The envelope

It came on a Tuesday. All brown and official looking, with an ink stamp on the back, glaring up at me. I could almost hear its mantra, 'you're gonna fa-il, you're gonna fa-il'.
"Is that it?" mum asked, expectantly.
I nodded.
"Well, aren't you going to open it?"
She looked at me as though the envelope was just another random piece of junk that pops through the letter box, like letters that say you could win a million if you fill in an accompanying form, or party political propaganda, or letters from Glazers offering to replace all your windows for a fraction of the cost of competitors. Could she not sense my inner turmoil? Could she not see the fear on my face, the tension in my jaw? I thought mothers were supposed to be intuitive.
Mine clearly wasn't. My heart beat so hard I swear it was in training for a marathon and my blood pumped so fast I could've whitewater rafted on it. Did everyone in my class feel the same way that I did at that moment. What did they do? Did they instantly tear it open? Did they steam it and gently prise it open, hoping to preserve the perfectness of the moment? Did they throw it in the fire, collapse in a nervous heap, perform a rain dance around it? I never knew. It was everyone's own private secret.
What did I do?
I carried it upstairs to my bedroom, calmly, against the protests of my mother who's own burning curiosity meant she couldn't help but stamp her feet like a defiant child, demanding that she know the contents.
I didn't bow to her demand. This was confidential. For my eyes only. And the fact that it gave me, Mitsy Packer, sixteen year old daughter to an Architect and a Barrister, a sense of power, was another reason not to open it. So I propped it up against the angle poise lamp on my desk and laid down on my bed.
I stayed there pretty much all day, reading, playing snap with the dog (the only opponent I was able to beat at that game given my really rubbish reflexes) and enjoying the frustration on my mother's face when she periodically came into my room and realised the envelope was still unopened. Her excuses for the constant intrusion went from mundane to ridiculous-laundry, lost jewellery, supposed infestation of ants, sniffing for a gas leak (implausible for the simple reason that everyone in the village is on electric!).
Though if I'm honest I used my enjoyment at torturing my mother as a diversion from the real reason I didn't want to open the damn letter. I was too afraid.
It wasn't the contents that scared me it was the finality of them. The fact that this was it. No going back. No resists. The results would be a permanent, indelible record. In a slightly twisted way, I suppose, it was like having a criminal record. No matter how much you redeemed yourself after the event, that past record would always be there.
But I knew I would have to end the suspense, if not for the reason that pretty soon I knew I'd be inundated with phone calls from friends curious themselves to know what grades I got. That was when I reached for the envelope and before I could give my mind a chance to conjure up another reason to abstain I tore it open.
The certificate was laminated: pristine and shiny. I cast my eyes down the right hand side of the page, just registering the grades and not the subject they related to. A,B,B,C,B.
I gave the air a punch, slipped the certificate back inside the envelope and wondered how much longer I could torment mum.