I Am Not Jessica Chen

One

I’ve always had this theory that if I want something badly enough, the universe will make sure to keep it just out of my reach—either

out of boredom or cruelty, like an invisible hand dangling stars on a string.

Sometimes the universe will be creative with its tricks too. Take, for instance, that morning a snowstorm appeared out of

nowhere. It never even snows in our part of town, and the sky had been an especially vivid acrylic blue, the sun fat and golden

and rising over the tufted treetops. But I’d left all my notes in the classroom at Saturday Chinese school, and I desperately

needed them for Havenwood’s monthly language test on Monday—I still couldn’t remember half the phrases we’d been taught, which

ones meant “this floating life” and which ones meant “the flow of years like water” and “to dream of becoming a butterfly.”

If I didn’t have my notes, I would fail.

And if I failed, I would have to tell my parents. Watch them try to hide their disappointment.

So I’d rushed down to the car, my chest tight, my heart thrumming with urgency, when, as if summoned by a curse, the clouds had flocked together overhead like wild dark birds, and the temperature had plummeted. The snow had fallen fast, in a mad flurry, quickly sweeping across the town and blanketing the elm trees and blocking off the roads. Chinese school ended up being closed for the entire weekend—something I hadn’t known was possible, considering that it never closed, not even during Christmas and New Year’s or when one of the buildings caught fire—and I learned to never expect any help from the universe.

But I still can’t stop myself from hoping it’ll be different this time around. Maybe a miracle will happen. Maybe the universe

will be kind for once, and when I reach up, the stars will fall into my palms.

Maybe...

I lean my head back against my locked bedroom door and draw in a deep, rattling breath. Another. Another. It doesn’t work;

the terrible tingling sensation in my fingers only spreads down to my feet, mutates into a violent trembling. My laptop is

open and laid out on the floor below, the screen staring back at me like a beckoning, the time blinking in the corner.

4:59 p.m.

minute until the email from Harvard arrives. Until I can know for certain if I was accepted or not. If I’m good enough

or not. minute until my life changes for better or worse, every passing second stirring up the wasps in my belly.

I can almost imagine it playing out like a scene from a movie. The beautiful, life-changing ding of my notifications, the words I’ve been dreaming of unfurling before me in concrete black-and-white text— Congratulations, Jenna Chen, I am delighted to inform you —the way my parents will beam and beam when I run downstairs and tell them, just before we head over to my auntie and uncle’s

house, where they’ll finally get to brag about me. That’s how it always goes in those Harvard acceptance reaction videos,

and I’ve watched every single one of them, half salivating, my wanting overtaking every cell in my body, pressing down hard

on my chest like a physical sickness.

But then I imagine thousands of anxious high schoolers spread out across the world in this exact moment, all making the exact

same wish, all staring at their laptops, waiting for the same email to come in. People like my cousin Jessica Chen: people

smarter and cooler and objectively better than I am . People who’ve been preparing for this moment since before they could walk, who haven’t already been rejected by all the other

Ivy Leagues they’ve applied to so far. The very thought makes me claustrophobic, makes doubt chew a ragged hole through my

gut.

Ding!

I jump at the alert. It’s louder than I imagined, the sound harsher.

new email.

My heart lurches into my throat. This is it—oh god, it’s here, it’s really happening. I’m going to throw up.

I brace myself, all my muscles tensed as if for a boxing match. My fingers are shaking so hard that I have to click the email four times before it loads onto the screen. There’s something about the moment, all the buildup before it, that feels almost anticlimactic. The air doesn’t change. The ground doesn’t shift beneath my feet. Just a quick, simple action, a blink, and there it is: a few pixels on my laptop that’ll determine the entire trajectory of my life.

At first I’m too nervous to even absorb anything, can only gape at the wall of text, the Harvard logo splashed across the

bottom like a bright bloodstain.

Then the words creep into my vision:

I am very sorry to inform you that we cannot offer you admission.... I wish that a different decision had been possible....

Receiving our final decision now will be helpful... as you make your college plans....

