I Am Not Jessica Chen(83)

I shove him back, and he’s laughing. “I thought you were going to start being nicer to me,” I grumble, mortified.

“What do you mean? That was nice of me,” he says. “Or else you would’ve headed off to English with red smudged on your cheek.”

I wipe my face roughly. “Still there?”

“Yes. I think you made it worse.”

People are moving around us, streaming in and out of the classroom. A few girls pause to sneak not-so-discreet glances at him.

Aaron doesn’t seem to notice them. “Let me,” he whispers. “Don’t move.”

I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I’m too nervous, frozen to the ground as he brings his thumb to my cheek and swipes it very gently over my skin. I hope he can’t feel me trembling.

“There,” he tells me. “All better now.”



We’re gathering at Jessica’s house again on Saturday.

We bring braised beef this time, and a bag of fresh mangoes. When the door opens, I smile up at my aunt and greet her without thinking, “Hi, Mom.” Then immediately wince at my mistake. Some habits really are too easy to form.

My mom pokes my forehead. “Xia jiao shenme ne? Your mom’s behind you.”

“Sorry,” I apologize to them both. “I, uh, was just kidding—”

“Jenna is so funny,” my aunt says cooperatively. “Young people and their sense of humor these days.”

“Yes, yes, just hilarious,” my mom mutters, poking me again.

“We have mangoes for you,” my dad offers.

“Aiya, you’re too polite,” Auntie says, as she always does. “I tell you every time, you really don’t have to bring anything. . . .”

“How could we come empty-handed?” my mom protests.

This process repeats itself a few times before we finally make it into the house.

“Jessica’s out in the yard, by the way,” Auntie tells me. “She should be happy to see you.”

I’m not sure the latter is true, but I do find her sitting on the back porch, ankles crossed, hair blowing back in the breeze, the kind of graceful I could never fully emulate, even with her body. At the sound of my footsteps, she turns her head a fraction toward me, her eyes wary. It still feels strange, to have her here, this blood-and-flesh person, this separate entity from me. It feels like I’m looking at myself, or looking at another version of myself.

“You’re here,” she says.

I hesitate, then move to join her, encouraged when she does not protest. “How has . . . everything been?”

“Good.” She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Strange. I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s just my imagination, but people are treating me . . . differently. Lachlan and his friends don’t seem to like me much.”

I grimace. “That’s, uh, my bad.”

“No, it’s fine. I never liked them much either,” she says with a little smile, and I feel myself relax. “And I don’t really mind how other people are acting now. Like I’m—a real person, you know what I mean? I didn’t feel fully real before. I didn’t think I would ever have a chance to.”

Another breeze floats past us. I lift my head up, letting it fan my face.

“You know what used to bother me most about you?” I ask.

“What?” she says.

“You were proof,” I tell her, and only when the words are out do I realize how true they are, how long I’ve been carrying them. “You were proof that it was my fault.”

She frowns. “I don’t get it.”

“If people didn’t like me,” I explain, “or if I didn’t get a particular offer or acceptance letter or award, if I was excluded or ignored or underestimated, if I didn’t get the life I wanted . . . I could only blame myself for not being good enough, because you were there. You came from the same city, the same family, and you managed to achieve everything I couldn’t. It was simple, really: you were successful, and I wasn’t, so either I was doing something wrong, or there was something wrong with me.” It’s still a little embarrassing to admit, to draw out the clear differences in our lives and point at everything she did better, but the pain I’m braced for doesn’t come. Steadily, I continue, “You were, like, the better version of me that I could never be. You were what everyone else thought I should be. You were the standard.”

Jessica blows out a long breath and stretches her legs over the grass, processing this. “God. Jenna, that’s . . .”

“But I didn’t realize how lonely being used as the standard was,” I say. “How hard it was for you. How utterly exhausting that gets. I was so caught up in feeling jealous and insecure that I didn’t even think about it. I just assumed . . . I assumed all the wrong things. I’m sorry.”

She’s silent for a moment. Then she makes a soft, half-choked sound. “I’m sorry too. I knew people compared us sometimes, and I knew it must have bothered you, but I—I didn’t know how to talk to you. I was scared that I’d only make things worse.” Her voice grows smaller. “That you wouldn’t want to be around me anymore.”

I blink. “You were worried about that?”

“Of course,” she says. “You’re my cousin.”