32
“Disappoint me? Sweetheart, why would you even think that?” Mom’s agonized expression only worsens the tears pouring down my four-year-old cheeks.
I grip her shirt, rippling the bright, primary-colored pattern between my fingertips, but that’s not right either. I smooth it down, crushed by guilt for ruining yet another thing. “Mommy, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, my poor girl,” Mom whispers, squeezing me tight to her chest. “I’m not mad, I just got scared to find you all tied up on a branch like that. You’re not supposed to go into the forest without Mommy. It’s too dangerous.”
Her arms are so big, encompassing my whole torso, but they’re not enough to repair my heart.
I don’t understand. How could they lie to me like this? Mom hates when I wander too far into the backyard, but today, she’s soothing my guilty tears. Why can’t they stick with one story, telling me what they really think about me? They hurt my feelings, but they love me too. It makes no sense.
I’m so scared I’m missing something big. That the answer is out there, and I’m too small to see it over everyone’s heads. Are my parents good, or are they bad? Do they love me, or do they secretly hate me? I don’t know what’s right.
I’m four, but then I’m twenty-four, sobbing even though no one will answer my pleas for help. I don’t know what’s right.
Now I’m eight.
I got in trouble at school today. My heart hammers so hard that it hurts to breathe, but I’m afraid to show it. I don’t want to hurt Mom and Dad more than I already have to, coming home with this ugly, neon-red slip in my hands.
I can already tell Mom hasn’t checked her voicemail; she’s waiting at the bus stop in her work clothes with a cheery smile. I’m about to erase that smile, and it makes me want to throw up.
I wring my hands, unable to walk down the bus aisle. But when the bus driver turns to glare, I scurry past the rows as fast as I can.
As I step off the bus on shaky legs, the first thing Mom sees are the tears crusted to my brown, summer-tanned cheeks.
Then she sees my scraped-up knees. I try to hide them with my skirt, forgetting it’s tattered too.
Mom gasps, flipping my heart. “Aliya, what happened?!”
“I– I fell,” I mumble.
“What?” Mom guides me by the shoulder down the path home, too worried to wave goodbye to the bus driver. “Sweetheart, you have to stop falling like this. Did someone push you? One of those boys?”
I shake my head no, my chin gluing itself to my chest.
But Mom stops walking. I have no choice but to stop with her.
“Aliya, tell me the truth. Are you sure one of those boys didn’t push you?”
I readjust my clammy grip on my skirt, swallowing hard. But the force of Mom’s suggestion wins over my fear of telling her. The truth spills from my mouth as my eyes squeeze shut.
“I climbed a tree,” I mutter. “I got– I got–”
“You got, what?”
I can’t read the tone of her voice. My eyes snap open as wide as they can be, staring up at her for answers.
She eases the red slip of paper from my hands, knowing when I get like this, I can’t bear to speak at all. As she reads the details, I want to curl up, blending into the dirt. I don’t have to be reading it with her to remember what it says; I already memorized the whole thing through my tears the past two hours in the principal’s office while Dad was too busy to pick me up.
To the parents of: Aliya Matsuoka
Your child has received: 1 day of limited recess
For the following reasons: The yard duty found Aliya climbing a tree in her skirt. Her behavior encouraged other students to climb after her. When she was told to get down, she fell and scraped her knees. Her behavior was not age-appropriate, and if she’d like to wear skirts, she needs to follow the school dress code and wear shorts beneath them.
Mom’s face says it all, dissolving from pity to something dark. Wait, is she mad at me? A small part of me hoped she’d understand. I just wanted to run free like the boys do. Be just as adventurous as them. Maybe Mom would get me, see that difference in how we’re raised and hate it too?
It doesn’t seem to be the case. Mom doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her anger. It spices up the air between us, raising my shoulders the whole way home. I want to crawl back onto the bus, allowing it to drive me off somewhere deep in the forest so Mom and Dad don’t have to deal with me anymore.
Then she says what I never want to hear. “How could you do something like that, Aliya? This is so unlike you.”
I blubber into silent tears, even though I thought they had all dried up.
Mom’s right. I’m always too “unladylike.” I forgot that when I climb trees, the whole world looks under my dress.
When Dad gets home, I want to beg Mom not to tell him; it looks like he had such a bad day at work that I’m scared he lost his job. But he didn’t lose his job, and Mom tells him anyway.
He scrubs his face, looking even more tired. I wish I could wash the worry off his forehead, but I’m the one who put it there.
“What did your teacher think about this behavior?” Dad says. “You need to be on your best behavior to get into Westfield schools. You’re not going to Greenfield after the shit I had to witness today.”
“Takahiro!?” Mom gasps.
“Sorry,” Dad hisses, scrubbing his forehead. “Today has been a nightmare. We’re definitely getting her some shorts, An. I can’t imagine if one of her teachers–”
Dad chokes on his words, wincing like he’s hurting. He hangs his head in his hands, and Mom rushes me to my room. Once I’m all alone there, I shrink into the bottom cubby of my closet beside my mud boots, spiraling into heavier tears.
Mom and Dad aren’t usually strict, but they change around what other people think. But aren’t strangers the people they warn me about? Why should I care about them?
Amy doesn’t seem bothered by my actions. She’s mad like I am inside: why did I get a suspension when those boys didn’t?
But Mom and Dad don’t agree with Amy. Sometimes, they share the same, scared look. They think they’re hiding it from me. But I only see them do that when I do something weird.