I read it, read it all over again, and my gut sinks down to my feet. Time seems to warp around me, trapping me within it like

an insect in amber. Distantly, I can still hear Mom and Dad moving downstairs, the sharp rattle of car keys, the clack of

shoes, their muted bickering over how many wontons to bring with them to the gathering at Auntie’s place. But they might as

well be thousands of miles away.

I pick my way through the rest of the email, as if there might be some other piece of information I’d missed, some final thread

of hope. But all I see is further confirmation of what I’ve always known, deep down in the core of me.

In recent years... faced with increasingly difficult decisions.... In addition, most candidates present strong personal

and extracurricular credentials...

I’m simply not that good.

Not in academics. Not in extracurriculars. Not as a student, or a daughter, or a human. It doesn’t matter if I crammed my brain to the point of breaking with formulas and dates, threw myself into my classes, painted until the skin on my hands blistered and split open. Here is incontrovertible proof. Something in me is missing. Lacking.

“Jenna! Are you ready to go?” Mom always sounds like she’s yelling from across a crowded marketplace. I startle at her voice,

then, stomach churning, slam my laptop shut. Wipe roughly at my eyes. Ignore the dangerous ache building at the back of my

throat. “I already told your uncle and auntie we’ve left the house.”

A recent memory resurfaces: my mom resting her chin against my shoulder as she watched me send my applications off, one by

one, exhaling alongside the whoosh of every email. Later, she had spent hours in the kitchen making eight-treasure rice, adding in so many extra red dates and

nuts the top layer was almost completely covered. To celebrate all your hard work, she’d said, smiling. It’s going to pay off, I can feel it. We’ll have a bigger celebration once you get in.

“Jenna? Did you hear me?”

The wasps inside me grow louder, their buzzing incessant.

“I—I’m ready,” I call back, even as I reach for my coat as slowly as possible, comb my hair back strand by messy strand, take

the stairs one step at a time, delaying the inevitable.

How am I supposed to confess to my parents that everything they’ve done for me—leaving behind their old lives, moving across

the world, spending what should’ve been vacation money on overpriced textbooks, waking up at dawn to drive me to tutoring

centers, all so I could have a better education—was for nothing?

By the time we pull into my uncle’s driveway, I still haven’t figured out how to tell them.

Maybe, I muse to myself, my head resting against the fogged-up car window, it would be better if I burst into tears. Told them through hysterical sobs. Maybe then they would at least feel sorry for me, and spend most of their energy consoling me, instead of scolding me, or

wondering where they went wrong. But they’ve already been understanding enough. That’s the thing. Each time a new rejection

letter from Yale or UPenn or Brown popped up in my inbox, or in our mail, they’d be the first to squeeze my shoulders and

say, It’s fine, we’re still waiting to hear back from the others. Except I’d seen for myself the growing concern in their eyes, how it’d spread over their aging features like a shadow; I bet

Jessica’s parents had never looked at her like that before in her life.

Besides, what could my parents say this time around? There are no good schools left. The only ones we haven’t heard back from

yet are my safety schools, the kinds of schools I was embarrassed to even be applying to. Of course Jessica hadn’t applied for any safety schools at all, because she didn’t need them. Her getting into the Ivies was already a foregone

conclusion, a fate carved into stone for her probably since she was still in the womb. She’s just that good . That unreasonably, unfathomably perfect.

And I can never be her.

It’s such a suffocating thought—that everything I will ever feel and know and accomplish must begin and end with my own mind.

“It’s so beautiful,” Mom remarks as she steps out of the car, taking in the full view of Uncle’s house. She makes the same comment every time we come here, and every time, it’s true. I climb out after her and stare down the wide, windswept driveway, lined with magnolia trees, their petals flushed pink and smooth as wax, their slender branches reaching up toward the vast late-afternoon sky. And beyond that, the three-story house rises like a white-painted castle, with its massive floor-to-ceiling windows and ivy-crawled walls and marble balustrade balconies. It’s the kind of house that comes with its own name , dated back to the pre-WWI days and stamped in gold over the front door for all guests to see: Magnolia Cottage.

