The fog follows me to school. Reggie, Elaine, and Hanh are waiting for me, as usual. Minus any guys, thank God. I can see them watching me as I make my way up the sidewalk, and the horror of yesterday’s humiliation sinks in anew and the chill around me deepens. Each step is an effort, a battle against my desire to turn around and run home. They were all rooting so hard for Caleb + Sana. They’re probably mad at me for screwing things up.
Finally, Elaine steps forward, impatient. Here it comes. To my surprise, she opens her arms and hugs me. “I feel awful,” she says. “I never should’ve told you to go out with Caleb. I just wanted you to be happy.” Reggie and Elaine take their turns hugging me and gazing intently into my face as if I’m an injured baby bird they’ve found on the sidewalk.
The fog around me clears just a little, and I almost start to cry again out of sheer gratitude. But I’ve had enough drama queen scenes to last me a long time, so I brush away the tears and turn up the corners of my mouth to simulate a smile. “I’ll be okay.”
“Poor Caleb,” says Reggie, shaking her head. “He’s been a total wreck.” The fog settles back down again.
“Don’t remind me. I feel horrible.”
“Hey, Reg,” says Hanh, “sisters before misters.”
“I know, I know. Sorry. It’s just. He was miserable yesterday at lunch and after school.”
“But think about Sana. She got broken up with twice in the same day!”
“I know. I’m sorry, Sana.”
I shrug, muster up another smile, and start walking to class. The fog, heavy with the weight of Jamie and Caleb, is pressing down on me so hard it’s all I can do to stay upright.
I zombie my way through physics and P.E. The morning fog burns off, but I can’t ditch the one that’s settled around me. It hovers over my head and shoulders and goes with me everywhere, cold, gray, and wet. It drains my energy. It makes everything pointless. A girl from the Anderson Queer Straight Alliance comes over to me in the locker room after P.E. and slips a card into my hand, printed with the club’s URL and meeting times—Tuesdays during lunch, how convenient. I wonder what they’ll be talking about today. How not to lose your girlfriend by cheating on her with a boy? How not to screw up a friendship with a guy by kissing him even though you already have a girlfriend?
I walk by Jamie’s table at lunch, knowing it’s hopeless, but hoping nonetheless. It seems I’m just desperate like that. I hope that maybe something miraculous will happen and I’ll have the words to apologize and explain without making things worse—that Jamie will even want to listen. But once I’m there, it’s clear I’ve made a bad call. She won’t even look up from her food. Christina, however, looks at me like she wants to kick me. As if I haven’t been kicking myself for the last twenty-four hours.
I spend a long, lonely free period pretending to do homework in a corner of the library. Then history class drags by. Then another awful practice. It should be festive—it’s the last week of practice before league championships next week—but the fog around me filters out all the color, fun, and excitement that everyone else seems to be enjoying. Finally the day is over and I trudge home so I can finally be wretched in peace. It’s the happiest I’ve felt all day.
The week passes, somehow, and then the weekend. I’ve been grounded because of ditching trig, so I don’t have to explain to everyone why I don’t want to hang out. I spend every free moment obsessively checking Jamie’s social media pages. On Sunday, she posts a short poem called “Still Start” by Kay Ryan. It’s basically about how impossible it seems that a heart could go on beating after it’s been broken. A few people have posted comments. I consider posting one, too, but what would I say? I close the window.
On Monday, I walk to trig with Reggie, Elaine, and Hanh. Exactly like we did a week ago. Funny how life can look like everything’s normal when really it’s a huge mess. But when we reach the classroom door, I see Caleb at his desk, head resting on his folded arms.
“He’s been like that since last week,” says Reggie, as if I hadn’t been in class since last Monday and seen it for myself. She glances at me. “What are you going to do?”
I shake my head. I don’t know.
“You could try apologizing,” she says. Right. Okay. Better than nothing.
I walk over to my desk, sit down, and turn to face Caleb. “Caleb?” I say, my voice quavering. Please talk to me.
All I get is a muffled, “Fuck off.”
“Caleb, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About last week.”
“I said fuck off.”
I look over at Reggie, who shrugs, and at Elaine and Hanh, who smile mournfully: You tried.
The league finals come and go. I don’t cheer for Jamie because I’m afraid she’ll hate me for it—and I don’t hear her voice when I go to the starting line. I have a great race, with a final half mile that is the most painful I’ve ever run, but somehow I manage to hang on to the end. Gaman, Mom would say.
Gaman. I’ve fought my whole life against it, but looking back, it’s all I know how to do. I used gaman when I saw that first text to Dad when I was twelve. I used gaman with Trish when she got popular and made all those new, popular friends. I used gaman when I had a crush on her. I thought I’d changed when we moved to California and I finally made real friends, finally kissed Jamie, finally started to live a little. I thought I was done with gaman.
But I was wrong.
I tried to do something about Dad, and I failed. I tried to tell Mom the truth about me, and I chickened out. I tried to take action when I thought Jamie might leave me, and I screwed up. So I’ve resigned myself to my fate like a good Japanese girl, and I’m doing my best to pull myself together, squelch the complaints, and endure, endure, endure. Gaman. This is what Mom has been training me for since I was born, and it’s clearly what I’m best at.
The days pass. I become like a boulder on the beach in a time-lapse video. The sun and moon and stars cross the sky again and again, shadows lengthen and shrink, the tide rushes in and out. The sea heaves in the background, crabs and seabirds flicker in and out of view. Meanwhile, the boulder sits there, stolid, unmoving, all alone, as life whizzes past. Dad continues to disappear on weekends. Mom continues to pretend it’s not happening. Elaine and Jimmy earn themselves a nickname: Jimaine. Reggie splits her time at lunch between Caleb and Thom’s group, and our group.
When it gets too painful, I start sneaking my lunch in the library. It’s not so bad. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. In the beginning, the girls ask me how I am, if I’m okay. They ask me if I’ve talked to Jamie at all, as if she’d ever want to hear from me. Reggie mentions a couple of times that Caleb has been bummed out, as if I need reminding what a terrible person I am. But eventually they stop asking. The sun slides across the sky, the moon waxes and wanes, and I endure. I survive.
POETRY JOURNAL, HONORS AMERICAN LITERATURE
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23
“Elliptical”