I Am Not Jessica Chen(62)
Living Jessica’s life has dulled that pain slightly, blurred out that particular part of my memory—similar, maybe, to how quickly you forget the stuffy discomfort of a fever once you recover. Because it is no longer relevant. Because your body believes the terrible thing is behind you.
But now it all comes rushing in again, like floodwater, rising instantly to my lips. The pain of insignificance.
“It’s just not fair,” she whispers, dragging her sleeve roughly across her eyes. “It’s not fair. You cheated and you’re still heading off to Harvard, and I’ve done everything right, and I was waitlisted.”
I stare at her. In a flash of clarity, it all makes sense. “But in class, you acted like you’d gotten in . . . I saw you nod—”
“Yeah, well, obviously.” Her voice cracks. “What else was I meant to do? Announce to the whole class that I had failed? I mean, do you know how embarrassing it is? I was supposed to be the gifted one. I was so talented, so special—that’s what they all told me, when I was still playing with dolls and didn’t know what an Ivy League was. I didn’t even want to skip two grades, but the teachers said it’d help me realize my full potential faster, and my moms believed them. So then I was thrown into your classes, and I wasn’t special anymore, even though I studied harder than I ever had before, and after all that, you’re the one who made it. You’re headed off to my dream school, and the really funny thing is, Jessica, that you don’t even . . . you don’t even need it.”
If she had been clinging to any last ounce of composure before, it crumbles away now. Tears slip between her fingers and drip from the tip of her nose. I’m struck suddenly by how very young she looks. How much younger she is than we are. “You got into every Ivy you applied to. Your family has money. You could simply choose to go to another school and then there’d be room for me—they’d let me off the waitlist. This would be an absolutely incredible, life-changing thing if it happened to me. But for you? It’s just another accomplishment, isn’t it?”
I swallow. I don’t know what to say—not because I can’t fathom her logic, but because I can. It’s the mantra we’ve all been fed since we were kids: study hard, get into a good school, be better than everyone else, and you’ll have a better life. Because a school like Havenwood might be a cage, but at the end of the day, a cage is still a shelter, and we all want to be valued, to be protected, to be safe, to prove that we deserve to be here. Because the chances of success are so suffocatingly small, and the pressure to succeed is so overwhelmingly great, and there are only a handful of people, distant as deities from the rest of us, who hold all the power.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I tell her eventually.
She sniffs. “Yes. It does. You shouldn’t be going to Harvard—it should be me.”
“If you’re waitlisted, you might still get in, whether or not I’m going to Harvard too,” I say, my voice even. I should be angrier; her messages have kept me up countless nights, filled my lungs with dread and terror, made me flinch at the shadows. But as I watch her wipe her nose, her body shaking, I realize that she hadn’t acted out of malice so much as desperation, a need to convince herself that there was still an opportunity to alter her future. Softer, I say, “And even if—”
“Don’t.” Her fists clench, and I take an automatic step back. “Don’t pity me.”
“I don’t pity you. I only . . .” I hesitate. “I’ve been in a similar position before, that’s all. So I . . . I get it, I really do. It’s so easy to fall into the assumption that anything someone else gains is something you lose. To think of success as some lavish party with only a limited number of invites. To convince yourself that if you could only make it to a certain point in the distance, you’ll finally find a place to rest. To feel like there’s always more that you can do. But I mean, look what’s being done to us—to our self-esteem, to our pride, to our bodies. We’re all exhausted and on the verge of breaking down at any second and somehow . . . somehow we’re expected to just keep going.
“Even if you don’t get into Harvard,” I tell her, as gently as I would speak to a younger version of myself, the words seeming to float up from somewhere deep inside me, “you can still be happy. You can still live your life. But I also know . . . I know I shouldn’t have copied your idea. It’s just—there have been a lot of bizarre, unexpected things happening recently, so I’m not in the best position to give you an answer. If I could have more time . . . I promise,” I say, praying she can hear the sincerity in my voice, “I’ll figure out how to make this right.”
And maybe she does. She slowly unfolds her arms and frowns. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you comforting me?”
I offer her a small smile. “Because if we don’t try to understand each other, then who will?”
There’s no reply at first. I’m not sure if she’s even heard me. But when I gather up my books and turn toward the door, she says, so low I almost miss it, “A week. I’ll give you one more week.” She doesn’t look at me; she simply remains standing in the shifting, blue-tinted light of the library, her eyes on the sky.
“How did it go?” Aaron asks as soon as he sees me, pushing off from the railings, his brows drawn with worry.