This Is My Brain, Powerless

JOCELYN

When I wake up to the pounding at my door, I look over at my alarm clock, see that it’s four thirty, and almost go back to sleep. Then I see the little red dot lit up by the PM, and I realize it’s my dad hollering something about how I need to come down now because Will had to leave for a doctor’s appointment.

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” I yell, not budging from my bed. Five minutes later the knocking starts again, and I can tell by the knock (softer, but regular like a metronome) that it’s my mom, whose knocking is not to be denied. When I open the door, my mom looks me up and down, expressionless, before she motions to our bathroom. “Kuai yidian, shu tou, xi lian.”

I look in the mirror, and I’m a living, breathing “Hangover” trope. My hair is a rat’s nest, and the makeup I had put on is a ruddy, streaky mess from my post-interview cry. I’d made it up to my room feeling a calm numbness. I’d told myself that I was okay, that I wasn’t going to freak out until the decision e-mails were sent out, and then my phone had buzzed, and it was Will, and he asked me if I was okay, and I realized with an ugly flash that, no, I was not okay.

And I’m still not.

After Will’s text message I cried myself to sleep, wallowing in a freaking tsunami of disappointment and self-loathing. Now that I’m awake, as I survey the wreckage, I have no idea how to rebuild. I have no idea what to hope for anymore. I’m not going to be able to fulfill my dad’s contract. And what then? Do I wait for college? Do I sneak behind my family’s back (again)? Do I strike another bargain?

Or maybe I do nothing and accept the things that I cannot change, like that stupid motivational quote that every teacher posts on their wall that’s supposed to be inspiration, but in the end just reminds you that you are, in the end, powerless over a lot of the things that matter most.

I grab a bar of soap and scrub all traces of my interview off my face, but there’s nothing I can do about the slight puffiness around my eyes. I comb my hair, scrape it into a ponytail, and slink downstairs.

It’s a strange relief to get back to A-Plus, to the knowable repetition of taking phone calls, checking orders, and packing take-out bags so the containers don’t spill in transit. At around six o’clock Will comes back.

“Hey. Something wrong?” I ask. There’s a stiffness to his walk, a flatness in his face. “My dad said you had a doctor’s appointment.”

“Nah, just a checkup.” He rubs his wrist and doesn’t meet my gaze. “Hey, can I help you with some of those orders?”

We work in silence. Even though part of me is grateful that he doesn’t ask me about the interview, a bigger part wants to spill everything like a confession, as if he could pardon me for my ineptitude. Then, when Will leaves to make some deliveries and we still haven’t said more than three sentences to each other in a row, a niggling voice in my head asks, What if he doesn’t even care if the interview went well?

My mom goes into the kitchen once she’s relieved of her chaperone duties, and once I’m alone my thoughts continue to degenerate. It’s my fault Will’s acting weird. He did ask me if I was okay, and I said I didn’t want to talk about it. I know how sensitive he is, and I still blew him off. How did I think he would feel? Maybe he’s finally seeing what a bitch I am.

The truth of it all cuts through me with a howling sort of pain, and my hand spasms over the plate I’m clearing. It’s so obvious what he must be feeling: his coolness, the way he held back and couldn’t look me in the eye, how quickly he volunteered to go on a delivery and leave me behind.

My throat closes up and my still-swollen eyes prickle again. I want to take the plate and do something dramatic with it, like smashing it into the ground only to collapse keening into the shards like the actresses in the Taiwanese soap operas my amah watches.

The door opens. A customer comes in. And I don’t do anything, just swallow and say, “How may I help you?” like always.

That’s not true: There’s one thing I do for myself. After a few minutes, I call up and make Alan come to finish up my shift and close out the register. He whines, of course, but he comes down because he will owe me until the day he dies, and by the time Will comes back I’m safely in my bed upstairs, trying not to cry, and not succeeding.