A Bookmark
CW: brief mention of domestic violence and asphyxiation
Announcing my intended college major to the stunned faces of my Indian parents was the second time in 2009 that I disappointed them.
“Why are you going to college to study East Asian culture and history and take Japanese? Can’t you feel more pride for who you are and your own culture?”
I tried to keep my smile from becoming terse (Rupa, you will not add fuel to the fire), and bit back the bitterness skulking beneath the surface as they reluctantly agreed to my decision. I was far-too aware that — as a first generation Indian kid — increasingly larger sacrifices must be made if I wanted any singular, “disruptive” thing for myself, especially if I wanted to pursue anything (or anyone) decidedly un-Indian. There was only ever one choice I could make in an effort to be a good, respectful Indian child; anything beyond that needed to be bookmarked indefinitely.
During those first two years of college, I affixed my many masks more tightly in a futile attempt to not worsen my parents’ annoyance. The shadow behind me lengthened, deepening the understanding that I was walking a road very few of my Indian peers could (or would) choose. My previously hardened masks fractured by the end of sophomore year; fed up with the 16-year-weight of my suffocating chronic depression, I defied my parents’ expectations to ignore it and secretly sought help from a therapist.
The cracks deepened further when I took intermediate Japanese my junior year.
Week after droning week, I shook the blurriness out of my vision while walking into 9AM Japanese class, squinting to read the daily objectives our sensei carefully wrote on the board. During one of those monotonous mornings, I noticed a Chinese girl who actually seemed alert, without the glazed over expression most of our classmates bore. To my surprise, I saw she wasn’t in the dull college uniform of sweatpants and sleep shirts: Her skirt was knee length, paired with simple tights and ballet flats with her shirt buttoned to her neck in that feminine preppy way that was less like a cut-out J. Crew advert and more definitively human.
Everything about her was perfectly placed and balanced without feeling contrived or overly delicate, from the arrangement of the textbooks on her desk to her posture, which was ramrod straight like a dancer. She keeps her bangs neatly trimmed swiftly passed through my mind and I found myself immediately drawn to her. She looked over and smiled — I only noticed too late I was staring a little too long — so I flashed one back with a nod which she returned before going back to her notes.
After that day, my gaze would unwittingly drift towards her and I began paying closer attention to her outfits and hairstyles; her different combinations of blouses and skirts and getting excited on the rare days she’d pull her hair back. Despite fruitless attempts to focus on the textbook in front of me, soon even my hearing became attuned to her. The sound of her pencil against paper reverberated across the room, and I recognized the moment the tip pressed against the page as she copied kanji from the blackboard. I knew the telltale sign of when her mind would wander, a fluidity scratching across the margins, before a hand, a face, an eye would appear.
She’s drawing again.
I tried to get to class as early as possible; she usually made it there before me and our eyes would lock, before our concealed smiles warmed and widened. Sometimes she showed me sketches and doodles from class and eventually told me about getting her master’s in a science well beyond my level of understanding (holy shit, she’s wildly intelligent AND talented, too?!). I put more care into getting ready for a morning class I’d otherwise put in minimal effort for, especially when we met five days a week. My dad instilled to my sister and I how we should always show our respect for educators by dressing well and showing up on time, and I maintained that strict policy through college.
But it was different with her. It was always different with her. We had few opportunities to actually talk even though we often chose seats near one another. Involved conversation only grew as we studied Japanese more, since neither of us shared the same language; I didn’t speak Mandarin and her English was suited towards academics, but it didn’t matter. The days our sensei paired us up for conversation practice were always a highlight, the both of us visibly brightening when we could flip our desks to face one another completely.
We began staying later, too: We’d drag out our bag packing between aborted attempts to say anything beyond, “Hello!” and, “See you tomorrow.”
