I Am Not Jessica Chen

by Ann Liang

Her life is one of exponential growth, the type you can graph out perfectly with a calculator. My life has never been like that. The only discernible pattern, really, is inconsistency: the second I improve in certain areas, I regress in others.

One step forward and one step back, and repeat, until in the end, it looks like I’ve been standing in the same spot for years.

We turn pain into a story, because then it has a purpose. Then, we reason, there was a point to it all along. But sometimes pain is just pain, and there’s nothing particularly noble about clinging to it.

Success is such a beautiful thing. It’s so intimate, so heartachingly personal,

Who cares about a bit of pain and sacrifice when you could—if only for a few fleeting days in your already short life—know what it’s like to be a god?

Don’t say anything you’ll regret,

“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.

“The world just felt smaller without you,”

“Or maybe you have a way of making the world feel bigger.

I thought . . . I tried to convince myself again and again that there would be an expiration date on what I felt. That I only had to push past a certain point and I would be better. I wouldn’t want you so much. I wouldn’t need you so badly.”

I’m concerned about you. Your soul. You have to be safe. I can’t—I can’t lose you again.”

It’s so easy to fall into the assumption that anything someone else gains is something you lose.

We’re all exhausted and on the verge of breaking down at any second and somehow . . . somehow we’re expected to just keep going.

“That’s the one thing I’ve worked for my entire life—to be someone who matters. That’s why my parents moved to this country. That’s my purpose. If I can’t do it, then what’s the point of anything? What’s the point of me? What possible value could I provide?”

“You have no idea,” he goes on in a furious whisper. “You truly have no idea what you mean to me. You can’t see yourself from anyone else’s perspective; you don’t even really know yourself. You’re so stuck in your own skewed version of your life, and it’s not . . . it’s not real. You’re incredible.”

You make me feel the same joy just by looking at you.”

“Do you remember? We all had to get there early for rehearsal, and when everyone else was waiting for their parents to arrive, and my father couldn’t make it that night . . . you came over and stood next to me. And suddenly—suddenly I didn’t feel alone. I realized I would never have to be alone again, if you were there.”

It makes me wonder what else I’ve forgotten, what else has slipped through the cracks. If I’m forgetting myself too, like everyone else has. Except him.

“That was ages ago,” I finally manage. “It doesn’t even matter—” “It does matter. You matter,”

“You know it’s my weakness,” I breathe out. “You know you’re my weakness.”

“Then come back to me,”

“Art can’t give me the kind of validation I want. It’s too subjective, too unstable, too temporary. Even if someone likes your art, they’ll inevitably move on.”

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

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