The Eyes Are the Best Part

by Monika Kim

sizes. I poke and squeeze them, trying to understand. What the hell? Where am I? I try to remember if there had been anything peculiar about the evening before I went to sleep, but there’s nothing. It was a normal night. Except you were thinking about George’s eyes.

Eyes. There are eyes everywhere. They watch me, trailing my every move. Glassy fish eyes, shining like marbles.

The excitement that jolted through my body from swallowing it. I lower my hands and reach out, trembling, to touch the eyes on the wall. They come off easily. I swallow one whole, barely tasting. Right away there’s a sound, a woosh. The room lengthens. So this is how I escape.

It’s an eye. A human eye. Clean and white and beautiful without any blemishes, a ring of black around the iris. The blue is so familiar; I can’t stop staring. It might be the most mesmerizing thing I’ve ever seen.

Just before I fall back asleep, a realization comes to me. The eye on the plate looked exactly like George’s eyes. Blue. A blazing, luminous blue.

“There were so many times when I wanted to tell my mom how much I disliked John and how much I didn’t want her to marry him.

REALLL

Her tears dripped onto my hands, onto the carpet; I watched them fall and had the sudden realization that our roles had reversed. Somehow, I had become the mother and she the daughter.

Fate can bring you together, but it can just as easily tear you apart.

I had a feeling of lightness, of weightlessness; the sensation of being stuck somewhere far behind. And then three short weeks later, I listened to my father say that he was leaving us, too. In the end, everyone leaves.

Admittedly, I’m much closer to Geoffrey than I am to Alexis, but whenever I’m with her, I want to sit next to her for as long as possible, even if we’re doing nothing. Even if, by the end, I feel inexplicably nervous and disoriented.

There is no trust fund, no plan B, no time for me to figure out a secret talent. My mother can’t support me, since she can barely support herself. It’s up to me to get a good job and make enough money to help her get by.

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

I’m certain that blue eyes would taste amazing, much better than brown ones. Especially George’s eyes. I have no scientific evidence to prove this, but to me there’s nothing appetizing about brown.

There’s a glowing orange sphere that stretches and shifts, growing larger and larger. A miniature sun, right here in our apartment. Round, like an eye. Like George’s eye. It’s so bright that it hurts, but I can’t look away. Punish yourself.

the smoothness of his eyelids. The sliver of white underneath them. I want to pull them back. I want to see, to touch. I want . . . I want the crunch of cartilage in my mouth. I want the saltiness of blood on my tongue.

The moonlight catches its dull edge, and I pick it up without thinking. It’s heavy in my hands. Kill him.

She’s shy about her hands because they’re stained and rough from years of hard work at dry cleaner and grocery store. Every time I see them, I feel small. I feel like I am responsible for every unhappiness and injustice she has ever experienced.

If I had a million dollars, I’d buy her a house and take her to get her nails done every week.

George turns away from the TV to look at us. I imagine myself growing, larger and larger, filling up the entire room like Alice in Wonderland after she eats the cake;

“Usually, when people apologize, they have the decency to look you in the eye. That is, if they mean it,” George says, still sneering. There’s a piece of food stuck between his two front teeth. He knows I’m uncomfortable, the bastard, and he’s enjoying every second of it.

I take a deep breath and look him right in the eye. Tonight, his irises are luminous; they’re a more vivid, sharper shade of blue than normal. I am hypnotized, falling into them, drowning—

I read through the messages, ignoring the agony I feel, and press the delete button. The entire thing disappears. Gone. Poof. I don’t need them. I have Geoffrey now.

Stop thinking about them. You don’t need them anymore.

‘There is an imbalance in the power dynamics between men and women, resulting in a lack of female autonomy, stemming from the globalization of male domination and patriarchal systems all over the world.’ It was so ridiculous that I wrote it down.”

There have been moments like that, and others too, where Geoffrey has been more than a little pompous. Sometimes he even puts on a strange accent when saying these things. I pretend not to notice.

It’s Geoffrey. Where are you? the message reads. Wanna grab some food after your class is over? I keep thinking about what Alexis said. Why does it make me feel so uneasy? I glance at her. Her fingers are flying over her laptop keyboard.

Even in her tired and worried state, Alexis is beautiful. I tuck my hand into my pocket and touch each of the pills that she’s given me. Her kindness and generosity are heavy in my hand.

Appa explained to me that, as a girl, I had to understand my fragility. Danger lurked on every corner. It would be easy, he said, for people to snatch me up from the sidewalk on my way home from school.