Over time I became increasingly agitated. My closest friends noticed my restlessness and annoying inability to stop talking about her. “Just ask her out,” my roommate Sarah told me over our kitchen table while I nursed my second beer. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to — I knew she was waiting for me to take the initiative but I’d never been in this situation before. All of my past crushes on girls either led to my being ostracized for being “different” or my forcibly choosing to keep a certain distance so I wouldn’t be seen as a “predator.”
I went to take another sip of my beer only to realize it was long empty. My thumb nervously pushed the label off with my incessant fidgeting, catching against the hand-warmed bottle, leaving me no less perturbed.
“It’s so much harder than you’d think to ask someone out. What if she’s not queer? What if I’m misinterpreting signals?”
I moved to grab a third beer, hiding my anxiety behind the fridge door.
There was more at stake than my simply asking a cute girl out — I was stuck between two choices, two worlds, two identities. I could either close the door and choose to bury my feelings, which I’d already done for 20 years, to shield myself from the disgusted looks, hurled insults and hateful language, and settle into being a “good Indian kid.” Or, I could gather the courage laying dormant in my deepest reserves and see where taking a step out of my armored fortress — taking a risk — would lead me. I sighed, my head hanging in the fridge briefly before closing it quietly and sitting back down, completely forgetting my beer in the process.
The months continued to pass by until they didn’t. I suddenly found myself at the end of the semester, the days passing out of reach with a frequency that left my body roiling. Only growing more frustrated with myself, I slapped my face, stared in the mirror and yelled.
When have you ever stopped yourself from asking someone out when you wanted them? Don’t you dare start now.
I forget how I asked her out, honestly. Adrenaline overflow was likely, but I suspect the relentless passage of time and my own regret caused me to lose the memories I once held so tightly to my heart. It’s like the longer I watch my life pass by — time slipping out of my hand too quickly to grasp — the more I’m aware that I’m being left behind. The choices I’m not making are leaving with these empty seconds, and what I’m seeing isn’t simply time, but parallel lives where I made a different choice.
A choice that wouldn’t continue to haunt me nearly seven years later.
Under the thin guise of finals looming overhead, I asked if she’d like to study together at the Caribou Coffee above a local grocery store — personal, not too personal, close enough to both of our apartments. My nerves were beyond frayed; my stomach couldn’t decide if it wanted to stay in my body or lay on the table with my Japanese notes.
And then she arrived.
Ohmygod this is real, this is happening, you’re not in a dream.
I noticed she didn’t pull her books out; my stomach flung itself off the table. “Did you … forget your notes?” She looked down, then away, before looking back and explained that she brought them to help me study even though she didn’t actually need to take the final.
And just like that, my heart and my stomach snapped together and I garbled at the table. Rupa, GET IT TOGETHER I screeched internally, so I gathered my notes, flashed a grin, and got to work. I noticed her fidgeting and I glanced back up questioningly.
“Can I draw you while you’re working?”
Can I draw you while you’re working. Can I draw you while you’re working. Can I draw you-
I knew at that moment we were on the same page. We were following the same chapters, dancing and weaving together. We were really doing this.
So she quietly drew me while I fought to keep the ever-present smile off my face in that overly exposed, grocery store coffee shop.
The only language we both truly shared was Japanese since neither of us shared the same native tongue, but it was okay; we carved out a tranquil space for ourselves with a third language instead. We were safe there, existing in our own little world that took us away from the reality of family and societal pressures, and where a future that kept us separated across the world was waiting for us. Here, we could step away from the precipice of what are we doing? and simply be together.
We found peace on that vinyl-topped table and we were unequivocally, painfully happy.
We didn’t have many opportunities to meet in the year and a half we orbited each other. Our infrequent hangouts took us to that haphazardly cleaned coffee table, and when we couldn’t meet, we relegated our correspondence to Facebook messages. We often talked about music, and she’d request music by women — Jessie Ware, Asobi Seksu, AlunaGeorge, Sky Ferreira — which made me crate dig even harder to find artists tailored for her.
