Goodnight M. Yang
Chapter One: This Too Shall Pass
"This too shall pass" is a proverb indicating that all material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary. –Wikipedia
~
I never thought the entirety of my life would come down to being divided into chapters. I mean, most people think that you can sum up the feelings, experiences, and memories of a human beings life into 400+ pages but I never did. I always thought it was a crude injustice to the life of any man, woman or child whom had died and had their life story told, front to back, page by page, in one book, chapter by chapter.
Anyone who has experienced feelings before knows that a single day of being in love can be stretched along for miles of notebook doodles and I Love You’s. Any bum on the street could go breathless with describing what it is like to spend an hour sleeping on the side of the road in the frigid New York winters. And most girls, as it has come to become a cliché of our time, can’t seem to express into words how it feels to have your heart broken.
The heartbreak, to most, is something that we must live with and grow from. It is inevitable in the world and must be passed down from mother to daughter, father to son. The people who break our hearts are usually those who have had it done onto them far too many times. After a while, in life, you have to choose whether you will be the one falling and breaking or leading and destroying.
These are the sad injustices of our times. The greatest mind in the world, summed up into 345 pages, unabridged and the youth of an entire nation battling for breaker to broken. I can’t help but dwell on these things in my life as they have both brought me to this very distinct fork in the road.
People don’t seem to realize how influential the world can be to a teenage girl. The world is a different place through those eyes. Words written down onto paper have different meanings, the sun rises and sets in a different way and the feelings we have all had are amplified and felt like nothing and no one can truly express it. Mothers were there once, as they express to their daughters so often. But you can describe a harsh cold from memory or you can shiver in the reality of its cold upon you now. From memory, the feeling is so much different than when you are living it now.
It is hard to realize that nobody understands what you are going through. It is even harder to admit to yourself that nobody cares. I had always thought someone would be there, holding my hand, shouting my name, begging for me to come back to the real world and that soon these thoughts and feelings would all go away. I had read about those mothers, those friends, those loves who had done this for their heroines. I had always wanted that. But it was something I simply did not come equipped with.
I needed to be told “This too shall pass.” With these emotions, thoughts and feelings taking over an already innocent, ignorant mind with no one and nothing to prepare me for them, I was a loose cannon, a bomb waiting to explode, a hurricane wind… a volcano.
Because of this, I found myself standing at a bridge. This time it was not a metaphorical bridge. I was standing at the bridge between this county and the next with my feet at the cold, red metal while the rain hit against my exposed cheek, gray sweater and blue jeans.
It was so cold. It was so cold that the sweater which had come soaked previously was almost icing around me now. The rain was more like ice hitting at my face as my long, dark hair, drenched, stuck along the sides of my face and what was left exposed at my neck.
I turned again to look at the black road behind me. In all these years, this had been my only friend. That dark, empty road leading nowhere had been the only consistent thing in my life. It was the only foundation I had rested on. It left plenty of room for those who cared to stop me.
But nobody was there. Nobody cared. I was, in fact, all alone.
This is my story. This is my life, spanned out across pages in an attempt to express what happened to get me here. This is what happened.
~
They were talking to one another in the corner, laughing here and there and placing that flirtatious touch back and fourth. They pretended to look around shyly as if nobody could see them, but everyone knew they wanted to be seen.
I tried my best to keep my attention focused on my book. I was reading a word here and a word there, but the giggles continued to pull my attention forward. This act was being put on for me. I was supposed to be watching them now.
“Are you kidding me? I love hiking! When should we go?”
The pages couldn’t have been turning faster themselves. This was study hall. We were supposed to have been studying. I needed to study. I needed to pass this test.
Chapter Three: Proverbs
A proverb is…
“I am free this weekend actually. You think you can keep up?”
A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which…
“If I can’t will you carry me back down?”
…which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity.
I slammed the book shut. It was a rather large book so the force by which it closed echoed throughout the library causing various looks and glares to be shot my way. At least they stopped. They both looked at me for a moment, guilt across his face and void of emotion through hers.
