three
Sometime in the middle of my second week, I sat in US Government, my eyes on the sweeping second hand of the clock over the
door, my mind wandering to a different plane.
Given the state of my grades this year so far, I should’ve been more focused on what was going on in the class, but I couldn’t
make my brain do much of anything these days. Soon, we’d be going on a road trip through California to see a series of colleges
that I might never be attending, if I couldn’t get over my mental block.
I pushed the thought away.
“Okay,” the teacher said. His name was Mr. Starnes. He was tall, mildly balding, and gangly; a perfect prototype of a US Government
teacher. “You’re going to need to pair up for the next project, because we will be doing debates.”
I straightened up and scanned the room. People were already making eye contact with one another and scooting close to each other. I hated this. It was like picking teams in gym. I was at a massive disadvantage.
Predictably, I watched as everyone else grabbed a person right away. I was left looking to my left and right and seeing no
leftovers.
“Anybody not paired up?” asked Mr. Starnes. “Ah, yes, Stella. Morgan over there needs a partner as well. Why don’t you move
over and join her?”
I grabbed my bag and trudged across the room to the empty seat next to hers. I recalled that her last name was Park, so she
must be Korean. She had straight-across bangs and an understreak of blue.
“Hi. Sorry you have to be stuck with the new girl,” I said, trying to break the ice with a little self-deprecation.
She shrugged and summoned up a huge sigh, as though she had, indeed, drawn the short straw. I felt chastened.
“Where are you from again?” she asked.
My defensiveness kicked in, having gotten that question from a countless parade of people in my life, ranging from curious
to hostile. “China,” I responded, shortcutting to the answer I assumed she wanted.
“No, no,” she said impatiently. “I meant where did you move from. I forgot what Mr. Starnes said when you joined.”
“Oh. Illinois.”
“Like, Chicago?”
“No. Mount Pierce.”
“Where is that?”
“It’s downstate.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What did they have there?”
I didn’t know what to say. There were no identifiable landmarks, other than the midsize telecommunications company Baba had
worked at. “Corn, I guess. It was small.”
She frowned, as though she couldn’t contemplate such a place. “I didn’t know there were any Asians there.”
It was my turn to shrug. “There weren’t that many.”
“Weird,” she said. I couldn’t decide whether her statement was a pronouncement on me, Mount Pierce, or my place in it. I felt
oddly protective of my home. For all its flaws and my rocky start there, it was still unquestionably a big part of me. I hadn’t
ever expected to move somewhere that would look down on it.
My locker was on the opposite side of the school from my last class of the day. As I walked down the long, beautiful outdoor
path to the building on the other side, peering at groups of students chattering along the stretch, I wondered if I would
ever make any connections here. It was brutal to move during the final semester of senior year. While I couldn’t blame Baba
for wanting to start over somewhere away from all the memories, it was impossible for me to extinguish the small flame of
resentment I held against him.
I wanted to feel the familiar. I didn’t need sunshine and citrus. Beaches weren’t as appealing with no one to go with. I wanted gray skies and movie theaters with my friends. I even missed the icy winter blasts I would’ve been braving to the parking lot every day at this time of year.
I opened the double doors into the building and turned the corner. There, right down the hallway, unmistakable as day, was
Alan Zhao.
It had been four years since we’d last crossed paths, but I still recognized him. He was tall now, taller than the two Asian
guys he was walking with. He had rectangular black glasses, a straight nose, and a neat haircut, revealing a high forehead.
He was tanner than I remembered, maybe a consequence of becoming a California transplant. He looked relaxed and happy. He
was chuckling with his friends.
A few things happened in quick succession.
His eyes caught mine.
I felt a hard swoop in my stomach.
I immediately turned toward the closest wall to face a bulletin board of student extracurricular activity announcements.
I hadn’t prepared for this moment. For some reason, having not seen him thus far made me believe that maybe I just wouldn’t
see him at all. It was a big school. As I understood it from my parents, he was a fantastic student, so he was probably in
all those advanced classes the counselor refused to bump me into.
Hearing his voice behind me now, it was clear what an unrealistic assumption that was. There was no way I wouldn’t run into
him, sooner or later.
He had seen me, for sure.
