The Resume: A Student's Best Support and Worst Addiction

“It’s mine, and you can’t have it!” I couldn’t take it anymore. My own best friend, Robin, had patented our latest collaboration: the Mind Reader. We did all of the research, all of the begging for funds, all of the hours of putting parts together in my noodle-smelling garage together. We took an oath that we’d be the richest best friends on the planet and force our kids to be best friends. And she had just told a whole crowd that it was all her.

“I had the idea in the first place. You just carried it out, buddy,” Robin retorted. 

“Your idea! Bullshit! You call going ‘I wanna read people’s minds’ an idea! If it weren’t for me, your my-GPA-is-my-husband face would’ve had nothing to make any of this possible but what’s in that stupid syllabus.”

“Well, I work hard. You spend all day Googling talking robots and come running to me going ‘What is the quiz gonna be on?” the next morning. Your ideas are the real bullshit.”

The crowd gasped. I heard some aspiring news reporter go, “Oooh, scandal.” Robin’s face reddened and she whispered, “just go away.” I wasn’t going anywhere though. I had put in my share, and I was gonna reap the rewards from it. The judges took no effort to quiet our racket. They just stared like they were real news reporters but with microscopic cameras implanted in their eyes so that they didn’t have to say anything like “oooh scandal” that would piss me or Robin off. My cheeks were already burning a vivacious fire, the fuel being betrayal. My heart started experimenting with its rhythm; sometimes I felt it beating out of my chest and others I felt like it melted and all the blood that it contained was oozing out of me. Soon, every person in the crowd seemed so small, like a matchstick with a Lego wigs, and Robin’s face lost its sharpness and became so soft I would’ve caressed it if she wasn’t my new mortal enemy. I became lost in the auditorium’s height, and I felt myself falling into a pit as the sides of the sides of the auditorium became the swishing waves of a whirlpool. I don’t remember anyone catching me. I kind of expected Robin to catch me, but I had to remind myself that at that point, she would rather push me instead. 

I found myself back at home on my lilac plush sheets with my mom at my side. The strands of her hair were in a fight, every one of them trying to fly away from its neighbor. Even more provoking, her eyes were puffy and glazed.

“What happened?” I asked her.

“Robin won the competition.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, honey. I wish. The judges said that Robin submitted the Mind Reader and that they had no evidence that you played a part in it. They’re stupid.”

“That little piece of—never mind. What happened to me?”

“You passed out. The doctor said it was most likely because of stress.”

“Did anyone catch me?”

“No.” She was sniffling now.

“What?! Is my head fine?”

“Yes, your head is fine.” My mom proceeded to hold my head in her hands. I understood the gesture, but that was just about the worst thing to do when a rising senior is worrying her head off about whether her head is okay. 

“Mom, my whole application, though,” I said. I was trying not to sniffle too. Then she would only do it more.

“I know, honey. See, some things are just not fair in life. Many people don’t get what they deserve.” She began caressing my hair like how I wanted to caress Robin’s face.

“I’ve been dreaming about this my whole life. Mom, what will everybody think?”

“They won’t think anything.” 

“They will. I won’t go to Harvard now; I’m done.”

“How about Robin? Aren’t you disappointed about Robin?”

“Goddamn it, who cares about Robin? My future is ruined. And it’s her fault. She took everything away from me. My future was first; our friendship was a far second.”

It was true that Robin had shattered the chances of me getting into Harvard. The Mind Reader was meant to be the star of my application. But I was far from done. Even though it may have been the hardest thing to believe at the moment, my future wasn’t ruined. I grew up to pursue my undergraduate degree at Columbia University and my medical degree at Duke. I trained to become a psychiatrist, not a surgeon or entrepreneur or lawyer like I had imagined I would be. Actually, I don’t even think it was me who imagined myself in all those professions. It was that voice, that voice in my head that was addicted to respect and approbation. It was that voice in my head who wanted me to be the most respectable yet the most unhappy person in my friend circle. It was because of that voice I felt numb to my loss of Robin and victim to my loss of a chance of a Harvard acceptance letter. It’s amazing how some people can somehow get electrocuted if you poke them but get a force field if you burn them. No, it’s really not amazing. It’s awful.

As for Robin, she trailed off without me. By the looks of it, she got an education that was decent enough to build our modern world without my smarts. I never saw her face-to-face, just on TV. By the time another interviewer requested Robin’s “How did you do it all?” sob story, Robin had already built something else. Soon enough, we were able to travel through time. But Robin’s company made it so that people can only view the past, not change it. Hey, at least she thought of me.

 Whatever I did, I always made sure I was a minuteman when it came to switching off Robin’s interviews at the right time. Whenever my husband stepped into the room, whenever my parents visited, and most importantly, whenever my children, Brandon and Rose, raced each other downstairs for TV time. Some days, I was too slow and then one or both of them would catch a glance of the red-haired, rich enchantress on the TV and stop me with a “Mommy, I wanna see.” Rose would then tell me, “Mommy, you’re two years older than her. You should be even richer.” I would just nod as Robin’s plastic lips kept moving.

Then there came the day when Brandon went off to college. Rose had school the next day and an untouched truckload of summer homework, so only my husband went to drop Brandon at the Denver International Airport while I stayed with Rose to keep her from crying. She cried anyway. Her cry began as an innocuous whimper and then ascended into a scream until finally, her voice cracked and broke into a helpless sob right on the sidewalk. “Now any guy can break my heart. And Brandon won’t be there to take care of them.” I couldn’t take it at that point. I told her she could hold off on school a little bit. We went inside and talked a little bit, but out of my worry about the pace at which her chest rose and fell, I didn’t remember much of what we said. But I did remember one thing.

“Mom, I’m so glad you didn’t become some rich business woman like that lady on TV did. I’m sixteen and a train wreck. That busy billionaire lady wouldn’t understand. You do.”

Never before was I more grateful that I had let go of my addiction to the drug that was approbation.