The end of the semester arrived and we were upset parting ways after our last class since she wouldn’t be at the final. Standing there until the silence became deafening, I floundered trying to find an excuse to see each other after summer break, until she took the initiative and asked if I’d take a very advanced Japanese class with her the following year.
I wasn’t sure if I could re-affix my jaw after it crashed to the floor. I’d like to think I gave a cool, suave response but I have a sneaking suspicion I instead jumped three feet and shouted, “OF COURSE!”
Yes, it’s true — I can be shockingly embarrassing.
I thought I’d seen her happy before, but the moment I said yes, it was as though the radiant warmth I felt whenever I was around her — that filtered through and slowly filled the frosted glass encasing me all these years — rushed out. I was shocked and pulled in by her clear delight and wanted to do anything to keep her happy, but I couldn’t shake a deep rooted terror that refused to relinquish its grip.
When had a woman ever shown legitimate interest in me? It was difficult to recall if/when anyone had reciprocated genuine enthusiasm towards being with me. Inevitably, people would pull away or leave, and I couldn’t shake the echoes of half-hearted encounters from seeping into my mind. But she was different — being around her actually steadied me. It felt too easy, too warm and clear to be real, and the light from her excitement left me feeling exposed.
Break eventually ended and I walked into our first advanced Japanese class: She was seated across the room, glowing when our eyes met and I was beyond elated, but barely twenty minutes had passed before that fleeting moment of giddiness dissipated as quickly as it came. I knew I’d struggle at least a little bit in a 400-level Japanese class, but was horrified by my inability to barely understand what anyone was saying. I despaired, realizing I was nowhere near ready to take this Japanese class and after struggling to read through a single sentence of the syllabus, I knew I couldn’t stay there.
Just as cowards do, I sent her a message on Facebook, telling her I dropped the class and would switch to a different level of Japanese; she responded with disappointment and surprise. Things became tense, and the precarious distance I feared for so long finally engulfed us.
We didn’t see each other during those months.
It was difficult with our schedules, and unless our paths crossed between the one or two classes we took in the same building, it simply wasn’t feasible to meet up.
Somehow, we kept up our increasingly infrequent messaging about our days and new music — or called out「元気？」「うん、元気」 back and forth through the building’s halls — until one day I woke up and realized a year had passed by.
We met at our table in that heavily air conditioned Caribou Coffee. The trees were summer full, and the breeze kicked up the relaxed, quiet freedom which is only borne from an empty campus in mid-July. It had been months since I’d last seen her in-person and was hit with the full force of seeing (and remembering) one of her cute outfits; so I told her I liked it and had always liked them. The responding smile mirrored on both of our faces outshone the mid-afternoon sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
We shared stories about the past year, new music, some future career options since I’d graduated. She soon told me over our rapidly melting iced coffees that she’d finished her degree and was headed to Korea for a summer program before returning home to China to start the next phase of her science career.
Rupa, you fucking idiot.
I somehow thought we had more time — which I knew was absurd, I’d known from the beginning how quickly sand was falling and filling our almost two years — but only now had it sunk in how much time I had foolishly wasted, and was helplessly awash in regret. Lost in my spiraling guilt, I was subconsciously aware of her rifling through her bag, every so often tucking her long hair (it grew a little more, huh) behind one ear, and distantly heard something about her mom and a request.
A hand appeared, reaching out in front of me and holding a vermilion box. I glanced up and was struck by her gentle and slightly sad expression, and whatever she just said finally managed to register.
“Wait… you asked your mom to bring you this from China to give me as a gift?”
She flushed a little and said yes; she’d wanted to make sure I had something to remember her by.
My soul had long since drifted from my mouth, and in disbelief and awe, I opened the box to find a metal bookmark. A yellow cheongsam pendant adorned with a silver dragon and blue lining hung on the side, but what caught my attention was a separate paper bookmark with a painting of lotuses on the front. I turned it over, peripherally aware of her face taking on an even deeper hue, and read her note.
