I Am Not Jessica Chen

by Ann Liang

“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.” I actually laugh. Slap the dashboard in my hysteria. “Oh my god, okay, seriously. We’re not doing this—” “No. Let me continue,” he says, his eyes flashing. “You are incredible. You see the world like an artist. You notice every color in the sky, you stop and marvel at the sight of a sparrow flying by or a ripple in the lake or an autumn leaf in the sun. You’re always the first person to sense if someone else is having a bad day, and you can’t watch a sad movie without crying, and you always skip the ending if you know it’s going to be tragic, so you can make up something better in your head. Once, you teared up after your elderly neighbor asked you to read the expiration date on a loaf of bread for him because his eyesight was fading. You also tear up every time you watch that cereal commercial about the border collie who runs away from home. When we found a dead bird in the forest, you insisted on building a grave for it out of twigs and wildflowers. You hate small spaces, but you still came to sit with me in the attic for hours when my father was mad at me. You’re sarcastic, but never in a mean way. You’re dramatic, and you can make anything sound like poetry. You’re sensitiv...