Once, when our mutual friend Leela Patel had come over for a study date with the two of us, she’d raised her brows, both her

jaw and her bag dropping to her feet. “ That’s your house, Jessica?” When Jessica nodded, with her signature small, humble smile, Leela had whistled. “Damn. I always thought

a bunch of rich white people lived here.”

We’d all cracked up laughing, not because it was that funny, but because it was so accurate. My uncle and auntie might have moved over to America from Tianjin just three years before my parents did, but they seem to fit in better than we ever could. Every day, while my dad drives across town at dawn to set up air conditioners and inspect switchboards and my mom balances on her too-tight heels behind a reception desk, Jessica’s parents list off tasks to their assistants and close seven-figure deals from inside their spacious private offices. In the summers, when we budget for a two-day road trip to the closest beach, Jessica’s family flies business class to a luxurious resort in Italy. Jessica’s parents have everything: their lavish house and massive garden and high-end clothes. And they have Jessica.

My parents? All they have is me.

I swallow the bitter thought like poison and hurry to help Mom with the wontons. She’s packed five whole Tupperwares of them,

all freshly wrapped and uncooked and stuffed with our special pork-and-shrimp filling.

“Is... there a festival going on that I don’t know about?” I ask, surveying the food.

She flicks my forehead lightly, then fiddles with her fake Chanel scarf. It’s the one she always wears when she’s meeting

Dad’s side of the family. “Shush. You can’t expect us to show up at your uncle and auntie’s house empty-handed , can you? They’re already too kind to us, hosting these gatherings every time.”

Neither of us says the obvious—that the only reason my uncle and auntie always host is because our house is way too small

to fit all of us, what with its one-and-a-half bathrooms and living-room-slash-kitchen. Even the dining table Dad dragged

home from a garage sale a few years ago is only made for four people at most.

“I told you not to pack so many,” Dad mutters as he follows us down the driveway, the gravel crunching beneath his old sneakers.

“Nobody’s going to finish all of that. And they’re already preparing hot pot.”

“Better to bring too much than too little,” Mom returns.

“Then we should’ve brought the apples from our backyard. Add more variety—”

“ Apples? Do you want them to think we’re cheap? Besides, some people don’t even like them.”

Dad looks so affronted you’d think he’d invented the fruit himself. “ Everyone loves apples—”

We’ve reached the front door now. When it swings open, revealing my smiling uncle and auntie, I watch my parents pause mid-bickering

and switch to bright smiles, the whole thing quick and subtle as a magic trick.

“It’s so good to see you!” Mom greets, passing the wontons forward. “We made some extra ones, and thought we’d share them

with you.”

“Aiya, you’re too polite.” Auntie makes a big fuss of tutting and shaking her head while Uncle fetches the slippers. It’s

what she tells Mom every visit; sometimes I swear all the adults are following some kind of secret rulebook on social etiquette.

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to bring anything. We’re all family here.”

“It’s because we’re family that we should all share,” Mom insists. Another all-too-familiar line, followed by the even more familiar “By

the way, you look so skinny. Have you been eating well lately?”

I tighten my grip on the wonton containers, dreading the moment they finish running through the pleasantries and turn their

attention to me. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep pretending everything’s fine when I’m one wrong question away from

breaking down. And I can’t imagine anything more mortifying than breaking down over my Harvard rejection at my Harvard-bound

cousin’s house.

“Jenna!” Uncle greets me first, waving me into the warmth of the living room. As different as he is from Dad, I’ve always liked him; he smiles more than he laughs, seems to know something about everything, and unlike most grown-ups, he never treats me like a little kid. But today, I just want to get away from him. From all of them. “How have your studies been?”

“Oh, not bad,” I say, hoping he can’t hear the catch in my voice.

“You’re being modest,” he says, nodding sagely. “I’m sure your grades are excellent.”

