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I bow my head briefly and say, “Thank you. I'm looking forward to finishing everything.”
It is my last few days of college, and graduation is just around the corner. I remained committed to getting top scores and giving my best throughout the journey.
“Now that you have finished your studies, will you spend more time with friends?”
I sigh, a little frustrated. He always worries about me. “I'm too busy for parties and things like that. I have to focus on my future.”
It is true, and it is not true.
I could easily make time for friends and socializing, but I just don’t have that sort of inclination. The one friend that I have, Maddy, is all I need. But even she complains often about how I need to get out more and enjoy life.
How can I, though?
I watch her, laughing and relaxing and surrounded by people who love her. Her family supports her in every way possible, and she has a mostly normal life. At graduation, her parents will be in the audience watching her. Ah gung will be there, but not my parents.
“Sera, I just want to know that you will be alright,” he complains, sipping on his tea.
“I know, ah gung, I will.”
“You spend too much time alone.”
“I'm happy, though,” I lie.
He eyes me carefully, knowing that I'm not.
I'm so consumed by the past that I have never allowed myself to focus on anything other than my goal of avenging my parents’ deaths. While Maddy was dating boys and experiencing life, I was alone, painting to ease my pain, getting lost in textbooks, researching New York. I almost started dating a boy once, but as soon as he got too close, I pushed him away. I have never felt love and I have never been intimate with anyone. In college, Maddy tried to set me up on a few dates,it made me very uncomfortable. So, I'm still a virgin, and it doesn't bother me at all. It is not something I yearn for.
I'm consumed by sorrow and anger. I can’t control it.
A year ago, Maddy and I had a fight, and she told me I was obsessed with what happened to my parents. We almost stopped being friends because of it. Despite how much it would have hurt me to lose the only friend I have, I would have let her walk away. I can't change who I am. If she can't accept me for me, then she should leave.
But she stayed, and she has been a good friend to me despite my seemingly singular focus.
She wants me to move in with her after college and find a job nearby; she doesn’t want me to go to New York. I chose where I went to college based on the most favored schools in New York. I have geared every choice I have ever made in my life toward one goal.
I can't date. I can't party. I can't push the trauma of my past aside to enjoy my life until I have resolved what I need to resolve.
My need for revenge spills over into every choice I have ever made.
I know I'm damaged. I'm broken. I'm not the same as other people my age.
But I love deeply and take care of those people who are important in my life. If I see someone else in pain, I have an overwhelming urge to help them. I know what it feels like, and I don’t wish it on anyone else.
I stare fondly at ah gung. His face is lined with age, and his skin is soft. He bruises easily, yet his strength is still obvious to anyone who looks at him.
He has been my rock, my home, and my mentor.
He knows me better than anyone else, as he has seen my pain when it was still raw before I learned to hide it so that I could blend in. He has loved me through my worst and continues to care for me to this day.
I realized when I was young that if I wanted to achieve anything in life; I had to put on a brave face. The people who meet me don'tknow the sorrow I carry beneath the surface. They see me smile; they see me laugh, and they think I'm just like them.
A few years ago, Maddy convinced me to go to therapy. It took a while and a lot of pleading on her part, and I knew it was coming from a place of love, so I agreed to try it. At first, I was excited about it. I held a small hope that therapy might ease theheaviness in my heart. But when the therapist asked questions, so many questions, I had to accept that it would never work.
I'm a ward of the mafia, and everything I know is confidential. Everything that I would need to speak about in order to overcome the trauma - I can't speak about. It is too risky.
Despite the therapist trying her best to convince me otherwise, I stopped going. I learned to bottle things inside of me, and I even tried to hide my true thoughts from Maddy. She knows me well enough, though. She sees through the veil into the festering wound that is inside my heart.
Apart from ah gung, my Hong Kong family knows very little about what I went through. They think I left all of that in my past, and the smile I plaster on my face when I'm around them is satisfactory to them.
