All their eyes were fixed on the phone. The room had fallen into thick silence. And with each passing minute, the atmosphere felt heavier.
"It's taking too long," a bespectacled girl broke the silence, her eyes restless behind round glasses. She checked her wristwatch and stared at the phone again.
"How many minutes left?" another female voice came from across the room.
"Actually, only fifteen," the girl replied, adjusting her glasses with a single finger.
"Fifteen? I thought we still had more time." A shocked teenage face stared at the bespectacled girl from across the small bedroom.
"They usually call between 4 and 5 p.m." The bespectacled girl ran her palm through her braids and pushed the glasses higher up her nose ridge again. She turned her attention away from the teenager and threw another girl in the room a worried look. "Emma, are you sure you sent your best pieces?"
"Ofcourse I did." Emma said and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"But why's it taking-"
"Try to be patient, Hellena.You're making me more nervous." Emma said, shifting restlessly on her bed. She sat upright with the phone cradled in her palms like a newborn baby. It was a big desk telephone that once belonged to her grandfather and that she still kept for memory.
Her bespectacled friend Hellena squeezed in beside her and clutched a pillow like it was a lifeline. On a sofa across the room, Emma's younger sister of fifteen years old sat knees drawn up to her chin. Her eyes were fixed on the phone like she was trying to move it with her mind.
Lying on the floor was a child no more than five years old. One tender hand supported her chin as the crayon in her other hand made a mess in a small drawing book. A tiny bandage covered a small spot near her elbow, yet her face glowed with such innocent delight it suggested nothing but joy.
She glanced up from her drawing as though she had remembered something.
Her voice floated through the air; light, soothing and innocent:
"Auntie Hewy, did you send the picture of that boy smiling with the hand like this?"
She threw her small hands up and teethed in the air.
"It's not a picture, it's a painting, sweetheart," Emma said and added, " You mean 'The Laughing soul'. I did my dear."
The room was too crowded for the four of them but none of them seemed to care. The curtains were half-drawn against the afternoon sun, dust motes floating in the slanted light like sparks of gold.
The atmosphere remained charged with expectation.
Today was the day.
Crestfield Academy of Fine Arts didn't send out letters like other schools. It was always a phone call on the first Thursday of June and always during the hour between 4 and 5 p.m. Founded about fifty years ago, Crestfield graduates had their works hanging in Paris galleries and their designs paraded on Milan runways. The academy was a factory of dreams, and those admitted were treated as prodigies before their careers even began. Students aspiring to join the academy always had to apply with a portfolio exhibiting samples of their work. Emma was positive she had chosen and sent in her best art pieces. But the path into Crestfield was so narrow she didn't know if she would make it.
"Do you realize," Hellena said, "last year only twenty five students got in. Twenty five! Out of nearly three thousand applicants."
"Please don't remind me," Emma said and sucked in a deep breath. Her heart raced with a mix of anticipation and anxiety. Her grandfather's old-school phone still remained clutched in her sweaty palms. "I'm trying to forget about the odds."
"Shhh!" Her sister hissed, chin still on her knees and eyes glued to the phone. "What if you miss the call because you are talking too loud?"
Emma chuckled nervously. The phone stayed still. And minutes dragged on.
Emma did not want to check the time again for fear she would find it's past time already. But with each passing minute, hope dwindled and a hint of worry was clear on Emma's face.
The girls sat in what had surely become awkward silence. Hellena was constantly checking her watch and this was driving Emma crazy but she knew her friend well. No amount of tongue-lashing would make her change her character.
Misty, on the other hand, resorted to biting her fingers silently. Even the little girl lying on the floor had stopped drawing. Emma thought she could see in her eyes a hint of sympathy, like the little one knew something was going wrong.
Fearing to see her failure reflected in the eyes of her little niece, Emma shut her eyes and her head leaned back against the wall.
She stayed like that for a while.
But she knew.
Any second from now...
