The Realm of Possibility (10 page)

I switched seats. I tried to block it out. I looked
at the boy who took my place, and he didn't seem
fazed. Then the words started to appear other places.
Sitting in a stall, doing my business, when suddenly
I look up and see YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU BELIEVE
YOU ARE. The same handwriting. Waiting for me.
I thought of that question—
Who do you think you are?
—
and realized that it's not one you ever get a chance
to answer. I tried to answer it, right there in the stall.
I am a good friend. I am a truth seeker. I am a
bitch. A gossip. Someone who gets hit with a tray
in the middle of the cafeteria and gets no sympathy.
And I thought
If I'm not any of these things, what am I?

I tried to talk to Amber about it, but she said flat out
that I shouldn't let any loser's graffiti get into my head.
They're all out to get us,
she said. And when I asked why,
she just sighed and said,
Because we're better, I guess.
We have what they want.
Two weeks ago, the same words
would have come from my mouth. Now they seemed empty.
I didn't feel any better. YOU WEAR TOO MANY MASKS
was written over my locker the following day. This time,
I had an answer. I thought,
No, I only wear one.
People were starting to talk about the writing. Everyone
seemed to think it was about them. A personal attack.
The old me had to admire the way this girl had managed
to get under everyone's skin all at once.

Some days it was just one word. PLEASE or ANYTHING.
One day it was PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT.
What I wanted was everything to go back to when my
nose was straight and my behavior unquestioned (at least
by me). I saw Andy and that girl who hit me walking the halls
together, happy. I saw her balance his books on her head
while he looked for something in his locker. I could have
knocked them off as I passed. One simple mean reach.
But instead I stayed in the background, alone.

I went the long way through school, trying to collect
all the phrases. I wondered if the goth girl kept a list.
YOU SHOULD NOT WALK AWAY QUITE YET.
When I found that one, in a corner outside the auditorium,
I sat down and stared. Because what I wanted
to walk away from was myself. In fact, I felt I'd already
started. I took a bottle of nail polish out of my purse
and traced the letters. This sophomore passed by and gave me
a strange look. I told him to get lost. Then I dipped
the brush in again, turned a
W
red. The smell of the
nail polish made me think of Amber and the rest of
my friends. I missed them, but in theory. It wasn't
them I missed, but friendship. QUITE YET.

I learned the goth girl's name when the principal called
her down to the office. Charlotte Marshall. The words
stopped coming. I didn't know what to do. I sat
at the same lunch table, I went to the same classes.
I stopped talking and nobody noticed, not unless
there was something spiteful to be said. Amber asked me
if I had gone on medication. Liza offered me some of
her own. My mother took me shopping. I didn't
know what to do with the four shirts I bought.
Well, I knew to wear them. But it all seemed part
of the mask. Was there anything underneath?

A few days later, I saw Charlotte walking down
the hallway. I saw writing on her arm, and before
I knew what I was doing, I reached out
for her wrist. YOU ARE IMPLICATED, it said.
And suddenly I was asking her
What do you mean?
She looked at me, not knowing.
Why are you
doing this?
She shrugged and I let go of her wrist.
I was shocked: she didn't have any more answers
than I did. She just knew how to raise the questions.

That night, I locked myself in the bathroom.
I let the water run, stood in front of the mirror.
Then I took out the box of Crayola markers
I'd had in my desk since I was a little kid.
Most of them had dried out, but the green still wrote.
I started on the inside of my arms. YOU ARE
IMPLICATED. YOU ARE FOOLISH
IN YOUR UNHAPPINESS. YOU ARE NOT
WHO YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE. YOU WEAR
TOO MANY MASKS. I tried her handwriting,
but ended up with my own. PROTECT ME
and I ran out of room. I turned over my arm
FROM WHAT I WANT.

My legs were next. In big letters. YOU ARE
UNABLE TO COMMISERATE. YOU ARE
UNABLE TO WALK AWAY. YOU HAVE
NO ONE. YOU ARE NO ONE. I had forgotten
what else she'd written. I was on my own now.
YOU ARE FULL OF SPITE. YOUR FRIENDS
ARE NOT REAL. YOU HAVE PUT YOURSELF
IN THIS CORNER. THERE IS NO ESCAPE.

