Crying in H Mart

by Michelle Zauner

Sometimes I would pilfer liquor left over from my parents’ holiday parties and, like a careful chemist, siphon from the various bottles inconspicuous levels of liquid to mix with soda and drink in the park. But most of the time we’d just drive around listening to CDs, occasionally venturing as far as an hour out to Dexter Reservoir or Fern Ridge just to sit on the dock and look out at the black water, dark as oil in the night, a bleak expanse we’d use as a sounding board for how confused we were about ourselves and what exactly it was that we were feeling.