The Eyes Are the Best Part

by Monika Kim

There are some things that you can never truly escape. Not really. Maybe that’s why, even now, she’s stuck in the past, long after everyone else has moved on.

My sister has a gift for sidestepping conflict, for easing tension, for turning things around. I, on the other hand, am clumsy, awkward. Stressful situations make me panic.

But if I said that I didn’t want to be in love, just once, it would be a lie.

More than anything, he hated that everything in his life served as a reminder of his failures. I don’t blame him. Maybe because I know what it’s like, to live a life so defined by want. That’s why I was able to recognize it in him—it was what I had been feeling for so long.

I’m impressed by his intellect and his knowledge of the world. Even though my interactions with people have been limited, I’m certain that I’ve never met anybody like him. I want him to like me, desperately, in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time.

What is it like to live freely, to live a life untethered, without having to be responsible for everyone around you?

Every time I see them, I feel small. I feel like I am responsible for every unhappiness and injustice she has ever experienced. Why couldn’t I have been born a boy? Someone strong and confident who would be capable of taking care of her?

We girls are taught from an early age that we are demonstrably inferior to our male counterparts. We are smaller, weaker, stupider. When we succeed, it’s only because men allow us to.

She’s sleeping on her side, huddled over in the corner, even though the rest of the bed is empty. Perhaps it’s because she’s used to making herself small. Perhaps it’s because she’s spent a lifetime making herself inconspicuous for men like my father and George. Maybe it’s an unconscious reflex now.

How do I explain to her that the home I miss isn’t a place? It’s a time when my life made sense. When things made sense.

Then the idea comes to me that sometimes, when I’m with her, it feels something like home, too.