I Am Not Jessica Chen

by Ann Liang

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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s so easy to be generous when you lack nothing. To be nice when you’re not in pain. It doesn’t matter if people are cheering for someone else, because they’re already cheering for me.

“If I’d kissed you,” he goes on, “you would have wanted me for an afternoon, and I would have wanted you for the rest of my life.

“I would never move on,” Aaron says softly. “I would never take your paintings down.”

“I don’t think so,” I say slowly. “You know, I used to have this theory that if I wanted something badly enough, the universe would make sure to keep it just out of my reach. Like a cruel joke, or a trick. But . . . maybe the cruelest trick the universe can play on us is to give us exactly what we wish for.”

“Jenna, you’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he says, quiet. Perfect. “It’s always been you. It can only be you.”