Quickly, I looked away from them and shoved the textbook into my side bag. It was far too large for my small bag but I didn’t care. I would have to just study at home. I couldn’t concentrate here. Not with them… standing there like nothing had happened.
How could she… How could she do such a… gah!
If I could have run away from that room, I would have. I could have if I’d had any guts. No guts, no glory. I couldn’t even muster up the courage to move to another table or even express to the girl, the one who had called herself my friend, why I was so upset.
She knew. I knew. But it wasn’t a set of words shared between the two of us. It was a conversation I would avoid until I was cold and dead… or at least close to it.
45 Minutes Left…
As I pulled a notebook up from my bag, something to doodle and draw on until this hour was over with, a familiar bag made its way over and fell onto my lonely table next to the Science Fiction section of Memorial High School.
“Hey, Mai! I haven’t seen you in a while.” Angelique Garner exclaimed as she sat next to me.
Angelique was my brother’s secret girlfriend. They had started dating when they were both Juniors in high school and were now working on their third year together as college freshmen at the local university. Oh, and the secret part, that is a bit of a story all in its own.
You see, Kai and I are brother and sister and the only two children of Officer Yang and his lovely wife Inou. My father is Chinese and my mother is Japanese. Together they are this Asian super team and all about their heritage together. Since we were young, they emphasized to us the importance of dating someone of the same moral and structural background meaning we are to date within our own race.
Angelique was mixed just like Kai and me only she was not Asian. Angelique was Irish and Mexican. She had long, naturally wavy dark brown hair, hazel eyes, peachy skin and a Hispanic girls figure. She was absolutely gorgeous. But my parents wanted nothing to do with her and they demanded Kai feel the same way.
“Irish people are basically the Mexican’s of their own race. Nothing but no good so-and-so’s.” I heard my dad exclaim more than once at the dinner table.
I was very close with Kai. We were the duo against the world having to travel from school to school in most of our early years when finally my father decided to settle on this random Army base in the middle of perfect-America. When he met her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was basically all he could ever talk about.
During their first year, there was a lot of sneaking around and a lot of getting caught. Finally, the two hit a point to where it was either make or break and they decided they couldn’t do without one another. They got better at sneaking around until they were free the day of graduation and moved in together on the opposite side of town. Their friends who stayed in the dorms would cover for Kai pretending he lived there when the parents wanted to visit.
They were going to get married someday and spend the rest of their lives together. It was a magical love story and they had already beaten the odds. I envied them. The only drawback I could find in the entire situation was that now I rarely got to see Kai.
And I did miss him.
“Hey, Ang. What are you doing here?”
They were well into their first year of college and had no obligation to this hell hole any further so it was quite a shock to see her sitting in her and Kai’s old spot again. This very table was actually where they first met.
“I am actually here to see you.”
I looked over to see that the lovebirds had left. Where they went, I didn’t care. As long as they were gone that was all that mattered. I was going to be thinking about the two of them at all hours of the day so seeing them was just like a double strike.
“M-me? Why me?” I asked. She was usually glowing. The girl was pretty artistic and had all different sorts of hand made jewelry on her neck, wrists and ears and she was also tall like a supermodel and she was always smiling.
“Your brother and I are worried about you. We want you to come over for dinner this weekend. Are you free?”
I was always free. I despised the taste of alcohol, hated modern pop music and couldn’t socialize to save my life. The ideal weekend life of a teenager and the youth I now possessed was wasted on my person.
The past three weekends I had been “garage sale-ing” with my mother to find every last piece of hidden treasure in everyone’s trash before summer hit and spring was over. She always said that the spring sale’s had the best stuff.
“So you came all the way here to ask me to dinner?”
She giggled which was followed by a “Hush!” from a neighboring table. Angelique glared at him for a moment only to focus her attention back on me.
“Well, I actually have to ask the librarian about some books I read last year for a report I am doing on the trivial works of art society has deemed as socially acceptable. But I also really wanted to see you.”
