Immaculate Conception

by Ling Ling Huang

There was a surprising solidity to her slight figure, as if she created her own gravitational force. Anyone who got too close was in danger of falling into her orbit. Or maybe I was just so insecure that anyone with a strong sense of identity could destabilize me.

Invisible buffers had been established on the internet so that websites were either enclave or fringe. Algorithms were no longer even vaguely related to our choices—they now corresponded to our IP addresses. I watched the possibilities of my life and self shrink to fit the algorithms, governed by these new limitations. The internet stopped being a place to connect to others or to exchange knowledge, and became a way to perform belonging in the world you had inherited.

It never occurred to me to be competitive or even jealous of men. For a long time, I’d worried that it was internalized misogyny before I realized that the only artists I respected enough to envy were women.

Is there anyone who knows a young woman’s body better than her closest friends? By way of love or comparison or some combination of the two?

“Don’t lose yourself,” my mom said. But I couldn’t wait to lose the person I’d been. What is college except the chance to try on many selves?

Yet, to me, they were fascinating. It wasn’t just the wealth. It was the access their wealth gave them.

It seemed like the only power I had in the world was this: that I could withhold myself from someone who wanted to see me, even though I desperately wanted to see her, too.