They’re not. Harvard doesn’t seem to think so, anyway.

But before he can pursue the topic, Jessica appears beside him like a living saint. An enviably accomplished saint dressed

in arctic-blue cashmere and a perfect plaid skirt. From afar, Jessica and I look so similar that we could easily be confused

for each other, and at school, we often are. But one day I overheard a girl in our history class comment, in this flat, blunt

way that meant she was being totally honest, that I look like the dollar-store version of Jessica Chen.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to stop seeing it. Obsessing over it. Whereas Jessica’s hair is black and glossy, like

something out of a shampoo ad, mine is dull and deep brown; whereas her complexion is Chinese-beauty-pageant smooth, mine

is sickly looking, even after layers of foundation. She’s also taller in a supermodel way, with the long neck of a ballerina

and the posture of a princess.

“Oh my god, hey.” She beams at me, all her straight white teeth flashing. She’s never had to wear braces either, never had

to suffer to make them the way they are; her teeth are just like that , which pretty much sums my cousin up. Jessica Chen has always been a natural. She was born the best, while I’ve spent my entire life trying to just be good, and I’ve failed at even that.

I chew down on my tongue until it’s numb and force myself to beam back. “Hi.”

“Guess who’s here.”

Something about the way she says it, how she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, sends a jolt of unease through me.

“Huh? Who?” I crane my neck and scan the room, but all I can make out is the usual casual display of wealth: the chandeliers

glittering above the plush couches, the gleaming Yamaha piano set in the corner for every visitor to listen to her play “River

Flows in You,” the gold-framed abstract paintings adorning the walls, the patterned porcelain vases and decade-old yellow

wine stacked on the bookshelf, beside rows upon rows of trophies. All Jessica’s, of course, for everything from advanced algebra

to badminton to cello.

Then a boy our age steps out from behind the shelf with quiet, unfathomable grace, and my stomach flips.

I almost don’t recognize him right away. His hair’s grown longer, the thick, dark strands curled beautifully around his head like a crown, his jaw sharper, his shoulders broader than they were a year ago. But that self-assured expression arranged on his face is exactly as I remember it. So is the not-quite smile playing across his lips as he meets my gaze. It doesn’t matter that I blocked him on every single social media platform when he left for his fancy medical youth program in Paris on a full scholarship, that I tuned my parents out every time they brought up “Mr. Cai’s talented son.” He might as well be engraved in my memory, etched into my mind, every part of me. I remember it all.

The shock of seeing him here in Jessica’s living room—lovely and real and unexpected— today , of all days, feels like a punch in the face. My skin burns, and it takes an impossible degree of self-restraint not to flee

in the opposite direction.

“Aaron Cai,” Jessica says unnecessarily, gesturing between the two of us as though it’s our first time meeting, when I’ve

known him all my life. His father is best friends with my dad, and my family had invited them to move closer to us, after

his mother passed and his father stopped cleaning, stopped cooking, stopped almost everything. I can’t even imagine a world

where I don’t know him, where I wouldn’t pass him ready-made lunches before school, where the three of us didn’t spend our childhood summers

hanging around on Jessica’s porch together, sharing chocolate pies and staring at the stars when darkness fell.

“You haven’t changed much,” Aaron says, stopping a foot away.

The heat in my skin rises. I know he probably doesn’t mean it like an insult, but after our last mortifying exchange, I’d

made it a mission to change myself. To metamorphize into someone gorgeous and glamorous and inimitable. Sometimes at night,

I’d envision our next meeting. How his eyes would widen at the sight of me. How he’d eat his words, regret everything.

But today is starting to feel like a cruel lesson in the difference between imagination and real life.

“Neither have you,” I reply, though when it comes to him, this is a compliment. When you’re so widely known and loved, so soaked in glory you’re swimming in it, all you have to worry about is maintenance, not metamorphosis.

“Aaron finished his program early,” Jessica explains. “He’s going to spend the rest of his senior year back here with us.

Isn’t that great?”

“Oh” is all I can think to say.