It didn’t escape my notice that she wrote it in English, and I zeroed in on her saying I was a beauty, my face suddenly matching the bright red box on the table. There were tiny drawings around words; a cat; even a mini-self portrait of herself with kira kira eyes to sign it off. A cute, frustrated face was drawn next to her saying how, even though we had only met a few times, I was an amazing friend whom she loved so much.
She wrote “love” in block lettering surrounded by tiny hearts, and my eyes threatened to shut.
A couple of months prior I had met someone: A seemingly harmless guy I started seeing after being introduced at a friend’s party, thinking he was cute and nice. It had only been eight weeks but my cowardice in facing her many months before — to take that definitive leap, to take a fucking risk — made me reach out to someone who was “safe” on paper.
I tried to shutter my screaming heart, and after briefly closing my eyes I affixed an achingly tight smile across my strained cheeks. Managing a steady voice, I thanked her, telling her she was very sweet for the bookmark and beautiful note. I quickly shifted the topic to summer plans and looked away — the smile perma-glued to my face — before nearly biting out,
“I actually recently started dating a guy!”
This was my final test — even with this note in my hand, I could’ve simply projected feelings onto someone I had an all-consuming crush on. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
When I turned back, her posture — for the first time I had ever seen — ever-so-slightly crumpled. Hurt, anger, and disappointment flashed across her eyes and we sat in a silence that cut through the humidity fighting its way in from the automatic doors, relentlessly opening and closing. Eventually, she said we would likely never meet again with her going back to China so soon, and I knew she was right. As we made our goodbyes, she mustered up one last smile and said that my style inspired her and made her want to dress up for class every day.
She had dressed up for me, too.
A few hours and multiple glasses of whiskey later, my best friend Josh and I actually talked about our last hangout. I was past moping and kicking myself for being an idiot and had slipped into believing I hallucinated the entire meeting from standing under the sun for too long. My thoughts slurred; she wrote that note as a friend, she must do this for everyone she talked to at school, it’s just wishful fucking think-
“Rupa, just show me what she gave you.”
Grumbling, I thrust the box in his hand and threw my whiskey back, seeing as he opened it and read the note, watching his eyes grow wider. When he looked up after what felt like an hour, my eyes and throat burned as he said the one thing I tried to delude myself into believing wasn’t true.
“She’s in love with you. Actual love. This isn’t just a friend thing or mistranslation.”
Shit.
I desperately wanted there to be a way to fix this screw-up but it was already too late: All that could feasibly remain — the tangible realness we could’ve had — left when I slammed the door on our future, the one we could’ve had in this timeline. Instead, I have snapshots of turns I could’ve made if I were a braver person.
I wasn’t scared of rejection; that, I was used to. I was terrified of what came after — when someone who also wanted to see me managed to shatter the frosted glass — so I broke two hearts that day. I still haven’t forgotten her even though I normally forget anyone who merely passes through my life. She drifts into thought without my calling for her, a subconscious reminder that I cannot continue existing as a living statue. Even though I can’t recall the cadence of her voice any more, I know my heart would recognize her in a crowd anyway, piercing through the torrential cacophony of white noise.
It wasn’t a crush. It was never a crush. The affection I felt for her is one I haven’t experienced since; I’ve gotten very close, and I’m sure I can find that thrum again, but I still can’t remove my mute from the bridge.
I hope she doesn’t think of me anymore. It may sound odd, after writing this long essay in testament to our almost-was, but I truly hope any thoughts of me are fragmented at best. I did us both such a disservice, myself such a disservice, and chose the “safer” path in some vain attempt of being altruistic.
But she chose me over and over again. Taking Japanese again just to be near me; calling me her inspiration to dress up more for class; handing me a bookmark and note I still occasionally cry over. And I never chose her a single time. I didn’t give her a memento to remember me by — all I gave us was heartbreak.
