Falling Without Style

During my senior year in high school, I met a girl through a mutual friend. For the sake of this story, let’s just call her “Mal.” She went to another high school in the same town, and we bonded primarily over the hardships of schoolwork, which at times included joint study sessions, and shared culture. Our conversations, both online and in person, were often playful. We teased and bantered-- flirted, almost. Independently from the old saying, we developed this farewell we used exclusively between us: “Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite!” That was part of our display of affection. We were more just confidantes than ever truly interested in each other, but we were real-- or so I thought.

I had been a proponent of honesty, during my younger years. Even when responding to such trivial questions as, “How are you?” I had often answered with, “tired,” “depressed,” or “shitty.” It was this foundation, an honesty which demanded intent when presenting such basic queries, upon which our friendship stood. I had no idea, then, that this foundation was set upon sand.

I enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis as a biomedical engineering major, my freshman year of college. In those days, WashU was among the top 10 universities in the nation, as ranked by U.S. News. As an Asian-American student that had totally bought into the Model Minority stereotype, to be there was absolutely wonderful. However, I was unprepared for the independence of life far from home and the responsibility of learning in that type of environment. Before long, I was shell-shocked by a string of personal disappointments and academic failures. The mounting pressure that resulted from the growing incongruity between my expectations and reality caused me eventually to drop out during my second semester. My community witnessed me return home in defeat.

My basis for self-worth was yanked like a rug from under me; I stumbled and had my nose bloodied before a watching world.

Less than a year later, I gained acceptance to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in spite of my unresolved psychological issues. I’d gotten in touch with Mal again, who’d been there for a year, by then. She’d offered to walk me around campus a bit, answer any questions I had-- serve as a welcoming party, of sorts. I accepted. We met for lunch one day, and she greeted me with, “How are you?” I don’t even remember what I said, only that it was something along the lines of, “I’m alright.” My answer would have been fine, except that I had not yet perfected my mask, my façade of strength.

I still sported a splotch of crimson, spreading from my nose. I had not yet learned to lie with my face, thus make the lie complete.

She asked again, for confirmation, and my repeated reply gave it. Upon seeing the incongruity between my words and my face, her own face fell. The light in her eyes dimmed in response to the darkness in my own. The rest of our lunch and subsequent time together could not be saved.

I had needed understanding. I realize now that Mal would have tried to give it, and that effort would have been enough for me. It would have been better for both of us if I had said something-- anything-- but I did not even know to ask. I would rather have sweat and cried inside of my mask than let her attempt to help me breathe by taking it off. My next breath would have been the one needed for our friendship to live. When I think of her, I am confronted by a nagging sense of loss that consists of unrealized possibilities and un-lived futures.

Mal is not alone in the place to which I exiled her. Within the hollowness behind my mask, whispers escape my lips and echo with the names of a dozen lost friends.