I provided to her a half smile and nodded my head. Angelique had fought hard for a long time to get close to me. She knew I felt, on some level, that she was taking my brother from me and that I would withhold those feelings at all cost. Finally, she broke me and I loved her almost as much as my brother did.
She provided a hug before she scurried off to seek the attention of our 90 year old librarian. I looked down at my bag and then back to the spot where they stood again. I wondered if Angelique ever had to feel this way. I wondered if she had ever had so-called friends like that. She seemed stronger than me. What would she do?
I opened up the notebook again and started to just draw circled in the middle of the paper. They were dark, black circles and the harder I colored them in the weaker the paper got.
“David is pretty cute, huh?”
The paper started to tear and my pen started to leak onto the sheet below it.
“Why do you say that?”
My teeth were grinding, top row to bottom row, so hard if I had slipped and bit my tongue it would have chopped the damn thing right off.
“In English class you can’t stop staring at him! Why don’t you ask him out?”
Circles over and over again. Sheet after sheet in the one beautiful white notebook.
“No way, he is too cute for me. I wouldn’t have a chance with a guy like that.”
She’d known. She talked to me about him. She knew how I felt. She was the dark mark, the black ink on my innocent, ignorant sheets of paper.
“Oh, Mai. You are so silly!”
That’s right. I was silly. I was silly and stupid to have ever said anything about him. She was so kind, so supportive and so sweet about the whole thing. Anyone else would have known. Anyone else could have seen it.
Before I knew it, the bell had wrung and it was time for lunch… and then English. I loaded my stuff into my brown side back, put my grey hoodie back on and left the room in the shuffle of students making way to the cafeteria. Once out in the hall I made my way into the opposite direction to the football field.
Normally the field was covered in gym classes or teams practicing but for this hour in the middle of the day there was nobody to be found. It was actually a pretty nice field and gave the best view of the mountains from the very top bleachers. You could ignore the entire city and the rush and just look straight out into the raw land.
I’d always loved the mountains. I loved the feel of the dirt and the smell of the trees. I even loved that feeling of accomplishment you had as you conquered that beast and reached the very top. David did too.
She hated the mountains. She hated bugs. She hated climbing. But this was a girl’s game. They liked whatever he liked.
I pulled out my notebook again and started to sketch and draw on the corners of the papers that had not been completely blacked out by circles after putting my buds from my iPod in. This was usually the most peaceful hour of my day, in or out of school.
On random sort, I normally found that my music player knew my moods best. It would usually start out with some of that sad soul music and then switch up to some Ray Charles and then by the end of my lunch break I was smooth sailing into some Owl City. It was definitely a jump but usually my moods were as well.
It had been so bright outside lately. The spring sun was still foreign to my eyes as I had hibernated all winter and my glasses didn’t adapt do light and dark. Typically I would have to suffer with it but the paper was so bright, reflecting into my face, I had to slam the notebook shut and lean back.
Without my doodles I was alone with my thoughts. That scared me more than getting stuck in a well in the middle of nowhere. I pulled my hood over my head and allowed my long hair to poke out from the sides. After closing my eyes, my music stopped. I looked down to realize the battery had completely run out.
“Shit!” I yelled as I threw the thing down the bleachers.
I wanted to cry. I kept seeing them together as when I closed my eyes. She was poking him with her pencil in English class after having been “randomly” reseated. It turned into him stopping by her locker to talk about some hilarious text she sent him while he was in gym
And now this.
“Stupid!” I shouted. There was a light echo in the field. I thought I was alone until a laugh from behind me caught my attention.
“Who’s there?”
From behind the announcers box came a guy I hadn’t recognized before. He was tall, white but the sun was in my eyes so I couldn’t make out much. Just long hair and a set of teenage boy clothing. He was every other face in the crowd.
“Didn’t mean to disturb your alone time.”
I turned forward again and began together my things. So embarrassing. So utterly embarrassing. I can’t believe there was someone there the entire time.
