I hate myself. Even before I lost you, I hated myself.
I didn’t like my body and the things it lacked. I look like a starving child, my flesh deprived of love and food. The hair that grew out of my head was never neat, curling at the ends like a dying plant.
My insecurities are endless. I won’t bore you with them, but that was how November 17, 2016, started, with my usual inventory of flaws.
I wasn’t born self-conscious. You were the one who made me realize that. But when you had a mother like mine, it was hard not to be.
Masako Yamashita was beautiful. She still is, but she no longer acts like it anymore.
Once, she was Masako Kanei, runner up for Miss Japan in 1994, with plans for a career in modeling. She had a face and body meant for the big screen, but her lack of acting talent confined her to the covers of magazines. There isn’t a single photo that she looks bad in. She would have continued competing, but they got rid of the Miss Japan pageant in 1996.
She would have set her sights on the Miss Universe pageant instead had it not been for the fact that she met my father that same year. Some people would say that it’s obvious what my father saw in her. My mother was glamorous and sought after by many men, flooded with bouquets of flowers and boxes of chocolate. But she wasn’t the sort of girl easily impressed by gifts.
My father liked that the most about her. He endured two years of courtship to earn her hand in marriage. He thought it was appropriate to go to great lengths to get a woman with high standards.
Now she was Marie at my parent-teacher conferences, “Nana’s mom” to the few friends I had, and Okaasan at home. She still turns heads, but when I’m with her, people find it hard to believe we’re related.
This morning, she’s the one telling me to change my clothes and dress more ladylike. Doesn’t she know that no matter what I wear I will never be another version of her?
I reluctantly shrug on a dress, making a mental note to change into more comfortable sweats later. She drives us to the front of your house, waiting to send us both off to school. When you never come out the door, we’re forced to leave so I won’t be late.
“Maybe she’s sick.”
I shake my head. You would’ve texted or better yet called. I knew then that something was wrong. Little did I know you were lost to me forever.
Foolishly, I try to ignore that uneasy feeling for the rest of the day. School drags along without your quips. If you were here, you would turn up your nose at the gross school lunch or joke about our homeroom teacher’s awful new hair color. The fluorescent orange strands of Mrs. Jones’s perm hurts to look at and someone keeps snickering about it, sending the class into fits of laughter.
It’s the first time I've smiled all day. I still wish you were here, but I remind myself that you’re probably unwell.
When I get to your house after the last bell rings, I discover that no one’s home. Someone accidentally left the front door open so I walk in, that foreboding feeling multiplying as I take in the lack of furniture.
I go to your room, chilled by the empty space. It occurs to me that maybe I dreamed up our relationship. I entertain the idea until I see a drawing in the corner near the window. Scrawled in blue ink with your name beneath it was a doodle of a goldfish. It matched the one you drew beneath the table in my room last summer from the curve of its fins to the detail of its scales.
I trace the pen marks, feeling just how hard you pressed into the wall. Then I look around for a clue, hoping that even the slightest speck of dust could point to your whereabouts. Aside from the doodle, your room is scrubbed clean.
It takes a while for the horror of your disappearance to set in. Time has no shape. I blink and I’m in my bed during winter break crying over you.
Every day that passes in your absence chips away at the idea that you left against your will. Although I know you don’t mean it, it feels like you’ve done this on purpose.
I drift between my reality and subconscious, desperately trying to remain asleep. It’s pathetic, but only when I’m dreaming do I get a glimpse of you. Sometimes I see the back of your head or the trail of your shimmery gold hair as you run by me. If I’m really lucky, I see your starry eyes peeking through the curtains.
I try to remember how tall you were, the pattern of your freckles, and the shade of your tan. I'm starting to forget the little details about you. All I can muster is a vague image of what you looked like. I hope you can forgive me.
Maybe we’ll laugh about this when I see you again.
I stare at the ceiling, blinking in discomfort at the flush-mounted ceiling light. It dangles from above like a misplaced boob, mocking me for my wretched state. For some inane reason, it serves as an anchor for my consciousness and a grim reminder that I’m no longer dreaming.
I turn over on the bed, pulling the covers over my head. I can’t bring myself to get up and turn off the light. Missing you has taken all of my energy.
I close my eyes and sink into my head. This time, I don’t see you, but I do feel you.
You kiss me so hard that your mouth tastes like poison. Your nails dig into my skin and I think if I stay in your arms, you’ll rip me apart. I welcome the pain. I would have sat in it forever if I didn’t hear my mother screaming for me.
I jolt awake and toss my blankets off. At some point, I have to stop thinking of you, even if it’s just for a second.
I drag myself to the kitchen table to find a bowl of white rice steaming near a pair of chopsticks. It hardly counts as a meal, but it’s a step up from the microwave dinners that I’m used to.
Ever since my father died, my mother hasn’t been herself. Technically, it means that she’s been depressed for years, but she doesn’t like to call it that. Not when she’s met someone new, a man that she puts on lipstick for.
I slide the natto on top of the rice, stirring the sticky strands of beans into the grains. It’s weird seeing her try to be domestic. It was unlike her to do anything to impress a man, but he must have made her happy. At least, happy enough to try living again.
I return to my room, this time taking the effort to close the offending boob light. I shut the curtains and open my laptop. It was outdated but functional, like most things around the house. My mother even had a Motorola flip phone, but mercifully, she didn’t subject me to the same fate.
It’s become a habit of mine to stalk your social media pages. I’m looking for a photo of your new life, maybe a selfie or a sunset. Any sign that you’re still alive.
Your last post was in October, a Halloween costume photo. We’re in that one together, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White at a party. The Evil Queen and a deflated dragon linger in the background while Cinderella shares drinks with the Cheshire cat.
If I scroll further, the tableau of our relationship comes into view. I find myself in at least one photo in every post. If I go back even further, I’m granted a glimpse of your life before me.
I linger on a photo of you on your sixth birthday. You had a pink crown and chocolate frosting smeared on your lips. You look so happy.
But you don’t like talking about that time. The Before, as I’ve taken to calling it. You insist that life was better for you here, in California. I could only imagine what you were running away from before.
Did you run away again? Was there a dark secret that I missed in our memories together?
I close the laptop. Staring at the same photos hasn’t changed a thing.
I lie down, willing my body to relax. It doesn't take long for me to fall asleep. But I don’t enter the dark, dreamless void that I had hoped for.
Someone keeps calling my name, their voice faint but constant, like the buzz of a mosquito. I never see the person’s face, but I feel them restraining me, pulling me away from you.
"I love her," I tell the faceless person."Why won't you let me go to her?"
"Nana," the person says, holding my wet, cold hands.
I pull away, running after you. The water on my hands creeps up my arms and covers my neck. The sound of my name morphs into the buzz of a tuning fork humming against my ears.
I keep running in the void, hoping to reach you. Even as my skin peels away and my muscles fall from my body, I keep running, all bones and tendons.
But I never do reach you, stuck in the darkness, yearning for your light.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