Hellena's voice would break the bad news: 'It's past time already.'
She was about to give up all hope when finally it happened.
A piercing sound crashed the silence in the room.
TRRRRIIIIIIING! TRRRRIIIIIIING!
Everyone screamed at once. Emma fumbled so hard she nearly dropped the ringing phone as she stood up on her bed. Her heart was slamming hard in her chest as she reached for the huge hand-held receiver.
"No. Put it on speaker! Put it on speaker!" Hellena shouted between short quick breaths.
"Shhh!" Misty hissed again.
Everyone was on their feet; Misty on the sofa, Hellena and Emma on the bed and Emma's niece on the floor, in the middle of the room.
"Hello?" Emma's voice trembled.
"Congratulations, Miss Emma Hedwig," a smooth, official sounding voice of a young man blared on loud speaker and the room fell dead silent. "We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen..."
Before the sentence was finished, a burst of laughter erupted from the other end of the line. The sparkle in Emma's eyes died quick and her broad smile slowly faded. She stared at the phone in confusion. All around her, every pair of eyes flew wide and the air tightened with sudden shock.
"Got you!" Her brother shifted to his normal voice. "Crestfield called and said you didn't make the list. So stop dream-"
Gasps of relief filled the room, and then quickly transitioned into a cacophony of angry voices and a series of insults.
"That's not funny, Jordan." Hellena screamed.
"I'm going to murder him." Emma had hung up and thrown the phone on the bed. She was already halfway to the door.
"I know he's in his room," Misty said, grabbing a pillow and also running to the door.
Before the chaos could settle, the phone lit up again.
Everyone froze.
The girls exchanged wide-eyed looks.
Emma eyed the phone with a gleamer in her eyes. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Was this it? Was she finally chosen?
"Hurry! You're going to miss it!" Misty literally clapped her hands.
Emma swallowed hard as she padded across the room, heart pounding and eyes locked on the phone. Despite her sister shouting at her to hurry, Emma moved slowly, her knees weak. It was either this or time was surely up.
With fingers trembling, she answered.
It was real this time.
A calm, practiced, female voice from the Crestfield Admissions office delivered loudly the words she had dreamed about for weeks now:
"Congratulations, Miss Hedwig. You have been admitted to the Crestfield Academy of Fine Arts. You will receive further instructions through email."
The call cut immediately.
The girls screamed and jumped. Pillows flew up in the air like confetti. Shrill voices filled the atmosphere as they all clamoured into an embrace. Three bodies plastered together in a tight hug in the middle of the room. Smiles from ear to ear, the air thick with emotion. Even her little niece rushed in and locked her cute little hands around Emma's legs.
"Congratulations, big sis!" Micky beamed. The braces on her teeth flashed as she grinned.
Emma's eyes turned glassy and her heart swole with gratitude. For once the world had chosen her.
She couldn't believe she had made it to such an elite school. But more importantly, she was going to finally leave her home and move across the country to study Art.
Still locked in that hug, her ears were bombarded by Misty and Hellena's voices as they spoke rapidly out of turn:
"Congratulations!"
"You made it. You actually-"
"I'm so happy for you, sis."
"I knew, I saw your pieces."
. . .
But Emma barely heard the rest. A sudden realization came to mind. Like nostalgia, a cocktail of contradicting emotions of joy and dread poured in at once. Her dream was calling, bright and close, yet the arms wrapped around her belonged to the only people who had truly loved her in this world. The thought of leaving them gnawed at her heart and she clung to them even tighter.
Well, no one had told her that the higher the jump, the harder the fall.
She didn't know it yet, but this moment of triumph was the calm before a storm. Life was clenching back it's fist. And when it struck, it would shatter everything she thought she had built.
Just as they broke the embrace, Emma's gaze drifted down and something caught her attention.
She stared, confused.
The hem of her cream-colored dress was smeared with a bright red stain.
Blood.