I Am Not Jessica Chen(52)
Like the speech night my Chinese teacher had insisted that I would shine in, standing up on that cold, dark stage and trembling, feeling my own lack of presence, my inability to keep anyone’s eyes on my face, and not even qualifying for the next round. Sobbing afterward at home until I couldn’t breathe, too embarrassed to even tell my parents, my blankets pulled up over my head. Watching from the shadows as Jessica shook hands with beaming teachers, friends running over to gush, the circle that formed around her an impenetrable thing, a private room with windows but no doors, listening to the boasts disguised as self-deprecating jokes and half-hearted complaints.
But somehow trying anyway, believing even when there was nothing left to believe in. Dragging around the terrible knowledge that anything I did could change my life in an instant, but everything I did was futile.
“Because I don’t want a quiet life, I want a brilliant one,” I say at last. “Because I need to know what it’s like to win. To be the best.”
“But you don’t have to—”
I shoot him a warning glare. “If you give me bullshit along the lines of, ‘Oh, everyone is on their own journey, we can all be the best,’ I will actually throw a fit. That’s nice for a card, but completely untrue in real life.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” he protests. Then, more carefully, he asks, “Is this because of Harvard? Because you didn’t get in?”
I flinch. The rejection still stings. “That’s part of it.”
“Harvard doesn’t matter,” he says. “Getting into Harvard doesn’t mean you’re better than everyone, and not getting in doesn’t mean you’re worse.”
And that’s what I’d try to tell myself at first. I would come up with a thousand reasons why I could succeed without the Ivy League education. I might even be able to forget about it from time to time, but it would always linger in the back of my mind. One day, ten years from now, I’ll be at a party and everyone will be chatting and someone will casually bring up their classes at Harvard and someone else will gush over how smart they are, and in that moment I’ll feel so insignificant I’ll want to vanish.
“I can tell you don’t believe me,” Aaron says. “But if you could just—”
“My arm hurts,” I declare, and I watch the way he softens instantly, the argument disappearing from his eyes. For now, at least. I have no doubt he’ll bring it up again, but my arm really does ache, and the faint scent of blood is making my stomach turn and my head spin and the last thing I want is to dissect my own inferiority like a text analysis, with point, evidence, explain.
“We’ve already walked a mile,” he says. “We’re almost there.”
He’s wrong, though. We still have more than a mile to go.
“Tian ya,” my aunt says when I stagger in through the front door, Aaron close behind me. She must have just finished showering; she’s wrapped in a fluffy pink bathrobe and she has a facial mask on, leaving very little room to move her mouth. Her next words sound like they’ve been glued between her teeth. “What happened to you? What’s wrong with your arm?”
“Don’t worry,” Aaron says, helping me sit down on the couch. “She fell off a horse, but she should be fine. She just needs rest.”
“You went riding again?” Auntie glares at me. It’s hard to take her too seriously with the mask. “How many times have I told you? It’s too dangerous. Just because your friends go doesn’t mean you should—”
“She won’t do it again,” Aaron says quickly. “Right, Jessica?”
I can only muster the energy to nod. My arm won’t stop throbbing, and through my exhaustion, I can’t help imagining what it would be like to come home to my own parents. How much easier it would be, how much safer I would feel.
“Thank you for bringing her back,” Auntie says to Aaron. “You’re such a good kid. Always looking out for Jessica.”
“Of course.”
“I’m glad she has you.”
My eyes had been close to falling shut on their own, but they snap open at this. My aunt is smiling at Aaron.
“You two get along so well,” she continues. “I was just saying the other day, I think of you as my son-in-law. And it’s wonderful that you’re back home. You should come around more often.”
A sour taste rises to my mouth, as if I’ve bitten into a raw lemon. I’m suddenly, irrationally furious. It’s not Aaron’s fault, and it’s not Jessica’s either. But this has always been a deep fear of mine: that they’re perfect together, the golden boy and the beloved angel. That Jessica is the main character, and I’m the villain waiting in the shadows, the backup behind the curtains, the monster lurking beyond the village.
“I’m only doing what any friend would,” Aaron says, his expression impassive. “It doesn’t mean anything special.”
“You’re a great friend to Jessica,” Auntie says, eyes crinkling.
I want to throw something. I want to throw up. “Could I have some water, please?” I croak out.
“Mashang, mashang.” Auntie adjusts the facial mask that’s sliding down her chin and hurries off into the kitchen.
Aaron takes one small step toward me, and I hate how everything in me tightens to the point of pain. How my impulse is to wrap my arms around his waist and press my cheek to his shirt and feel him hold me. I’m weak, I’m injured, I’m so desperate for him it makes me sick.