The steam rising now. I took off my shirt
and skirt, stood there in my underwear.
BITCH. LIAR. LOSER. UGLY. SAD.
I wish I could say it felt good, but it felt
horrible. STOP CRYING. STOP IT NOW.
YOU WILL GO TO COLLEGE AND
EVERYBODY WILL HATE YOU.
THIS IS THE TRUTH. DEAL WITH IT.

All of these things had been inside me.
Now they were spelled out, upside down
so I could read them. Backwards in the mirror.
I was ready to put down the pen, give up.
But there was something else inside me, too.
YOU ARE NOT BEING FAIR, it wrote.
YOU CAN BE LOYAL. YOU CAN BE
STRONG. YOU ARE SMART. YOU KNOW
HOW THINGS WORK. The words were
beginning to overlap. The marker was fading
with every new letter. YOU KNOW WHAT
YOU HAVE TO DO on the bottom of my foot.
Then I did something one of the metalheads
at school always does. HATE on the knuckles
of one hand. LOVE across the other.

I laughed when I saw myself in the mirror.
I stared long and hard, so I would remember.
Then I slipped into the tub. The water turned
green instantly. I drained it out, let new water
in. It was so hot I could barely tell the difference
between my sweat and the steam. But I got
used to it. I looked down at myself and most of
the words were still there. I closed my eyes and
I remembered what it was like when I was younger.
The night before the first day of school, I would
stand under the shower and make all kinds of
resolutions.
I will make new friends. I will
be more popular. I will get good grades.
And I swear I can remember,
I will be
a better person.
At some point I stopped doing this.
Maybe I forgot. Or maybe I knew the resolutions
never carried over when I got to school.

I WILL BE A BETTER PERSON. I know
it's hard to believe. From me. From the bitch
who got pummeled with an orange tray.
But I knew—I hadn't become the worst kind
of person yet. I had to believe that. I took
down the washcloth and started scouring my skin.
Floods of soap. My skin raw under the rub.
The words vanishing, the letters erased.
Only a green-tinted reminder. A ring around
the tub once it emptied. A spot or two on my body
that I'd missed. On purpose, for now.

I did not apologize to Elizabeth, but I stopped
saying she owed me an apology. I did not ditch my friends.
I simply tried to shift the tone a little. It was hard
sometimes, not to attack. But I felt some strength
in the holding back. YOU WILL BE A BETTER
PERSON. I wrote it wherever I could.
What's
gotten into you?
Amber asked, looking at me
seriously for the first time in ages. And I said,
It's actually something that's gotten out of me.
She didn't understand, and I honestly didn't
expect her to. I have no more idea now of
who I am than I did before. But at least I know
that. And I'm starting to figure out who I want
to be. Whether it was the tray, Charlotte's words,
or something else that caused it to happen, all I can
say is this: Being a bitch is easy. It's finding
the alternative that's hard.

the first delivery comes at six in the morning.
usually I sleep through its arrival,
leaning into the noise like a pillow,
thinking of it as a sound that's passing by.
but recently I have been rushing
to the window, lifting
the shade slightly to see him
get out of the truck, say hello
to my father, and lift the boxes into the store.

one day I woke up early and he was there.
one day I woke up early and kept waking early.

if I am very quiet I can hear him speaking Korean to my father.
it is not a language I learned.
instead it was grown inside me.
they talk about cantaloupes and tissue paper,
other grocers and their misfortunes.
sometimes he asks after my mother but never about me.
my father would not tell him about me, unless there was a reason to boast.

from my window, he is the most handsome boy.
he cannot be much older than me.
because of my parents, I cannot imagine
his parents would let him get out of school.
but I have never seen a book
near him or heard him talk about classes.
he must be older than me, but not by much.
this handsome boy is the one I pictured
when I was a girl and imagined
walking down a red-carpet aisle, delicate
blossoms in my hair, white as hope.

I come home from school
and I think of him
as I move the old milk cartons to the front
as I take the cigarette boxes from their cartons
as I sweep the floor
I do not ask his name.

as my father checks my homework
as my mother weighs the clove of garlic
as we pull the metal over our windows
as we tie the day's newspapers and throw them away
I ask for nothing
but these thoughts.

