I Am Not Jessica Chen(65)
He’s silent.
He’s silent for so long I can hear the air tremble against my lips. I can hear my heart thrumming, the blur of brown noise from outside the car, the wind moving over the windows, the world tipping on its axis. I can hear my own resentment, expanding, the corrosive truth eating away the space between us.
Finally he says, “There are far worse things to be than untalented.”
“I’m aware, but—”
“Are you really?” The heat in his voice shocks me. The burr of anger. “Because you act like the worst fate for a person is to be mediocre, to go about their lives without accomplishing anything significant enough to leave behind a lasting legacy. Do you even know—” He inhales.
“You say I’m a genius? Okay, fine. I am. You’re correct. School comes easily to me; it always has. I can memorize anything I see. I can ace an exam without studying. I’ll head off to an Ivy League, and I’ll be admired by my classmates and my professors, and I’ll be able to get into medical school, and I like to think I’ll still be at the top of my class. But I would trade all of that—any of that—to have what you have.”
“What do I have?” I whisper, because I’m genuinely confused, genuinely curious. What could I have that he wants?
“Oh, I’m not entirely sure,” he says, his sarcasm sharp enough to cut, his grip tightening over the wheel. “Maybe a family? Maybe a mother who’s alive, a father who actually cares?”
I flinch.
“I wouldn’t even want to be a doctor if not for my mother,” he continues. “I just . . . that’s the best I can do. That’s the most and the least I can do. To find a cure that could have saved her, to be the person who stops someone else from losing their mother. But for her—for me—it’s too late. And I will have to spend the rest of my life grieving, in pain. Do you know what that’s like?”
“Aaron, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” I say, and I could die from my shame. It’s burning the skin off my fingers, my face. Because of what I’ve said. And because of what I’m going to say next. “But I . . . I can’t make myself do it. I can’t . . . I can’t change the wish—”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“That’s not an excuse!”
My heart is in freefall. “I don’t need to explain myself.”
“I deserve an explanation,” he says fiercely. “Just tell me why. Please. It’s driving me mad—”
“Aaron, drop it.”
“You can’t just avoid the subject forever. Why—”
“Because I hate myself too much.”
There.
The real, full, humiliating truth. It feels like someone’s extracted a tooth, removed a vital organ. It’s the same raw feeling I get after I’ve been crying for too long.
“Are you happy now?” I demand, my skin stinging. “Is that answer good enough for you?”
I glance over at Aaron’s face, terrified of the pity I might see on the features I know so well, but he doesn’t look remotely sympathetic. He looks livid.
He’s always been exceptional at concealing his emotions, at smiling even when he’s suffering; he’s the kind of person who could take a beating with a complete poker face. But he doesn’t seem capable of hiding anything now. Everything is laid open in his gaze. His frustration, his grief, his confusion.
His hurt.
Like someone holding out their bloodied hand after they’ve been cut. The space of the vehicle is suddenly too small, too intimate, the doors locking me into this conversation. I can’t escape it. I have to face him.
When he speaks, his voice trembles. “You really don’t know yourself at all, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have no idea,” he goes on in a furious whisper. “You truly have no idea what you mean to me. You can’t see yourself from anyone else’s perspective; you don’t even really know yourself. You’re so stuck in your own skewed version of your life, and it’s not . . . it’s not real. You’re incredible.”
I actually laugh. Slap the dashboard in my hysteria. “Oh my god, okay, seriously. We’re not doing this—”
“No. Let me continue,” he says, his eyes flashing. “You are incredible. You see the world like an artist. You notice every color in the sky, you stop and marvel at the sight of a sparrow flying by or a ripple in the lake or an autumn leaf in the sun. You’re always the first person to sense if someone else is having a bad day, and you can’t watch a sad movie without crying, and you always skip the ending if you know it’s going to be tragic, so you can make up something better in your head. Once, you teared up after your elderly neighbor asked you to read the expiration date on a loaf of bread for him because his eyesight was fading. You also tear up every time you watch that cereal commercial about the border collie who runs away from home. When we found a dead bird in the forest, you insisted on building a grave for it out of twigs and wildflowers. You hate small spaces, but you still came to sit with me in the attic for hours when my father was mad at me. You’re sarcastic, but never in a mean way. You’re dramatic, and you can make anything sound like poetry. You’re sensitive, and maybe that means you feel pain and fear and humiliation more sharply, but you also feel joy more beautifully and completely than anyone I know. You make me feel the same joy just by looking at you.”