It wasn’t simply a different person I chose to hand my heart and self over to — I chose a man, who on paper was the ideal any Indian parent would be pleased to have; steady job, consistent paycheck, solid education. But that man was a monster, and for a year I survived a highly abusive relationship that still continues to wake me suddenly in the night, drenched in sweat and heaving in fear from the shadow of violent memories and his phantom hand on my neck.
I didn’t know he was a monster then; all I intrinsically knew was that he was “safer” and I could “pass” in a heteronormative society if I chose him. I thought I was starry-eyed for him in those days, but now I know I was trying to survive while burying the fear of taking a riskier path.
I refuse to make the same mistakes. Since then, I’ve chosen the perceived riskier path time and time again, even if it leaves me lost with no clear road towards a definitive future. I date much kinder and genuine men (just as I attempt to date women and people of any gender) and pursue new dreams, but now I choose to make myself happy instead of doing what others expect of me. For too long, I’ve followed the paths forcibly laid before me and subconsciously absorbed what well-intended people around me have “advised,” not just for dating, but even from the “best use” of my talents towards chasing after creative pursuits to healing my chronically ill body.
There used to be a card I often read that hung on the bulletin board in my therapist’s waiting room: Life is a series of choices. It’s up to us, the individual, to choose our path forward. Even though other decisions presented themselves to me in the past, meeting her was the moment it became glaringly apparent what that actually means. I cannot simply follow the expectations of others in pursuit of my own contentment. Walking dead-eyed through sliding, automatic doors and being pulled into a normative life is not the one I want to lead anymore.
It’s not the life I’ve ever wanted.
To let go of monolithic, oppressive structures and respect others who instead choose to follow the leaves lifted by the wind seems impossible for people walking on normative, re-paved roads. To let go of the tired need for everyone to follow the same paths — to do what your family expects you to — and the bitterness of choices you didn’t make.
Letting go of resentment and regret — of memories, dreams, the “what if’s” hanging over our heads — is a lifetime’s work.
I can see all of these futures so vividly; ones where I stayed in that high level Japanese class which was beyond my ability just to be near her. We continued to talk, go to different coffee shops, eventually gaining the courage to openly date her. Maybe we’d be long distance or maybe she’d come back to America, and we’d find a place to live together. She’d become a reputable scientist, and I would settle into being a writer full-time; we’d spend weekends listening to music, dancing together, sitting quietly while she’d sketch anything and everything. I’d find the nerve to tell my family and walk a path together with her.
There are even futures where we don’t stay together.
Instead, I chose a future where we no longer speak. I’m not entirely sure where she is anymore — maybe she’s in China, working hard and using her studies to impact and help society in a myriad ways.
In the best case scenario, she saw my fear and continued to live true to herself and forged a path towards her own happiness. When I dream of her now — far more rarely than before — I see her living vibrantly, changing the world and never wavering from her voice. She still draws and everything she creates vibrates against the very fabric of the universe.
And even all these words and years later, I don’t hold onto those regrets or “what if’s” as much as I used to. I like to think that all of the parallel Rupas — the ones who made many different choices at multiple points during their lives — are living with vigor and genuine happiness. They also fully believe that each one of our selves is thriving and living freely.
All I can do is make the best of what I’ve learned, what I experienced, and make this life worth any mistake I made in the past.
Even with that, I can still occasionally hear the sound of her pencil again if I close my eyes for too long. I can’t remember the scent of the perfume she used or even her steadying warmth anymore; but even then, beneath my shut eyes, I can see myself falling asleep near her, glimpsing her pencil sketching across pages. I watch the tide — slowly drifting with rolling waves crashing on the cold, rocky shore of some unimportant coast just outside her desk’s window — while she draws all our possibilities. The ebb and flow of the water reminds us both that we’re here and we chose each other and maybe everything will be all right.
The wisps fade away when my eyes crack open. I’m at peace with where I am now and can genuinely smile, feeling lighter with every tendril slipping out of reach.
I can’t hear her pencil sketching as well anymore, and that’s okay.
This is Part I of an ongoing essay series. You can read Part II here.