Aaron hesitates, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single pen. “As promised,” he says, holding it up to me.

I freeze. The pen is intricately designed, plated in rose gold, with a delicate flower charm dangling from the end, the petals

carved out of crystals. He remembered. My throat burns with the knowledge, every moment from our past coalescing into the present. We were only twelve when he made

the promise. He and Jessica had been selected to attend a math tournament in New York, and even though I’d tried to act like

I didn’t care that I hadn’t even been considered for it, he must have seen the disappointment on my face.

I’ll bring something back for you, he’d said, smiling, tugging lightly at my hair. What do you want?

Nothing, I’d mumbled.

He’d cast me a knowing look. You always want something.

I wanted to go with him. I wanted to be on his team. I wanted to be smart like him and Jessica.

How about a new paint set? he’d suggested. You’ve been drawing a lot, haven’t you? A good artist needs good supplies.

That was the first time anyone had ever acknowledged that I was good at something, and so casually too, like it was obvious. Warmth curled inside my chest. I have enough paints—I just want a pen, I had told him. It was a small lie. My paints had almost run out, but a pen seemed like a much simpler and cheaper option,

something he could find without trouble. I can use it for my sketches.

But when he returned, he gave me one of the fanciest fountain pens I’d ever seen, the kind a queen might use to sign her letters.

From then on, every time he had to leave for a competition or debating camp or a school excursion, he would come back with

a new pen just for me.

As I take the gift from him now, I’m tempted to laugh at myself. An entire fortress, built painstakingly over the year in

his absence, threatening to crumble at the light touch of a pen . Zhen mei chuxi. The familiar phrase of disdain echoes inside my head. It’s what my mom would say whenever I was being slightly pathetic,

like when I’d beg her to buy ice cream for me at the mall, or when I’d cry over a tiny scratch on my hand. “I... thank

you, Cai Anran,” I say, his Chinese name falling a little too easily from my lips.

“You really didn’t need to bring so many presents for all of us,” Jessica adds.

It’s only then that I notice the boxes of dark chocolate and bottles of fish oil supplements laid out on the couch. My stomach

sinks. He’d remembered his promise, but I had forgotten that Aaron Cai has a dangerous way of making everyone feel special.

I can sense Aaron’s gaze on me when he says, “It’s no big deal. Both your parents and Jenna’s parents have been so nice to

me—I mean, you’re even letting me impose on your family dinner.”

“Are you kidding? The more people the better, especially for hot pot.” Jessica shakes her dark, glossy hair out as she laughs.

I breathe through the wire coiling around my ribs, feeling the same way I had the morning they left for the math tournament,

my feet rooted to the spot, my eyes following their tall, graceful, receding figures to the bus, the distance between us drawing

wider and wider. They’ve always looked like they belong next to each other.

Then Jessica whirls toward me, her skirt fanning out in a perfect circle. “Oh! We prepared that extra spicy sauce you like.

I asked Ma and Ba to put it in a separate pot for you, though, since Aaron wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Another thing about my cousin: she’s as naturally kind as she is talented. Sometimes—and I know it’s awful—I almost wish she

were a terrible person. Someone undeserving of her success. Someone I could hate without feeling like the villain.

I tuck the pen away and follow silently after her to the dining room, where all the adults have congregated too, their conversation

traveling down the well-trodden routes of real estate prices and our school’s extracurricular activities. Good. So long as they don’t turn their attention to college applications, I might be able to survive this evening.

The hot pot has already been set out on the long glass table, the rich, spice-infused water close to bubbling over, plates of thinly sliced raw lamb and beef and lotus root squeezed around it. Aaron slides into the seat next to Jessica, across from me. I try not to stare at him through the soft, rising steam. Try not to take account of everything both new and familiar about him. New: the way he rests his chin on the back of one hand. Familiar: the way he holds his chopsticks too close to the ends and discreetly picks all the chopped scallions out of his bowl.

Then his gaze catches on mine.

