ILLUSTRATION|AASHIVENKAT

had to buy three new bookshelves to store them all. All I could feel for you was fiery pride, rushing through my veins and forcing me to fall in love for the first time with the beautiful academic machine I had created 17 years ago.

Yet the scribbles had stopped, and your silly drawings quickly ceased to exist altogether, making your peers angry and your dad sob. You had left your world of, in my opinion, delusion and you had entered the word world alongside everyone else — you left everything worthless behind, now having the skill set and the ability to accomplish greatness. Though somehow, strangely, I was the only one satisfied. By making you succeed, I seemingly was the only one who won.