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Towards Nowhere
By: Jonathan Davion Renardo
Leo grew up as a quiet and sensitive boy, often
feeling out of place even in a crowd. He wasn't without
potential. His intelligence stood out, his curiosity was
strong, and his imagination never stopped running. But
his life seemed guided more by others’ expectations than
his own desires. Since he was little, he had been pushed
to be great, yet never truly understood. His childhood
was once full of warmth, but everything changed when
his younger sibling was born. Slowly, his parents’
attention drifted away from him. He grew up under the
shadow of expectations and criticism. At school, he acted
out just to get noticed, but instead, people distanced
themselves. He felt lost, just trying to survive in a world
he couldn’t quite grasp. His brightest moment came in
second grade, when he placed in the top three of a Math
Olympiad. But his struggles with language became a
wall he couldn’t climb. After that loss, he once again felt
without purpose.
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