Cry

She’s always so happy. I wonder how she does it.

That’s what they said about me.

They didn’t realize that I could cry – that I was capable of tears. Because I was supposedly always happy, I was the last person they would expect to burst out into tears. I grew up thinking that I had to always show that side of me – the happy side. Any side of me that wasn’t happy or bubbly was simply unacceptable, especially if it involved crying. Those kinds of things, being angry or being sad, those had to be done in private by myself.

But there was one day when my best friend, Taeyeon, came over while I was crying in my room.

I heard her yell from the front door that she was coming upstairs, and I was quick to compose myself.

Just go out there and pretend like everything is fine.

That was what I told myself.

But then she walked into my room and that smile that was on her face was quick to fade away when she looked at me.

“Fany-ah…” she gasped, her eyes filled with worry, “what’s wrong?”

The tears that I thought I had tucked away had suddenly burst out of their confines as soon as I looked up at her face. I curled up into a ball, hugging my legs, and buried my face in my arms. I couldn’t stand to look at her at the state I was in, and I was ashamed that I had let her see that side of me. I heard her rush to my side and felt her gently place a hand on my knee.

I shied away from her touch and continued to cry. I tried to stop crying, but with her sitting right next to me I couldn’t seem to stop.

“Tiffany…” she said softly. I mustered the courage to look up at her. I knew what she wanted to ask, and I felt as if she deserved an answer. But, to be totally honest, I had no idea what to say to her. I didn’t have a tangible reason to why I was crying so much. The frustration was making me cry even more.

“I – I don’t….I’m n-not…y-you…” I choked on my words and I couldn’t seem to get out a full sentence in-between my sobs. Shaking and shivering, I buried my face back into my arms, even more ashamed than I was before.

I felt a pair of arms wrap around me and a soft kiss on the top of my head.

“If it helps,” she whispered soothingly, “I don’t think any less of you.”

I pulled away to look at her, and she moved her hands to cup my face, her thumbs wiping away my tears as they fell.

She smiled at me, and I thought it was beautiful.

People always told me that I had a really pretty smile, but I always thought that Taeyeon’s was so much more beautiful than my own. My smile was visually appealing, sure, but Taeyeon’s was that and so much more. Hers was calming; hers was genuine.

“It’s okay to cry, you know,” she told me, and it was almost as if she could read my mind. “It doesn’t make you any less you.”

She guided my head to rest on her shoulder and I closed my eyes, letting the rest of my tears flow freely.

And it was odd to me how such a simple gesture could make my heavy heart feel that much lighter.

Perhaps it was okay to let her see me cry.

Because, suddenly, it didn’t feel as bad.