Clara catches me in my notebook.
I am tracing what I see when I close my eyes.
“who is that?” she asks, and then
she turns him so he is looking at her
and says, “that's really amazing.”
even after I close him in my book
she asks me to tell her
through lunch and after school
so by the time we get to the store
I have told her what little I know
and she is happy for me.
she gives me that look of advice
and says, “you should talk to him.”
but he is gone by sunrise.
the morning after that
I get dressed early and move closer.
I am in the back room
on the other side of the door
breathing so loud I am sure he will hear
breathing the beat of my heart
as my father carries boxes
and makes morning jokes.
I see the boy in the space between the hinges
and that is enough like touching
for me to be happy.

Clara is always telling me about boys
the ones who are worthy of liking
and the rest who will disappoint you to tears.
I have felt things for other boys,
felt without falling.
friendship with Jed, because he was nice to me
flirtation with Michael, because he was Korean and safe
fluster for Simon, because he was not Korean and dangerous.
but none of those other boys were like this one.
nothing has ever felt this pure.
“you were up early,” I tell my father,

tempting fate, tempting knowledge.
and he says, “you should get
some sleep, you need your sleep.”
no mention of his early
companion, the boy who is not
his son, but could be his son in the future.
I am memorizing his shirts.
I am seeing the way he bends as he lifts.
on mornings when there is frost
I wipe a trail for him across the glass.
I see everything from above.

one day I will wake up and
he won't be there. he will
disappear as he appeared and I will cry like a death
foretold. part of what I feel for him is missing him.
part of what I know is that distance is as hard as it is easy.
I should talk to him.
I know I should talk to him
but I do not talk to him.
I watch him from afar and love him.

Last Thursday, I got carded at a sex shop.
The guy behind the counter explained to me
that I didn't have to be 18 to buy flavored condoms,
but I
did
need to be 18 to be in the store.
Luckily, I had my fake ID.

I'd never been inside that particular shop before.
It was called Lovely Pleasures, which sounded to me
like something you'd find on a Chinese menu.
At least it was better than the places called
ADULT VIDEO, which shows no imagination
whatsoever and makes you feel like you're
a dirty old man just for looking at the sign.

I like sex. I really do. And my girlfriend
likes sex. Which is convenient, I have to say.
We're always careful, we're always protected,
and basically we can't keep our bodies
off each other. We thrive on that intensity.

I was at the sex shop with Megan,
who is not my girlfriend but is
Diana's girlfriend now, I guess.
We didn't think Diana would ever
get over Elizabeth enough to be with Megan.

And maybe she hasn't. But they're giving
it a try anyway. Giving sex a try, that is.

I have known Meg since we were on tricycles,
and the most flavored things we knew were
Popsicles. I think it's safe to say that when
our mothers sat by the side of the pool and pictured our
futures, an aisle of prophylactics wasn't on their mind.

But we've grown up with each other, and we're
growing up with each other, too. So when she said
she needed help, I took out my keys and drove us to
Lovely Pleasures. It was either that or the drugstore,
and we know half the people who work at the drugstore.

Anne and I are always looking for new ways to go.
It's amazing the things that bodies can do.
The complicated ways that we fit.
I have seen her body naked dozens of times
and each time it is still an exploration.
Even when the bodies know, there is more to know.

The first time we had sex was in her bedroom
and she seemed more worried about me
messing up her great-grandmother's quilt
than anything else. All through the foreplay
she kept looking at it, shifting it so it wouldn't
feel our sweat. Until finally I pulled away
and folded it nicely, put it on a chair away from us.

It was not the first time for either of us,
but it was our first time with each other,
and that made it beautiful. Bright afternoon,
light of day through the shades,
basking in the sun-shadow of our affections.

That day, that moment, opened a curiosity of bodies,
shaped us as irrevocably as our first kiss, our first
realizations. You go into that moment never really knowing
if the closeness will wear well, if it is something that should
happen. I know she wasn't sure of me, and I wasn't sure
of me, either. But we discovered something in the unspoken,
found care in our caring whispers, instinctive.