Shadows Beneath Expectation

“And………..3, 2, 1…begin!” Time started to flow. 

Sabrina scanned the first question of the math competition. Her eyes traced the numbers as they blurred into black dots on the page. The page stared back at her. She took a deep breath before putting pencil to paper, the graphite pressing into the crisp white surface. Her breathing began to mirror her thoughts and her fears, long hidden in the shadows, surfaced. She blinked, trying to steady the page. She cleared her mind lest she slip from the edge and sink under the placid surface of the lake, where the monsters of her childhood waited.

She glanced at the desk next to her. Celine, her best friend, had flipped to the next page. Everyone described Celine’s parents as warm and supportive, but Sabrina never chimed in, her mother’s voice making her head ache. She pulled her black leather jacket closer to her slender frame in the chilly classroom lit by fluorescent lights, the door a step away.

Sabrina strained to catch the shadows crouching in the corner between the wall and the door, moving and shifting as they pleased, creating darker shapes where there should’ve been none. She had always seen figures no one else could. They were loud, three-dimensional shapes hovering at the edge of reality. They came to her whenever she was eating, sleeping, or working. They had become a fact of her existence, always threatening to intrude into her thoughts. She closed her eyes to suppress them like her emotions, but it never worked. Everything she did was to avoid falling into the precipice of her own doing. 

Seconds became minutes, and minutes became an hour. All Sabrina heard was the meticulous ticking of the clock behind her. The intense scribbling of the students filled the air. 

There was nothing written on her own paper, and her stomach tightened, the page blurring again. The sense of failure solidified, settling like a stone in her chest. They were all chasing a perfect score—another line on a polished resume, another step toward the college their parents had chosen for them. She felt like a cat among restless dogs, all straining for a single word of affirmation, oblivious to the invisible tension threading between them.

Celine walked with Sabrina out of the school, her stride widening with ease as she moved with an effortless confidence. Celine was better than her in every way. It was her own fault. The battle had always been internal—steady, unrelenting, hollowing her over time.

Students spilled into the courtyard, faces flushed in the bitter air, breath fogging as they compared answers and argued over problem-solving methods. Laughter broke out—sharp, relieved, and disbelieving. Sabrina lingered at the edge, watching the pack—a lone animal in the corner. She had grown up among them, but never with them. Even now, she could hear the disappointment in their voices, quiet but certain. She turned away before they could reach her.

She walked toward Koreatown, weaving past crowded spas, fried chicken joints, and neon-lit bookstores, voices brushing past her in fragments she could not escape. Grandmothers clustered on stoops, their words folding into one another. As the day cooled, the shadows lengthened, slipping into step beside her. They were faint outlines, all watching, all keeping pace.

Sabrina stopped. The moonlight stretched ahead, leading her home. Winter’s quiet held a fragile stillness, but her thoughts drowned it out.

At the top of the stairs, a figure stood waiting.

It was her mother. 

Or what remained of her—the shape memory had left behind.

She did not move. She never did. Just a silhouette carved out of shadow, familiar in shape but empty in detail, as if memory itself had worn her down to an outline. Sabrina knew better than to step closer. She knew better than to speak.

Still, she stood there.

The whispers from the street lingered faintly behind her—scores, expectations, the hidden burden of comparison—but they no longer felt separate from the figure in front of her. They folded into one another, indistinguishable, a single presence pressing inward until she couldn’t breathe.

“You should have done better, Sabrina.” This was the same voice that used to stand behind her at the kitchen table, correcting every mistake before she could finish.

The words did not come from her mother. They came from everywhere at once—air, shadow, and thought.

Sabrina exhaled slowly, her breath catching for a moment before dissolving in the cold.

For a moment, she considered turning back—away from the building, the streets, the voices that had followed her all her life. She imagined what it would feel like to step outside the path already laid for her. The thought passed.

The shadows shifted.

Waiting.

She tightened her grip on her jacket.

Then, without looking up again, Sabrina walked forward, past the figure, past the threshold, and into the dim stairwell beyond.

The door closed behind her with a quiet, final sound.

And still, the shadows lingered.