Fall 2006

I don’t know when it started. Suddenly, I listen for her name when other students call her, when teachers talk about her. Suddenly, her laughter can be the cause of my smiles. Suddenly, my mood swings come and go at her bidding. When she’s happy, I become over the moon with joy. When she’s sad, I feel the world eroding in my own loneliness. I breathe her in, and I want to keep her within me. If only I can stop exhaling.

“Byun Baek.”

I try to squelch the light I feel seeping into my eyes at her voice, at the nickname only she calls me. She has the voice that I never could quite remember before—it’s equal parts sweet and stern, one that isn’t quite any other voice in the world. It is musical, and it is distinctly hers. Perhaps I don’t remember because I want to keep hearing it over and over. Her voice in my head doesn’t quite compete with the real thing.

“Hey, Baek,” she calls me again, and now, I can’t help the smile that takes over my face: the goofy one that makes my face look distorted and ugly. I hate it, but my face has a mind of its own.

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind going with me to buy a bottle of water?  I forgot to bring my bottle from home.”

I hate to say this, and I hate the way I am, but I am a puppy: her puppy. I am on her beck and call—I’d drop anything for her.

“No. Come on, let’s go.” And it’s quite a walk to the nearest soda dispenser, but she makes the distance seem like nothing. Any moment I spend with her is time well spent.

“How’d you do on our last math quiz?” She looks at me expectantly. This is another thing that she’s changed within me. I never used to care about school. They base everything on letter grades, on high achievement and standardized testing. So why do I need to be their pawns to get more government funding? But because she cares, because she’s ranked second in our whole class, because I want to bridge our achievement gaps (I’m rank 150 something), because I care about her, I started studying hard.

That math quiz she’s talking about? I studied all night for that. I forced myself to make sense of Riemann sums and indefinite integrals, because I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me—I wanted to make her proud.

“I did okay,” I shrug my shoulders to feign nonchalance.

“How okay?” This is another quirk I love about her—her face opens up to whatever emotion she is feeling at the moment. Her eyes open imperceptibly wider, her brows arch up just a bit, and makes a cute O.

“I got one wrong.” Out of the ten questions of that quiz.

“Baek! That’s not just okay. That’s more than okay. That’s great!” She beams up at me, tilting her head up to make full eye contact. Her smile gives her eyes a twinkle, the one that makes her dark brown eyes lighten up with emotion. I thought brown eyes were the most boring of eye colors: mine are flat and lifeless, but hers—hers looks different. They are like chocolate, sweet and beautiful and multi-dimensional.

“I guess.” I shrug my shoulders again, but I can’t help laughing. I caused the smile on her lips. I caused her happiness.

She puts a hand on my arm to congratulate me, and it takes all of me to keep breathing. The warmth of her hand, the lightness and softness of her touch on my uniform, they are enough to cause happy tingles up and down my whole hand. When she takes her hand away, I almost really stop breathing. It’s as if something’s gone missing all of a sudden.

“We better hurry. Break is almost over.” She snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Right.” I start taking bigger strides towards the machines.

She makes a quick work of the dispenser when we get there, putting in cash and taking the bottle in graceful motions.

“I heard it might rain today,” I say to make conversation.

“It will?” She gives the sky a worried look, watching for dark clouds. “It looks like a clear day, though.”

“I know, right?” I chuckle awkwardly. Why did I bring this up again? “But did you bring an umbrella, just in case?”

“No,” she chews on her lower lip, out of habit. “I really hope it doesn’t rain.”

We start walking back to class, one of the few that we have together.

I look up at the sky too, hoping that it does.

-

I watch the sky from my seat in my Chinese class. As our teacher drones on about the Han Dynasty and the faction tensions that always seem to happen in Chinese history, I observe the clouds that just a few hours ago were fluffy and white. It doesn’t look anything like a sunshiny day anymore. Instead, the sky threatens to cry at any moment, dark and unpredictable in its loneliness. I can’t help but smile. This is my last class today.

Right when the school bells ring to signal the end of class, I am out of the door, sliding through students to get to the chemistry classroom. I wait outside the door, looking out for a certain petite girl to come out.

“Sohee!”

I see her smile once we lock eyes.

“Hey. What are you doing all the way here?” She adjusts her backpack straps.

I wave my umbrella. “It’s raining outside. You don’t have an umbrella. So I’m here.”

She laughs. “You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

She stays quiet, and I don’t know if that’s a rejection of my umbrella. A rejection of me.

“Thank you,” she finally says.

I can’t help but sigh in relief as we reach her locker. I don’t know what that was for.

She puts away her books, and I’m holding the umbrella for the both of us as we walk out of campus. We are two figures, brought together by the rain, brought together by a dark green umbrella in between the two of us. We bump into each other once in a while, and I feel electrocuted each time.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Byun Baek,” she says quietly. And I almost don’t hear her, except everything she says somehow makes me alert and alive.

“Don’t worry about it,” I smile. But her words mean to me more than what I indicate—it gives me hope. For when I confess to her. If I actually confess. Can I?

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Girl #1 is out. Please comment :) Hope you like it!