I don’t think chest pains are normal for girls my age. I get the occasional gray hair from stress, light strands that my mother pulls out in fear that I will get more if she leaves it in the root. After long days at school, I get back pains and knee pains. My neck aches in symphony with the other sores in my body. I belong in a nursing home instead of a private school.
But life must go on. Even though I lose sleep and skip more meals than I’d like, I’m still a model student. I check the online dashboard for my grades and find that they remain impeccable.
To supplement my meals, I eat in between classes. I snack on granola bars, switching between strawberry, blueberry, and chocolate when I inevitably get sick of every flavor. I pack dried fruit and beef jerky for energy. In the mornings, I try to drink coffee, but the caffeine jitters are so intense that I can’t finish one cup. Instead, I down Soylent, a meal replacement drink that’s popular with some students, but it doesn’t taste very good. However, I keep drinking it because it helps my stomach stop hurting.
Protein bars, boiled eggs, and leftover pastries also make up my diet. The leftover pastries cost me nothing, but I know I cannot subsist solely on carbohydrates and sugars. The boiled eggs are a suggestion from my mother, an easy snack for her to carry when she was a schoolgirl who had to survive with no electricity in her home. I like that they’re soft with a hint of salt, but I despise the smell, which reminds me of sulphurous thunderstorms and rancid farts. The protein bars don’t have an odor, but they taste chalky. There’s a bitterness to them that no amount of flavoring can hide.
My hunger becomes immaterial. It floats out of my body like a ghost, haunting me every now and then. Sometimes it possesses me, and I become lightheaded. But it doesn’t stop me from being sharp.
I breeze through my midterms. I solve test problems like an animal, relying purely on instinct and textbook readings I did the night before. Every class has a challenging exam, forcing my brain to switch to various areas of knowledge. I have to engage in different ways of thinking in forty-five-minute intervals, which is the length of a class period. By the time I reach my last exam, my head feels like it’s on fire. My skin is feverish, but I press forward. Not even my laptop gets this hot when I use it for too long.
Clubs are paused this week to give students time to study. I stumble home on the subway, hardly aware of my surroundings.
The week after, my body feels funny. My stomach twists. I vomit on the way to school, humiliating myself in a train car full of strangers. I step onto the platform, reeling from nausea.
A station worker tells me to call my parents about the situation. No one else can help me. A woman tells me that it would be illegal to give me painkillers, even over-the-counter pills like Tylenol and Advil.
My mom is the first to pick up the phone. She tells me to sit on the bench and drink water until I feel better, advising me to keep my head between my legs. When I would eventually feel better, she said I should still go to school even though I would be late.
It will be the only day to ruin my attendance record.
I’m no longer nauseous by the time I make it to my third period class. I remain cautious, avoiding heavy foods I didn’t think I would keep down.
“You’re late,” Maia says in awe when I stumble into math.
“I had a small emergency.”
“Couldn’t miss a day of school?” Ainsley’s attendance was perfect, so she understood why I was here.
“Nope.” I give them both a shaky smile.
Midday, my head starts to burn. Ainsley slips me a Tylenol and an Advil, but she still tells me to go to the nurse. It’s the first time that I’ve seen her concerned for me. I take that to mean that I look truly wrecked.
The nurse gives me an ice pack and tells me to lie down on the cot. She calls my parents to pick me up, but no one picks up on the first try. When she finally does reach someone, she finds out that none of my family members can get me because my younger brother was in the hospital for a nasty fall he had during recess. I have to wait in the office until late afternoon.
“You’re still here?” Yuey comes to visit during lunch.
I shrug helplessly, pressing the ice pack into my forehead. My fever was going down, but I still had a sick feeling throughout my body.
Yuey offers me some Pi Pa Gao even though I don’t have a sore throat. I take a spoonful of the black syrup anyway, the mint making me feel cool. She offers to catch me up on the class work when I’m better and then stays a safe distance away from me.
Mikael also comes to see me. He sneaks away from class on a bathroom break, carrying a hall pass. He pretends that he’s bringing work from the teacher to walk by the nurse. While he does have paperwork, he lingers for longer than he should.
“You should have stayed home today,” he tells me after hearing the story of the morning I had.
“I didn’t feel sick when I woke up.”
“Did you feel sick before you got on the train?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe …”
“If you feel even the tiniest bit sick, you should go back home.”
It was weird, being scolded by him. He was fretting over me more than my parents did.
“Most of the time, it’s not that bad. I still go to school if I have a sniffle or a slightly sore throat.”
He buries his head in his hands. “That is so bad. Think of all the other students you could’ve gotten sick. Don’t you think that’s worth missing one day of school?”
“I don’t want to fall behind.”
He scoffs. “That’s never going to happen. A few days won’t put you behind the whole grade.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that you’re smart and capable. I also know that you deserve a break.”
I sigh, knowing that Mikael could never understand because he didn’t have a family like mine. It didn’t matter if I deserved a break or wanted one. Taking one day off was one day wasted, not getting ahead of my peers or making myself competitive for college applications. My family depended on me to be good at school to get ahead. Did he have the conscience to let down his entire bloodline? I knew I didn’t.
My mother brings me home in a cab. She’s in her bakery clothes, a plain t-shirt and jeans covered in flour. I try not to cringe at her appearance and pray that none of my friends see her.
She feels my forehead and tells me that I’m not hot anymore.
“Did you pretend to be sick to sleep in school all day?”
I shake my head and show her the vomit stains on my uniform.
“Everyone is giving me a headache today. You get sick, and your brother gets sick. If Ming gets sick, I’m going to give up on life.”
Coincidentally, when we got home, my sister was also ill. She was propped up on her mattress with a cold towel on her forehead. My mother went straight to the kitchen to prepare chicken noodle soup for the family. Her face told me everything about how she felt about all of her kids being sick.
I peel off my uniform, dumping my clothes into the hamper. Once in my pajamas, I sink into a dreamless sleep. My sister shakes me awake for the noodles. I pick at the chicken, not hungry in the slightest. I halfheartedly slurp the soup.
“We work so hard for you,” my mother lectured us. “We feed you and buy you clothes. Why can’t you stay healthy?”
I shove the chicken in my mouth and chew wordlessly. I did not have the energy to argue with my mother. I simply eat until the bowl is empty.
Back in bed, I remember what I wanted to say to her. Before I sleep again, the thought surfaces in my mind.
I work hard too.
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