I was so convinced of my invulnerability that, even when I thought about George, about what I wanted to do to him, I never considered what he could do to me. I stop dead in my tracks, my pulse quickening. What if it was George following me?

What the fuck? My cheeks burn. Geoffrey waits expectantly, his arms outstretched. He’s reaching for a hug. I dodge it at the last second, stepping backward. “Well? Do you like them?” “Um . . .” My face is stiff and frozen. Why the fuck would you get me chopsticks? What is wrong with you? I keep nodding, as though I am one of Ji-hyun’s stupid bobbleheads. “Thanks, I guess.”

The chopsticks are heavy in my hands as I walk into the apartment. I set them down on the counter. My head is spinning from the interaction and the sudden bout of revulsion I feel toward Geoffrey.

Is this real, or is it a dream? I can’t tell. I can’t. But why does my thigh hurt? Why can I feel droplets of blood running down my leg?

There’s an ugly voice inside my head. It’s not real, it hisses. None of this is. Just kill him. Taste his eyes. I want to. More than anything. So what if it’s real?

“God, I’m dizzy.” He stretches and yawns. “It feels like someone’s slipped me a sleeping pill or something.”

Oh my god

“You? Scare me?” he scoffs. “What’s there to be afraid of? Little Oriental girls are nothing to worry about.” “Oriental? What am I, a rug?”

“It’s nothing to be offended about. Like the word ‘mongoloid.’ ” His words hit me like a physical blow. I should have killed you in your sleep.

In a way, it’s a good thing. She’s too preoccupied to see my unraveling.

The truth is that men like George seldom notice things unless they are directly involved in them. Men like him are stupid and oblivious, convinced of their own self-importance.

After all, why would he suspect docile, sweet, submissive Ji-won? What reason would I have for hurting him? Why would a woman, let alone an Asian woman, challenge his authority?

George sees himself as an alpha male. In his mind, only another man could pose any kind of threat or challenge. That’s why he behaves the way he does: ogling Ji-hyun and me and all the other women openly in front of my mother, treating us as though we are objects and not human beings.

Men like George aren’t like us. Not like me, not like Ji-hyun. Not even my father, another man, can compare because George’s power doesn’t come only from the fact that he has a penis. It comes from his whiteness.

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.

And as Asian women, we are foreign and especially powerless, with our supposedly porcelain skin, delicate physiques, “slanted pus...

“By the way,” the man said, his hand on the door handle. “You’re in America now. You should have the decency to learn the language. If it’s such a problem, go back to your own country.” I hated him, but in that moment I hated my father, too. I felt a terrible sense of shame, seeing the money clutched in the customer’s hand and the dejected look on my father’s face. How could he let me see him like that? How could he embarrass us so badly?

“I don’t agree with you,” the man said. “Why would you need to work if I’m making enough to support the family? Your job is the home. Having a baby. You know, the things that matter to women.”

“The things that matter to women? Shouldn’t children and supporting the family be the job of both men and women?” “It was a joke.” “It wasn’t very funny. In fact, you’re not very funny.”

to deal with a man like that, a man like George, you have to pull the rug out from under him. Not all at once, of course; a small tug here, another one there. You don’t back down when he tries to wield his power. Instead, you trip him up by slipping him little lies. Correct him whenever you can. Confuse him. Make him feel foolish. Men like him hate being wrong, hate being embarrassed, hate not being in control. Men like him don’t know what to do when that happens, and they resort to childish displays of anger, temper tantrums, sulking. In spite of this, he won’t be able to do a single thing about it because in the end he’s the one who is weak.

The only power he has is the power you are willing to give him, and you’ve given him nothing. Not a scrap. By the time you’re done with him, he’ll be begging for mercy. Who is he if he can’t control you? Is he even a man anymore? It will seem like a relief when you give him a hand, even if that hand is holding a blade. And when you take everything from him, you can say what these men say about us: He was asking for it. He was begging for it. He must have wanted it, since he didn’t fight back.

I can’t believe it took me this long to notice what a screwup he is. He’s abrasive, pushy, and irritating. His quips about feminism are just showboating, an attempt to make himself appear better than other men. His shirts are stupid.

I’m about to get in my car when I see a sudden flash of movement. I whip around just in time to see someone scurry away. I sprint over, but I’m too late. I stand in front of the bush, quivering. You’re imagining things again, Ji-won.