One year my senior, Kathleen is my uncle’s daughter. Like me, she studies at YYHS too.

As children, Kathleen and I played together with other kids in the neighbourhood. She was good at drawing and singing, and both of us liked cartoon. We were on such intimate terms that I counted her as my biological sister.

After she finished junior high school, she managed to gain entry into YYHS through the high school entrance exams despite fierce competition. Her exam success won acclaim and admiration from family and friends. Actually, she became a credit to the extended family. I told myself I should follow in her footsteps when I finished middle school.

No one knows when it started, but Kathleen began to behave oddly in the second term of high school. At home, she even fought with her father, crying and yelling. One day she confided to me that she had an impulse to run away from her father, once and for all.

I have no idea how to help Kathleen out, but as far as I know, her misery has a lot to do with her father, who is manipulative and controlling. My uncle wants his daughter to do everything he likes. He does not allow Kathleen to play games, read her favourite books, or watch animation at home. Without his company, he does not even allow Kathleen to go and hang out with her friends. Good grades are the only thing my uncle cares about. No wonder Kathleen hates her father.

Kathleen and I sometimes run across each other on the way to and from the canteen on campus. Though in bad shape, she still greets me and smiles at me. I feel a little sad.

When asked about Kathleen, my uncle insists he loves his daughter. That’s for sure. He comes back after work from the suburbs to look after my cousin in town every evening, and goes to Yunyang for his shift early in the morning. My aunt, employed in a hotel, has little time to accompany my cousin. Even though my cousin gets good grades in most exams, she has no big dream and feels bored with the world. How I wish I could do something to lift Kathleen out of her mind-numbing existence!

Once hurt, teenagers can be sensitive and become inaccessible. I hope every teenager in the world can navigate their way out of the mire of adolescence and shine.