I Am Not Jessica Chen

by Ann Liang

For anyone who’s ever wished they could be someone else

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.

How am I supposed to confess to my parents that everything they’ve done for me—leaving behind their old lives, moving across the world, spending what should’ve been vacation money on overpriced textbooks, waking up at dawn to drive me to tutoring centers, all so I could have a better education—was for nothing?

It’s such a suffocating thought—that everything I will ever feel and know and accomplish must begin and end with my own mind.

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.

From then on, every time he had to leave for a competition or debating camp or a school excursion, he would come back with a new pen just for me.

Another thing about my cousin: she’s as naturally kind as she is talented. Sometimes—and I know it’s awful—I almost wish she were a terrible person. Someone undeserving of her success. Someone I could hate without feeling like the villain.

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.

If I were someone else, I would enjoy this moment, take it, rest my bones in it.

It seems to be a defining trait of many parents that they’ll pick one incredibly specific thing and treat it as the source or solution of all your problems.

We could have lived somewhere better. Somewhere with space to run around in the summer, with modern glass walls and large sunlit bedrooms. But my parents had insisted on staying here, where it costs more for less, so we could be closer to my school, thinking it would boost my chances of success. They’ve bet everything on me—their time and energy and savings—and this is what I have to show for it. Sunk costs. A failed investment.

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.