This is an essay for my AP Lang class XD:

Jianqin Wang

Mrs. Buckley

AP English Language and Composition

26 March 2011

Cause and effect: Why I am Here

            I wasn't born to be evil.

            Everyone who knows me remember me as the sweet, caring 16-year-old who always had a smile on her face.

            No one would believe that half a year later, she had become a monster.

            Even now, as I sit in this cold, empty cell, I still cannot believe what I've just done.

            I killed my brother.

            No, not killed. That sounds too nice, as if it weren't completely my fault.

            I murdered him.

            How did that happen? I've thought over my story multiple times... and now I think I know why.

MNM

            Things started going out of hand once we moved to China. Dad got a promotion, and he needed to move back to China to be able to complete his job.

            Mom decided that she wanted to go with Dad. Seeing as we had no relatives in America, my brother and I had to move too.

            Not that we cared. This was like an adventure for us: finally, some color in our otherwise dreary lives.

            We moved to a small town on the borderline between Hebei province and the capital city Beijing. Crime rates were high: the town averaged a murder a day.

            School started. My brother and I fit in easily, as we had spent a year refining our Chinese in intensive training camps. Our family was happy; Dad could come home every day for dinner, and my brother and I both ranked at the top of our class.

            But good things never last. For a long time, things were getting rough between the girls at our school and me. The reason was absolutely ridiculous: it was because I was popular with the guys. I would joke around with them, treat them like my own brothers. It was the other girls' faults that they stayed away from the guys...

            So... they asked their brothers to take care of me. One night, two months after my 16th birthday and a month after my family arrived in China, when I was out buying groceries, a gang of older boys and young men found me.

            After they were finished, I was broken. In body, and in spirit...

            They threatened me. If I didn't keep quiet, they would hurt my family....

            Ha. Isn't that ironic... that the one who ended up hurting my family... was me?

            Ha. Haha...haha...

            I was hospitalized for two weeks. The police department reported that I was in a “hit-and-run accident”. In my medical report, the doctors wrote “mentally unstable; in shock.” I didn’t bother to correct them.

            So I changed. Not immediately. I tried to put on a brave face, but my mind betrayed me. I became... more cynical. I no longer cared about the world.

            Oh, I never did drugs. None of that. But I began hanging out with the "trash", and got myself involved in a gang. Of course, the first thing I did was get revenge...

            They should have been my first murders. Haha. Guess I hadn't lost my compassion... yet.

            My grades dropped, and my parents became upset with each passing day. What was going on? I studied, I did my homework. But somehow, I would always fail my tests...

            Gradually, I became impatient. Temperamental. When my parents yelled at me, I would snap back. A house full of smiles and laughter was now replaced with screaming and fighting. Dad started drinking, and Mom would go out more, leaving my brother and me home alone.

            One day, as I was preparing dinner, my brother came up to me. He had followed me after school the day before, and found out that I was involved with the gang and soon to be initiated into the triads.

            "姐姐 (Older sister), please, don't do this."

            "It's none of your business."

            "姐姐, you'll end up getting hurt!"

            "I'm already hurt."

            "姐姐, if you don't stop, I'll tell Mom and Dad and call the police!"

            "So? I don't care."

            I looked up at the clock. Six o'clock; my initiation will begin soon.

            I placed the food on the dining table, cleaned up, and changed into all black.

            "姐姐, 求你了。" My brother was in tears now, and kneeling on the floor.

            "Get out of my way."

            My brother snatched up one of the butcher knives I had just sharpened earlier. "If you go, I'll kill myself."

            "Go ahead." And I walked out of the door.

MNM

            When I got home after the initiation, it was already midnight. I found four police cars parked in front of the house. I walked in; what was I afraid of? It was impossible that the police would have found out so quickly; I was only initiated half an hour ago.

            I walked in and found my parents on the couch, clutching each other. When my dad saw me, he was so enraged he couldn't speak. Instead, he snatched up a vase and threw it at my head. I ducked, and it missed.

            Before he could throw another one, one of the police had already forced him back onto the couch. Another one came up to me and cuffed my hands.

            "What are you doing?" I asked furiously.

            "You're under arrest for murder."

            "Murder? How is that possible? I didn't do anything!"

            "Oh really?" The policeman shoved me roughly into the kitchen. On the floor was a large pool of blood. My brother laid in the middle, a knife sticking out of his torso. The knife I had sharpened.

            "Don't even deny it. We found your fingerprints on the handle."

            I couldn't speak. How, how could my brother, so smart and adorable and barely 14, be killed?

            Then I remembered the conversation we had earlier.

            "If you go, I'll kill myself." "Go ahead."

            "So we're asking you again. Did you kill him?"

            My eyes couldn't leave my brother's body.

            The policeman shook me roughly. "Did you kill him?"

            His body was broken, but at least his spirit and soul was safe, I tried comfort myself. That's better than me, better than me. A tear dripped onto the floor and disappeared into the puddle..

            "Yes," I whispered, and felt myself shoved into the police car.

MNM

            And so now I am here.

            My trial is tomorrow. I know that at best I will stay in this cell forever, at worst I'll be sentenced to death. I am not concerned. Whatever I get, I deserve it.

            I am not scared of death. But I am scared for my parents. As much as they hate me now, I love them.

            How will they cope with my brother's death? I don't know. He was their hope, their pride. And I destroyed it.

            I know I will never see my parents again. They can't forgive me. They don't want to forgive me. They won't even come to see me in prison, even if I were to die the next day.

            The triads can't save me either. Why would they? I'm their newest member, a greenhorn. I've a nonessential member. My death won't be their loss.

            Such a cruel world. But I am the cruelest of them all.

            Because I murdered my brother.