I Am Not Jessica Chen(78)

I’m gasping when I reach the lookout, my body trembling from exhaustion, my ponytail tumbling over my shoulders. Sweat stings my eyes. Dampens my palms. There’s a stitch in my side, so sharp it feels like I’ve been stabbed, and for a second I want nothing more than to collapse on the ground and sink into the dirt, but I force myself to stay standing.

I can see everything from here. The shine of the lake and the long winding roads and the Victorian houses and the stables with the grazing horses and the meadows Aaron and I walked through. The air feels colder this high up, tastes colder, sweet like the sugar cubes I’d melt into my jasmine tea. Night is arriving, fast. Above the familiar jagged landscape, I watch the sky turn from hazy violet to indigo to the darkness you find behind shut eyelids, like the world is closing its eyes.

I’ve taken this path up the mountain a hundred times before, but I’ve never been alone, never stayed behind so late. The black branches look twisted and ominous, the misshapen boulders waiting around in packs.

Too late, I remember someone talking about wolf sightings up in the mountains.

Fear worms its way through my stomach, but I force myself to focus. I set the canvas down, using my phone as a flashlight, and uncap the tube. Dip the brush into the blue paint. Then, trembling all over, I lower it to my self-portrait and begin to draw over all the places that have been covered.

The rough shape of a nose. The slight bump on the bridge.

The arch of my mouth.

Every individual eyelash, curving up.

The freckles dusted over my cheeks.

The shadows under my temples.

My fingers—Jessica’s fingers—still won’t obey me. No matter how much control I try to exert over the brush, it seems determined to run away from me. It’s little more than an approximation of what I could do before. Nothing is exact. The strokes are messy, uneven. The excess paint runs down the canvas like fresh tears. I frantically wipe it with the edge of my sleeve, but I only end up smudging it further.

A scream of frustration escapes my throat.

“Damn it,” I hiss. In the dark, the paint smeared over my hands looks curiously like blood. “Work. Please, please. This has to work.”

And then it’s no longer a matter of painting, but waiting. Waiting for the shooting star to appear. I search the sky and sit in the cold with the canvas and wait for what must be hours, until my bones start to ache.

“Please,” I whisper to nothing. “Please.”

A glimmer of light in my vision.

I stop breathing. Even the mountains seem to fall into quiet.

It appears like a miracle. Like magic. The meteor streaks through the night in a beautiful, radiant blaze of silver, quick as a blink, distant as a dream. I clasp my hands together so tight it hurts and present the painting like an offering and pray and pray and pray with all my strength: Let it go back to the way it was. I don’t want to be Jessica Chen anymore; I wish I could be Jenna Chen again. I’m Jenna Chen. I’m Jenna.

Please, I miss it.

I miss everything.

I miss my room, our garden that never grew anything but was still lovely to gaze at, the view of the stars from the balcony. I miss the sound of my mom calling me down for breakfast, scolding me for going to sleep too late, all her concerns disguised as threats. The jar of sea glass sitting on my nightstand, a collection of every trip down to the beach. Walking past the kitchen and smelling chili and cumin powder in the air and knowing Mom was making lamb skewers for dinner. My dad driving us home at night, the windows rolled down a sliver and the radio on, the streets painted purple and stretched out ahead of me like infinity. The mid-autumn festival at my house, the mooncakes split into thirds, the sweet lotus-paste filling and the golden salted egg yolk always given to me. Picnics in the park, basking in the ocher light, listening to the sparrows sing.

How we sat together on the damp grass one Saturday afternoon and unpacked our basket: steamed, half-warm pork buns and packets of chips; tuna and avocado sandwiches, dressed in tight layers of cling wrap; fat slices of apple that were already starting to yellow. How we passed the food back and forth between us on cheap plastic plates and watched the sun rise over the trees, the leaves burning white-gold as though held to flames. How I strolled by the lake with Aaron, back when we were too young to know what it was to really want something. And him skipping pebbles over the water, the stones casting ripples everywhere they touched, his wrists flicking, the pale bones of his hands exposed. A doctor’s hands.

I miss him, even if every moment we shared together was a reminder that he wasn’t mine. Chasing after him across the oval, his shadow stretching out behind him, never quite close enough to touch. Standing next to him under a flickering streetlight, the moon lopsided and silver through the foliage, spilling over his midnight hair. When he was around, the world seemed safe, the kind of place that was worth everything, all the little disappointments and injustices and chips at my pride. The kind of place that could be beautiful if we really tried.

But more than anything else, I miss myself. The thrill of creating something, of stepping into the art classroom, past all those half-finished paintings, the sketches in charcoal, sharp shapes and bursts of color and memories in motion, photo references taped to desks. Opening a fresh tube of oil paint, blending two shades just right to create the sea or a wild plain or a sweep of snow, time bleeding away in the background, then finally stepping back and seeing something there, a physical impression of the scenes inside my head. Walking alone through the golden fields, watching the contrails over the horizon, stopping to tuck a wildflower behind my ear. Waking up at noon during the holidays to make pancakes, dicing fresh strawberries and dusting powdered sugar over the top. The scent of my cardigan fresh from the laundry, the cool softness of my blankets against my bare ankles, the dandelion stickers I had glued to my walls when I was eleven and couldn’t quite scrape off no matter what I did. The long, languid summer days, the liquid blue of the sky, clear enough to swim through.