“Hey, don’t go. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m actually…”
“Fuck off!” I ran down the steps onto the field and out the gate now. Lunch had just started. I had time to run this off.
As my hood flew off and my hair fluttered behind me in the breeze, I couldn’t help but think to myself that I had done something to deserve all of this. I couldn’t help but think I could have prevented my life from turning into what it was.
I was alone with no one to confide in. I had lost my brother to the war on happiness and everything I touched turned into shit. I was even embarrassing myself in front of faceless nobodies. Soon he would be with his friends talking about the girl who cursed to herself alone on the bleachers. They would have something to talk about. Me.
And I just couldn’t get their faces out of my head.
~
Two Weeks Earlier
~
“Mai, right?” David leaned forward and handed me a pen that had fallen from my locker. I blushed and smiled as I took it from him and shut the door.
“Yea, thanks.”
He was a head taller than me and had dark skin. He was mixed actually, like just about everyone now days were. His mother was Jewish and his father was straight from Africa black. They had met on a mission retreat. Everyone knew his parents because they were usually the people holding fundraisers for whatever natural disaster had just occurred.
He also had the brightest, whitest smile I ever did she. Unlike a lot of the other wannabes at our school, he dressed pretty nice. Normally it was a polo or button down shirt and jeans that didn’t hang off his ass nor clung to his legs. I liked that in his free time, when he wasn’t being the nicest guy on the planet, he would breakdance at the mall with his group of friends.
“We have English together. I wanted to tell you that I liked your poem the other day.”
“Which one?” My mind was completely blank in this moment. I had been watching him from afar for so long and now we were interacting, being social. My heart was racing so fast. I didn’t even know how to act. Casual? Normal? No advise in any magazine could have prepared me for this single joy which had managed to find its way into my life.
“It was about the two strangers walking past one another in an empty subway. There was a girl, quiet and alone wondering if the man passing her was a soldier, a civilianl, a sinner or a saint. And the guy, he was wondering if the girl was a gold digger or a daddy’s girl, a poet or a song writer. The moment they were even, like one in time, they realized that they were just the same person and that any moment outside of the one they shared together was meaningless.”
How did he remember…
“I really liked that poem.” He finished with a smile, turned, and walked away.
Most people don’t know when that moment happens. You know, that moment when you realize you have fallen head over heals, stupidly, cannot help what just happened, in love with another person. But I did. I knew the exact second.
As he walked away, I turned to greet my friend. The only person in years I had let in to my private thoughts and ideas. She didn’t judge me, nay she supported me! And she was smart and gorgeous and anything anyone could dream up in an ideal friend.
Amy walked up to me, her long, light brown hair was up in a loose bun so that strands of her hair were falling down gracefully to the side next to her long, silver earrings. Today she had been sporting a pair of tight denim jeans and this black and white button down blouse we had seen at the mall in “Tokyo Fashions”.
While Amy had been born in Germany and raised here, she was obsessed with Japan pop culture and their fashions. The fact that I had been half Japanese and visited there on several occasions made her envious.
“David is pretty cute, huh?”
She took me off guard. I could feel myself falling back a little before I caught myself and cleared my throat.
“Why do you say that?” I pushed my brown bag up on my shoulder as we headed in the opposite direction towards our first period Algebra class.
“In English class you can’t stop staring at him! Why don’t you ask him out?”
My face grew hot as she spoke. There was no way I could do that. Just… no way.
“No way, he is too cute for me. I wouldn’t have a chance with a guy like that.” I said. She began to giggle as she threw her long arm around my shoulders. In her silver heels she was nearly the same height as David walking around this place like a runway model.
“Oh, Mai. You are so silly!”
We made our way into class. She probed me about my crush nearly the entire period, texting me when I wouldn’t reply back to her notes fast enough. Finally, the teacher had caught us and took both of our phones away. After school that day she insisted she come over and divulge all information about boys.
She told me she liked someone else.
She lied.