Yolk

by Mary H.K. Choi

I stare out the window. What’s the point? The planet is on fire and everything is random.

She said that there was more than one type of perfectionist. And that I qualified because the kind of perfectionist I was, was the kind that abandoned everything if I wasn’t good enough at it.

I just kinda gave up. There’s nothing more humiliating than trying so hard for everyone to see and still ending up a loser.

It’s that absurd cognitive schism where when somebody dies, all the thunderstruck dummies go, but I just saw them. The totality of death is inconceivable. It’s intolerable that you’re completely, utterly, irrefutably alive, filled up with decades of inside jokes, goofy facial expressions, all the love of your family, and then not.

I want to tell him that the greaseball fat kid he knew back then is dead. That I’m exciting now. Desirable. That admirable people have made all sorts of terrible decisions with me.

It occurs to me how preposterous it is that our mouths had to travel this far over this many years without ever once touching.

He should have known how sad I was from the exclamation points.

“Because being in a family is about doing shit you don’t want to for the benefit of other people,” she says. “Mom and Dad sacrificed everything for us, and they want the stupidest, basic shit in return.”

Manufactured urgency is their absolute favorite emotion. I get it. Control feels good no matter how small the triumph.

“You’d be a good mom,” she says. A lump forms in my throat. “Everyone fucks everyone up, but you’re so fucked up already, you’ll be understanding about stuff like that.” “Thanks, I guess.”