Get a grip, I will myself, quickly turning my head away, my cheeks burning. He’s going to think you still like him, and you don’t need to give him a reason to reject you all over again. Especially not when I’m still reeling from the last time I saw him, an entire year ago .

Once the meat has been thrown into the pot and the ground sesame sauce has been passed around, Auntie sits up straighter in

her chair and clears her throat.

“Since everyone’s here,” she begins, shooting a not-so-subtle look at Uncle, then Jessica, who just smiles down at the table.

“I feel like it’s a great time to share some super exciting news. We found out just minutes before you arrived, and, well...”

Even before she says it, I know. My skin tingles, and my breath clogs in my throat, my ribs caving in, bracing for the blow.

“Jessica got into Harvard!” The words come tumbling out in an excited rush, and my sensible, ever-composed aunt actually lets

out a little squeal at the end, like a schoolgirl at her first concert. I’ve never seen her so excited. I’ve never seen my

uncle so excited either—his complexion is as red as his wine, and he’s gazing over at Jessica with such fierce, obvious pride

it seems to form a warm halo around them, encompassing their side of the family. The good side.

While I remain sitting, my fingers cold and numb, everyone else reacts.

“Wow, that—that’s incredible,” Mom gushes, reaching out to ruffle Jessica’s hair. “Of course, it’s not surprising at all—if anyone’s getting into Harvard, it’s our Jessica.”

Dad gives my uncle a heavy pat on the back. “Congratulations, congratulations. Your job is done, then. Now you can just wait

to reap all the rewards of having a successful daughter.”

My aunt is grinning so wide I’m scared her face will split into two. “I can’t take all the credit—Jessica has always been

so independent, so hardworking, so brilliant . We’ve never had to worry about her future.”

I swallow, and it’s as painful as swallowing glass. All my parents have ever done is worry about me.

“Don’t go bragging now,” my uncle is saying, but his grin is just as wide, his happiness like the sun, too bright to stare

at without your eyes watering.

And there’s Jessica, sitting comfortably in all the attention like an empress on her rightful throne. It feels like watching

the secret movie in my head playing out in real time, except all the roles have been recast. Instead of Mom and Dad pulling

me into a bone-crushing hug, gloating about how smart I am, how successful I’ll be, while the others watch on in admiration

and joy and envy, it’s Auntie and Uncle. And instead of me absorbing their compliments, drinking in the euphoria of this moment, it’s Jessica.

It’s always Jessica.

The moment stretches on long enough to dredge up other memories too, the ones I’ve worked so hard to bury. Like when I ran home and excitedly told my parents I’d gotten eighty-five percent on our end-of-year exams, only to discover later that Jessica had scored full marks. Or when both Jessica and I entered the school’s essay contest, and she’d come in first place, while I came in third, despite preparing for months . Or when the principal wanted someone to make a speech on behalf of the school at orientation, and only picked me after Jessica

declined, because she’d be busy attending some prestigious awards ceremony with Aaron.

But I should be happy for her. Or I want to be happy for her.

“That’s amazing news,” I tell Jessica, the muscles in my cheeks locked into place. “Seriously. I—I’m so happy for you.”

“It’s hardly news at all,” Aaron says to her. “The three of us have been talking about this since we were kids. If you didn’t get into Harvard, that would be news.”

My whole face stings as if I’ve just been slapped. I do my best to keep quiet, keep smiling, keep acting like I’m just overjoyed about everything, but I can feel Aaron’s attention on me.

“What was our elaborate plan again?” Jessica says. “Me and Jenna heading off to Harvard together, and you flying in from Yale

to see us every weekend on your private jet— that part might have been a tad unrealistic, but everything else might actually work out....”

This is exactly what I’ve been dreading.

Please don’t, I beg inside my head. Please don’t ask me about Harvard. But of course there’s nobody around to answer my prayers.

