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.

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.

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.