“Hey!” Jayhe pops up behind me. He pulls me close to him, whispering close to my ear. “What’re you grinning about?” He spins me around to face him.
“Do you know what you picked at your fortune ceremony?” I ask. Light glitters in his dark eyes, washing out any reflection of me.
He frowns. “Ma always says it was the coins, but I think it was probably a pencil.”
I take his rough hands in mine, and I feel like a child, they’re so big and calloused. “I wonder what I picked,” I say. A dark thought settles over me. I wonder if my mother had a fortune ceremony for me at all. My mom was a single mother, and her family was all in Korea.
“What’s the matter?” He squeezes my hand tighter. “You used to be one of the happiest people I knew. And now, it just seems that place makes you sad.”
“I am happy,” I say, shrugging. Why is he bringing this up now?
“You don’t seem like it.” He tries to pull me closer, but I can feel eyes on us again.
“Stop.”
He realizes people are watching, and lets me go. “Why are you being like this?”
I bite my lip, thinking about what he’s said. I’m trying to figure out what to say when he speaks again.
“Okay, then. Maybe this will make you happy. I talked to my dad, and between the scholarship and what he would have paid for Queens, I can make NYU work. Probably.” He waits for me to say something. “So it can all work out.”
“Congratulations.”
He seems angry. “That’s it, that’s all you have to say? Not ‘we’re on our way’? Not ‘I can’t wait till we’re together’? None of that?”
I nod my head, but I can’t force the words.
“Okay, then, I guess that’s that. I guess asking you to have Valentine’s dinner is useless, too. You have to rehearse. I know.”
Actually, that’s the weekend I have to fly to California to audition for the San Francisco Ballet. “I’ll be out of town. Auditions.” I ease the words out slowly, waiting for him to erupt. “We could do the weekend after? Or before. Or maybe you can come with me?” I let myself imagine that for a minute—the two of us on the trolleys and in Chinatown. But I can’t quite picture it because I know that’s impossible. He’s got school, he’s got art class, he’s got endless hours at the restaurants.
“Auditions?” He takes a deep breath. “For what? I thought you said you were applying to NYU. I thought you said—”
His grandmother ambles over, and Jayhe goes silent. When we were little, I spent hours with her and Jayhe at their house down the street, playing, watching Korean dramas, and eating mandu. Her whole face lifts when she smiles at me. “Yeppeo gangaji,” she says, touching my cheek. Pretty little thing.
I wrap my arms around her and kiss her soft, wrinkly cheek. The skin is papery, like it will tear if I push too hard. She feels and smells like home to me. She puts a warm palm to my face. She says a bunch of stuff in Korean, but the only thing I understand is the word eat. Then, she tries in English. “Eat more. Too small.”
“Yes, yes.” I kiss her again. She takes a dumpling from her plate and pushes it toward my mouth. I take a bite and then a second. When it’s gone, she starts on another, but I excuse myself. “Hwajangshil.” Bathroom. I hope she understands.
Am I really that bad? I wonder as I look at myself in the mirror. There are hollows under my eyes, and my arms are string beans. The dress makes a line straight down, no curves anymore. In real clothes, ones you wear outside ballet, I look sick, underfed, not like a normal girl. In leotards and tights, with my hair slicked back and my face powdered, I look like what I am: a ballerina.
I can feel the dumplings and other junk floating in my stomach, the thick, salty soy sauce coating my insides. I can’t even walk into the bathroom anymore without wanting to purge. My body does it on command, the smell of the disinfectant and the coolness of the tiles an instant trigger.
I run into the stall and let it all out. The dumplings, the drama, the tension that’s been weighing me down for days. But the guilt doesn’t leave me like it usually does. It sits heavy and solid in the pit of my stomach, a reminder that, despite this one little bit of control I may have, everything’s far from okay. Maybe it’ll never be okay. I can’t just sit here on the cold hard floor, so I paste on a smile, ready to head back into the party. When I open the bathroom door, Jayhe’s standing there. His face is stone, his lips pressed together tight, unyielding. His eyes are confused, crinkling with pain or revulsion.
The party still spins around us, but it feels like we’re in a bubble. “What?” is the only thing I can get out. But I know that’s not nearly enough.
“How—were you—” He swallows the rest of his thought. “We don’t talk about this stuff, so—”
“And we aren’t going to talk about it right now either,” I snap.
“I just thought you were working on it. That you were doing better.”
“Are you kidding me? Do you know how much pressure I’m under? You don’t get it, do you? This is it. These next few months are all I really have to make something of myself. I’ll do whatever it takes—give up whatever I have to—to make it happen. Even if I have to do this.”
He pulls me in close, a hug I can’t escape, and I’m clawing at him, at everything, trying to get out. I can’t. I can just hear his heart pounding against my ear, the thud, thud, thud of it fast and exhausting and soothing all at once, making me realize something for the first time. “I know you want this, June, but this isn’t worth the struggle,” he whispers into my too-short hair. “This isn’t worth it. June, you don’t have to—”
I shove him away. “No! You have to understand. I can’t eat dumplings and noodles and pizza and hang out and watch movies and hook up. If you want that girl, go back to Sei-Jin. She’s who you wanted in the first place.”
His face is bright red now, and everyone in the room has paused. “June, keep your voice down.” His hands are on my shoulders. He’s looking me straight in the eyes, trying to calm me down, saying soothing, hushed things in both Korean and English.
“I can’t—I can’t do this anymore, Jayhe. I’ll do whatever it takes to dance. And you’ll never understand. I’m not giving this up. Not even for you.”
I storm out of the restaurant, racing down the block. My heart is pounding as I run, the winter air whipping my hair back against my face, the chill seeping into my skin.
An hour later, I’m standing in front of my mother’s apartment building. I can barely remember how I got here, and I’m hoping this is all a nightmare, a mistake. But I know somewhere deep inside that it’s over with Jayhe.
I stand there for a moment that feels like hours, finding it hard to believe what I’ve done. I walk toward the building and let myself in. I climb slowly up the three flights of stairs, carrying the weight of a broken heart with me.
It’s only nine p.m., but it feels like the dead of night. It’s cold in the apartment, the single-paned windows letting every draft in. I put on a sweater and socks. I crank up the thermostat. I even turn on the oven. But that’s not enough, and I bat away the thought that being cold is a symptom of low body weight. I go into my mom’s room, where she’s snoring slightly, that same familiar rhythm she’s always had, and crawl in right next to her, cuddling close. Like I used to when I was little.