Just when I’m considering how convincingly and elegantly I could fake-faint on the spot to escape the conversation, my uncle turns toward me. It almost seems to happen in slow motion, like the climactic scene from a horror movie, the air around us as still as death. “That reminds me,” he says, snapping his fingers. In my head, the violins from the imaginary horror movie soundtrack screech to a crescendo. “Jenna... you must have received the email too today.”

I feel, more than see, the effect of his words. The invisible dots connecting in my parents’ heads. The sudden pressure in

the atmosphere. The weight of their expectations thrust onto my shoulders. I lick my dry lips, stare at my chopsticks, and

feel a kind of crushing inferiority that’s like being buried under stone. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t speak.

“Jenna?” Mom peers at me, and the hope in her eyes makes everything so much worse. She still believes in me. “Did you check

your emails today?”

“You should check it now,” Auntie says, mistaking my silence for a no. “While we’re all here to celebrate. Oh my god, can

you imagine? Jenna and Jessica both going to Harvard...”

My heart squeezes. I can’t stand this. Not their faith, not my shame.

“You heard your aunt. Check your emails now,” my dad tells me, rising from his seat so enthusiastically he bumps his leg against

the edge of the table. He looks like he’s one moment away from grabbing my phone and checking my inbox himself. I can see

the future he wants for me projected vividly across his face.

I clench my fingers together in my lap, so overwhelmed I can’t even think of a way out. I’m trapped.

“Oh, someone should film this!” Auntie says, while Jessica smiles encouragingly. I’m scared to even glance in Aaron’s direction, to guess what he’s thinking. “Let me get the camera—we’d forgotten to film Jessica’s reaction earlier, but we can do it for Jenna.... It’s such a special memory—”

“Aiya, save the trouble,” Uncle interrupts. “I’m sure they’re more eager to know the results. Jenna, go ahead. Read what Harvard

said.”

“Go on,” my mom urges.

But I don’t reach for my phone. My hands are frozen.

Dad frowns. “Why aren’t you—”

“I, um, already checked my emails,” I croak out.

“And?” my aunt prompts, the way people do when they’re prepared to celebrate good news but want to give you the opportunity

to announce it.

The words won’t leave my tongue. I can’t bring myself to say it, to physically voice my failures, so I just shake my head.

Silence.

Everyone stares at me; nobody speaks. There’s only the water boiling in the pot between us, all the white foam and ginger

bits and spring onions bubbling up to the surface. I watch as the sliced lamb turns from a raw, tender pink to brown. It’ll

be overcooked soon, grow too hard to swallow, but no one fetches it out.

“Are you sure?” Dad asks, looking more disoriented than anything, as if convinced I’ve made a silly mistake. In an alternative

universe where I had gotten in, he would’ve been the first person I told. My father, who never got a chance to complete his degree in China, who’s always fantasized about sending me off to an Ivy League. Who’s already told all his friends and colleagues I was applying to Harvard. Who would glance over at me when my mom was pressing another heated herbal pack to his aching back and sigh and say, So long as you study hard, you’ll be able to find a comfortable job that doesn’t take such a toll on your body, do you understand? He sets his chopsticks down. “You didn’t get in? You were rejected?”

I manage to nod.

Another silence, even heavier this time. I catch Aaron’s eye across the table—an old habit, muscle memory—and instantly regret

it. His gaze is dark, somber, a knife to the throat. It’s been a year since he looked at me like that.

“Well.” Auntie is the first to recover. She even smiles at me, though maybe I’m giving her too much credit. Maybe it’s a genuine

smile, just one of relief: Thank god Jessica is my daughter, and not Jenna. “That’s all right. It’s just a school.”

“Yes, yes,” Uncle adds quickly. “The meat should be ready now. Hurry up and eat.”

The second all the platters have been emptied, I slip out quietly through the back door.