I held my breath, bracing for him to call out to me or tap me on the shoulder. But it never came. I heard his laughter as he passed me by. Within a minute, his voice had disappeared. He was gone.
Embarrassment filled me to the brim, then a simmering anger. I couldn’t believe my first reaction was to hide, as though I were the one who had something to be ashamed of. It turned out, although he had grown up and much about him had changed, the
one constant was still that he wouldn’t be caught dead around me.
I was about to turn back to my locker when one of the flyers on the bulletin board grabbed my attention. The school newspaper
was looking for more writers this semester. There was an email contact if you wanted information. I pivoted away without allowing
myself to linger. If I couldn’t get my grades up this semester, I couldn’t get distracted with extracurriculars. I had to
keep my focus.
I packed my things and headed out into the winter sun, trying to shake Alan’s face, the snapshot of his smile just before
my eyes slid away.
I splayed across my bed. My laptop was open in front of me to the Common Application.
All I had left to do was just write a personal essay and hit Submit.
I could write about anything. It didn’t even have to be particularly good.
I could generate a couple of paragraphs of bland garbage and call it a day.
But I had reached this point two months ago and still hadn’t gotten any further.
I kept thinking about what it was like when Sam applied for college. A whole different situation. We had gone on an entire
college tour up and down the Eastern Seaboard. I remembered Sam’s energy back then, his repressed excitement. Even though
he was quiet, I could see the shine in his eyes.
I watched him, jealous and itchy that I would have to wait another two years for my turn. College would be a whole new world.
He knew he was going to be free. That’s what we thought.
Now I sat in my new room, in the same life stage as he once was. The screen was too bright. The air was too warm. My clothes
scratched at my skin from the new detergent Mama bought, different from what we used in Illinois. Even the small things had
to be all wrong.
I opened the window and then closed it again. I tried to meditate using an app I downloaded. Nothing was working. Whenever
I pulled up the tab on my browser for the Common App, my anxiety spiked. My heart went at an unnatural gallop. My palms went
suddenly damp.
A medical condition, maybe. I could ask my parents to take me to a doctor, get it checked out.
Something was deeply wrong with me. The idea of going to college, going away from home, like Sam did, made me physically ill.
This was not normal. I knew that. It was debilitating enough, enormous enough, that I was not sure I could fix it by myself, much less in the span of the few weeks I had left before applications were due.
But I couldn’t bring it up with my parents.
For the past six months, I’d developed acute insomnia, where I couldn’t fall asleep for hours. At first, I’d tried just lying
still with my eyes closed and blanking my mind—the standard advice. I tried counting sheep. I tried spinning up stories to
lull myself into slumber. I tried reading boring books before returning to bed. I couldn’t beat it. Eventually, I gave up
and just started scrolling on my phone, even though screen time supposedly made it worse.
You could tell by the circles under my eyes after a week of really bad insomnia. I could see it in the mirror when I brushed
my teeth in the morning.
Mama and Baba never said a thing.
Such was the precarious state of our equilibrium, after Sam. We didn’t ask too much of each other. I didn’t ask them about
the throaty hacking sounds I heard from their room in the middle of the night. They didn’t ask about why I couldn’t sleep.
How could I introduce my existential fear of college to them, if we couldn’t even talk about something as concrete as insomnia?
I closed my laptop after an hour, my cursor still in its blinking position on a blank page. My bones ached. I felt exhausted,
although I knew I was doomed for another night of staring at the ceiling.
There was a knock at my door.
“Liang Liang?” Mama said. “Can we come in?”
I sat up and instinctively attempted to straighten up my bed. “Yeah. What’s up?”
My parents both stepped inside, their hands folded. I felt taut as a bowstring. Somehow, I knew before they even said anything
that something was wrong.
“There’s been a bit of a change in plans,” Baba said. His face was pained, but he was trying to draw it into a gargoyle optimism
that looked far worse than the alternative. “Something has come up in China. Your mama and I have bought tickets to return
in two weeks.”
“In two weeks?”
They nodded.
Without you was the unspoken part.
My parents watched me carefully. The bed beneath me felt like water. I was floating unsteadily, across the deep blue. A lake,
or the Pacific Ocean. Waiting to be pulled out; waiting to drown.