Page 85 of If You Could See the Sun
Before she can protest, I throw my arms around her small frame, hoping it can convey everything—all the guilt and gratitude—I don’t know how to say.
Then I turn and walk out the door, pushing aside the awful thought that this may be the last time I’ll ever see these halls.
Mama and Baba do not speak a single word to me the whole subway ride home. It’s better, I suppose, than being screamed at in public again. But not by much.
When we finally reach their flat—our flat, I keep reminding myself—it’s even smaller than I remember. The ceilings scrape Baba’s head. The walls are stained yellow. There’s barely enough room for all of us to stand in the living room without bumping into the dinner table or the cabinets.
Silently, Mama picks up my bag and suitcase, and for one terrible second I think she’s going to throw them and me out of the house. Force me to go live on the streets. Disown me for good.
But then she dumps my stuff in her and Baba’s bedroom—the only bedroom in the flat.
“You sleep there,” she instructs, without looking at me.
“Where will you and Baba sleep?” I ask.
“On couch.”
“But—”
“Not for discussion,” she says firmly, such finality in her tone that I can only swallow my protests and comply.
“Thank you, Mama,” I whisper, but she’s already turned away. If she heard me, she doesn’t show it.
I swallow the lump in my throat. All I want is for her to hug me, reassure me the way she did when I was a child, but I know that’s impossible. For now, at least. So instead I unpack my bags, change the sheets, shower, going through all the motions like a machine. Disciplined. Unfeeling.
And only when I’m alone in their bedroom, the door shut tight, do I pull the thin covers over my head and let myself cry.
18
The next morning, I wake up with a pounding headache and the pattern of my pillow pressed into my cheek. For a few short, blissful seconds, I forget I’m back at home. I forget why my throat feels so dry, like I haven’t drunk any water in days. Why my eyes are almost swollen shut.
Then I hear the clatter of pots, theclick-click-clickof the stove turning on in the kitchen—thekitchen—and everything comes flooding back to me in one sweeping, nauseating wave—
Fuck.
My lungs seize up as I’m assaulted by memory after painful memory, forced to relive every second of yesterday’s meeting, the look of profound disappointment on Baba’s face, the way Mama kept her lips pursed on the long subway ride home, as if she was trying to hold back tears.
I can’t remember the last time I messed up on such a catastrophic scale. I’ve never even beengroundedbefore; whenever I did something wrong as a child, like accidentally scribble on the walls or shatter a plate, I’d be so harsh on myself that Mama and Baba would end up comforting me instead of handing down punishments.
But this is different. What I did was completely, undeniably wrong on every conceivable level. You can always fix or replace a broken plate, but when you hurtpeople—there’s no going back from that.
And that’s not even considering the legal implications. If Peter’s family decides to sue—which, let’s face it, they probably will because he’s their only child and I’m powerless and they’re used to having their way... If the school decides to expel me, put “criminal activity” into my permanent academic records... Or worse, if this ends up going to court... I’m not even sure how much lawyers cost, but I do know they’re expensive, a thousand times more expensive than we could ever afford, and if any of the court dramas I’ve watched are grounded in truth, a legal case like this could drag on for years. But what would the alternatives even be? Prison? Would they force my parents into jail in my place, because I’m underage? Or would they send me to some kind of juvenile detention center, where kids hide knives under their pillows and attack the physically weak like me?
A terrible wheezing sound fills the room, like that of a dying animal caught in a snare, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me. I’m curled up on the bed in a fetal position, panic threatening to crush my very bones.
I don’t know how much time I spend like this, trying and failing to remember how to breathe and hating myself, hating everything—
Then Mama’s voice cuts through the closed bedroom door:
“Sun Yan. Come eat.”
My heart stutters a beat. I cling onto the tone of her voice, try to dissect her every word. Mama only ever calls me by my full Chinese name when she’s angry, but at least she’s still willing to feed me. Tospeakto me.
Maybe I haven’t been disowned just yet.
I rub the sleep from my eyes, take a deep breath, and tiptoe out into the tiny living room, feeling like a criminal in my own house. I half expect to find a lawyer or the police or maybe one of Peter’s parents’ assistants sitting on our worn sofa, ready to take me away at a moment’s notice, but the room is empty except for me and Mama.
Mama doesn’t look up from her seat at the dining table when I move to join her. Just pushes my breakfast closer toward me.