Outside, in Jessica’s backyard, a cool breeze whips my cheeks, the petal-arched blackness creeping over the edges, blurring

the boundary between the trimmed grass and the wilderness of the woods farther up ahead. When we were much younger, we used

to imagine monsters living there. I would kill them, Aaron had said without hesitation. I would help them, Jessica had offered. I would learn from them, I had thought to myself. Even then, I felt I lacked something: claws, speed, a hunter’s instinct. Now I breathe in, tasting the subdued sweetness of lavender, tipping my head to the dark sky. A few stray clouds drift over the full moon, the light scattering across the city. The stars are visible tonight, sharp as needlepoints and so lovely I’m tempted to paint them, despite knowing I could never get the colors right.

It’s cruel, really, how the world tends to present its most beautiful parts to you when you’re so profoundly sad. Like a crush

who comes up to you in the moonlight and smiles at you each time you insist on moving on—just enough to keep you lingering,

to make you wonder how good things could be. If only, if only.

The door creaks open again. I turn around as Aaron and Jessica walk over to join me.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jessica asks, sitting down on the back porch and swinging her legs over the side, her silky hair blowing

across her face.

After a pause, I lower myself onto the cold wooden planks too, aware of Aaron stopping on my left. For the thousandth time,

I wish he wasn’t here. I wish he had never come back. But that’s half a lie, because I’ve missed him too. Sometimes I missed

him so much it’s embarrassing.

“I’m fine,” I say, trying at a laugh, though the sound dies halfway, dissolves into the frigid blue air. “I mean, I only applied

as a joke. Harvard’s lucky to have you, though,” I tell her. “You must be thrilled.”

At this, she turns away, the shadows of an overgrown oak cloaking her face. “Yeah. I am. Thrilled.”

I glance back at the lit-up house, the vast Victorian-style structure looming larger than ever against the night sky. Through the thin screen doors, I can make out my parents’ silhouettes, both deep in conversation. Auntie’s rubbing slow, consoling circles over my mom’s back, while my dad has his head in his hands, as if warding off a severe migraine. My chest tightens. Somehow I know they’re talking about me. My future. My failures.

“It’s really nice out here,” Aaron says, leaning back, both his hands propped against the wood. “I’ve missed this place.”

It is nice out here, in a way. A cicada chirps from a nearby tree, and the dew-damp grass bends beneath a breeze, and the air feels

the way it does after fresh rain: cool and crisp and almost sweet with the scent of earth, ripe with possibility. If I were

someone else, I would enjoy this moment, take it, rest my bones in it. But instead, scenes from that better, alternative universe

keep unspooling in the back of my mind, one in which I’m laughing with Jessica, both of us giddy over the prospect of Harvard,

one where I am whole, convinced at last of my worth.

Then Jessica nudges me, her voice breaking through my thoughts. “Oh my god—look!”

She’s pointing at something high above us, and I look up just in time to see it: an astonishing streak of silver, a bright

needle of light piercing the sky’s black canvas, soaring over the tree skeletons in the woods, over our heads, over everything.

I’ve only ever seen shooting stars in movies before, never like this. It’s even more beautiful than I’d imagined.

“Quick, you guys,” Jessica says, clasping her hands together. “Make a wish.”

Aaron huffs out a soft, skeptical laugh and rolls his eyes, but follows suit after a beat.

I’m skeptical too. The universe has never listened to me before. Then again, I have nothing to lose; everything that could

go wrong already has. So I squeeze my eyes shut, the light of stars flickering behind my eyelids. Goose bumps crawl down my

arms as the quiet moment expands, takes on a strangely surreal quality, and I can’t shake the sensation that something or

someone really is listening, shifting closer, their ear pressed against the wall of my thoughts.

My parents’ low, concerned voices drift through the cracks in the door behind me, and the cicadas stop singing, and the breeze

picks up into a great, billowing wind, shaking the loose wooden boards like a haunting and slashing at my cheeks. The light

also grows brighter, glowing a brilliant, pure silver, the kind of color that could belong to another world.

My stomach dips. I feel all of a sudden as if I’m standing on some high precipice, staring down at the sheer drop below. It’s

like the moment before the fall, before gravity finds me, when everything is sheer potential, the air humming around me.

In the end, I don’t even have to decide what my wish is before making it.

I wish I was Jessica Chen.