Since first grade, Annabelle's compositions had always contained the same scene — she would fall on the playground, scrape her knee, and tears would roll down her cheeks like broken pearls. Her mother would immediately rush over from afar, squat down, gently hold her, and pat her back while saying, "It's okay, be brave." Annabelle would nod through her sobs, and then finally smile.
She had written this story so many times that she no longer needed to think about the order of events: first, the details of the pain; then, the shape of the tears; and finally, her mother's warm embrace. Every time, the teacher would write comments like "delicate" or "touching" in the margins, sometimes even reading her essay aloud to the class as a model. Annabelle would lower her head in shyness, but secretly feel a small sense of pride.
But only she knew — that scene had never actually happened. It was something she had made up for her very first essay. She had never fallen like that, and her mother had never come running to pick her up on the playground. But the plot was convenient: full of emotion, ending on a warm note, and almost guaranteed to move the teacher. So she kept rewriting and polishing it again and again.
Over time, her exercise books became filled with that same scene — the dust rising under the sunlight, the scraped knee, the wet eyes, and the words, "It's okay, be brave." After a while, even she almost believed it was her most vivid childhood memory.
Until that day.
The autumn wind was cool, and the playground was scattered with golden leaves. After PE class, Annabelle was chasing and playing with her classmates when her shoe landed on a slippery leaf. She fell hard onto the ground. Her palms were scraped, her knee burned sharply, and her breath caught from the impact. At that moment, she instinctively thought — here come the tears.
But they didn't.
There was no sound of her mother's hurried footsteps. All around her was the laughter and shouting of classmates. The wind brushed past, and the sting in her knee was like needles pricking, yet she simply clenched her teeth and slowly pushed herself up. Her palms were covered in dust and tiny gravel; her knee was streaked with muddy blood. She patted off her clothes, took a deep breath, and ran to catch up with the others.
For a moment, she felt strangely dazed. Why hadn't she cried? Was it because the pain wasn't so bad — or because, after writing about "falling" so many times, she had already learned how to face it?
On the way home, she thought about it for a long time before she understood — the story was made up, but in writing it over and over, she had practiced in her heart, countless times, the act of standing up. That imaginary scene had already shaped her real resilience.
A few days later, the teacher assigned another essay. This time, she picked up her pen and didn't write the old familiar plot. Instead, she began with:
"I fell, and it hurt badly, but I stood up on my own. The wind was cold, yet I felt warm."