are you okay? Why are you breathing so hard?" Aurora said, "They liked my essay." "Oh, that's good! Good for you." Aurora was feeling happy about it again and for a moment she wasn't so sad about the way her essay had been so well done. Noah was telling her again that she was good enough. Aurora was just feeling happy that someone believed in her, and even though she thought she knew about that from Ethan and Noah, it was still nice. She shared the news at dinner. She expected congratulations. Maybe even pride. Instead, silence filled the room. Her father slowly set down his fork. "So they're moving you to the next stage?" Aurora nodded. "Yes." Her mother forced a smile. "That's nice." Ethan was the one who walked up to her room and knocked on her door and said, "I heard the news." Aurora smiled. "Yeah, they wanted me to come down to ask about being selected for it." Ethan nodded. "And I knew you were going to do well." For a minute Aurora had a smile on her face. She was happy to know that someone believed in her again. Noah and Ethan always believed in her, and it was hard for Aurora to know she was good enough sometimes.
