Sour Heart

by Jenny Zhang

I’m sorry, I said to her in my head, all the time, but never in real life, just like my mother, who never said I’m sorry to me in real life either, only I had no idea if she also apologized in her head, and if she realized that she had the power to hurt me, to disappoint me as much as I disappointed her, to make me feel so alone that sometimes I couldn’t recognize myself in front of mirrors or in pictures.

There was just one problem—the whole wet-dream thing made me wish I knew how to drive a bus so I could ram it into Jason, ideally disabling his penis but leaving him alive, although a dead boyfriend would probably give my mother a reason to stay home from work and spend a few days with me.

I mean, all touch was wonderful and the small amount I had experienced in my life was too precious to split off into categories of “wanted” and “unwanted.” And what if we wanted more touch? I felt like asking but never did.

but a woman with spiky blond tips and big pins all over her blazer informed us at a mandatory assembly that we had been targeted as a high-risk school and measures had to be taken to ensure for the future. She spoke to us spitefully, as if we were awful, terrible children, and used the words “at risk” several times without going into detail. What were we at risk for?

she started to fret that there were too few white kids in my school.

Over half the kids in our school were black or Spanish, although every time I called them that at home Eddie would correct me, “It’s not Spanish. It’s Hispanic. And that isn’t even an adequate term because they comprise a lot of different cultures from different countries.” “Well, you’re His-stupid.”

someone else said she also went and saw her parents’ copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and humped her couch, but also what was “humping”?

I wanted to live a dreamless life in my unconscious and be full of dreams in my conscious life.

and even worse than that, what you feared the most was a day when no one could hear you cry for help, a day you must have been heading for your whole life because there had always been something about you that made it seem like you didn’t need any help,

红卫兵