Something unfixable is wrong with me, and I can’t figure it out.
I’m 14.
I’m a prime, subservient example of a well-behaved young woman. I smile hiding my teeth, stifling my laugh to a breathy, polite giggle. I keep a calculated, one-foot space between everyone I know unless they give me express permission to enter their invisible bubble. I cross my legs when I sit, even when I wear jeans.
If I disobey any of these rules, I have to heighten them somehow - make up for my wrongdoings.
But other people don’t seem to care about rules as much as me. A classmate looks at my legs in Algebra I, reaching his hand into his pants. I pretend not to notice, hiding the discomfort in my shoulders and racing heart with a neutral, focused stare at the whiteboard. He’s a guy, right? A teenage boy. He can’t help but be tempted when he looks at me.
And I don’t have room to complain. If I’m not careful, a freak like me will fuck something up beyond repair. Destroy the world with me in it. I should be lucky anyone looks at me like this.
I zip through ages so fast that I can’t keep up. My dearest friends and newfound college independence loosen two decades’ worth of rules. I kiss Amy on the lips over a dare, and realize girls’ lips attract me too. We meet Kira, and I’m too happy for Amy to be bitter that I know our friendship will never be just-us-two again.
Then I see his bright, convincing smile across campus. That blonde hair blaring even brighter in the sun.
Steven is 21.
I’m 19.
Steven knows what he’s doing. He’s always on time, and I want to be too. I want to run track like him - a natural, graceful beauty on the field that leaves everyone drooling in his wake - but I’m a klutz. For some reason, he still chooses to look at me. I feel special.
His rules are simple. Familiar.
Men have uncontrollable, vital needs. Needs that need to be met, especially by women. Women are naturally gifted at comfort, and men are designed to protect women - including from themselves.
As a woman, if I withhold affection from a man, I’m disrespectful. If I withhold sex, I’m torturous. Abusive, even. Men can’t control their urges, shouldn’t I know that?
I do know that. I’m 23 and no stranger to sex.
So why am I having a heaving, desperate anxiety attack in the bathroom, lying to my boyfriend that I’m getting myself cleaned up before he can have me? Shouldn’t Steven be the one upset by my neglect?
I’m so scared of what’s happening to me. Steven cares so much about me, ensuring he always knows where I am, who I’m with, and when I’ll come home. He doesn’t like when anyone looks at me, not even Amy - we kissed once, after all. He’s the jealous type, but like he says, that’s the strongest type of love.
But my love for him is waning instead of growing the closer we become - and the more sex he needs. Am I a cruel, heartless bitch? Aren’t I supposed to revel in the glory of his dick? Even if I don’t enjoy sex, shouldn’t I live to witness his pleasure? Isn’t that my purpose?
No matter how closely I follow the rules, my body simply can’t.
I can’t do it. I can’t.
I’m 24.
Dad died eight days ago. After escaping into my childhood bedroom for a moment alone, I lift my exhausted forehead from my doorframe, squaring out my shoulders to enter the hall. I just finished spoon-feeding Mom, well aware she’s lost the will to exist. Nothing I can do will change that. Mom always said her heart would die with Dad’s, and I can see it. She hasn’t died yet, but the light in her eyes is already gone. I’m living the dark, nauseating last stretch of her life, looming over me even in my dreams.
Dishes clank in the kitchen, and I wince - Steven’s here, doing the dishes. He came over to help, so I hate the anger I feel blasting through my chest for potentially waking my mom, tightening my already sore jaw.
As I enter the living room, Steven’s sturdy back steels me. He’s familiar, and I’m losing two out of four people closest to me. I need his old stability. The Steven I met who settled my shoulders.
Burrowing me into his embrace, Steven runs his hands down my back until they land on my waist. I expect words of comfort. Crave it.
But Steven chuckles, drawing me in for a kiss. When he pulls away, he stops by my ear, detailing how he wants me to pleasure him tonight.
As he draws back, I gape at him. Can he even see me? I’m drooping like a tattered, overused piece of cloth, ready to shred with the slightest tug in the wrong direction.
He’s smiling, but I finally see it; there’s no playfulness behind his eyes. Those desires were a command.
I jolt away, and Steven’s mask breaks. The sun in his hair snuffs out, darkening his expression until he’s unrecognizable. I back away on instinct, the back of my legs bumping into the coffee table, but it only makes Steven angrier. Rage, disgust, and desperation cloud his eyes, knowing he’s about to lose everything he trained in me. I can feel him clinging to my soul, squeezing it tight.
But he squeezed one too many times. The wild animal in me - everything wrong about me - breaks from her shackles, shattering the rules Steven built as she leaps.
I act in ways I never have. Wild, unrestrained, impolite ways. I tear at my hair, screaming despite knowing Mom is - well, was - asleep. Steven grasps at the air to catch me, claiming he wants to soothe me, but I rip myself away. Smack his hands off me. I don’t recognize my voice anymore. Shrill, pleading screeches, begging Steven, God, and no one in particular to give me one moment to breathe. Can’t everyone see I’m suffocating?
All Steven can see is that I’ve lost my mind over “one little comment” rather than the mountain he buried my soul under. When he calls me crazy, that unfamiliar woman screams in my voice.
“Get the fuck out! I never want to see you again!”
He storms from my parents’ cottage, slamming the door behind him. I collapse onto the floor, gripping my aching chest as I sob. I believe it’s finally over.
It wasn’t.