I wish I was never born a girl. If I was a boy my parents would love me more. Those words are no exaggeration. Chinese culture is intensely patriarchal. Need I say more beyond how millions of families in the country reacted to the one-child policy?
My mother and father say that they treat me and my siblings equally. That is a lie that every parent tells their children, one they repeat as they fill my book bag with yesterday leftover bread from their bakery. I know it in the way that my bread was plain while my younger sister had buns full of sweet red bean paste and lemon jelly and my brother took hot dog buns and pork floss bread to school. They tasted meat and sweets while my tongue became intimately acquainted with the thinnest coating of sugar and the occasional almond garnish.
I never fuss about it, but I can imagine what would happen if I did. My mother would tell me that I never wanted the nicer bread in the first place, that I didn’t eat much, to begin with, and that all of the leftover bread would be wasted on me. If I fussed again, she would relent and give me the bread I wanted. But then I would have to deal with my siblings, who would make a bigger deal than I did over getting less bread. I didn’t win if I complained, but I didn’t lose if I stayed quiet either.
Besides, Maia and Ainsley already liked the bread I brought to school. Because Maia was Muslim, it was food she could actually eat and share with me. But today, I wish I asked for some red bean paste buns instead. I crave the smooth sweet filling over the airy nothingness of plain bread.
“Take the rest,” I tell my friends, my appetite lost at the thought of what I didn’t have.
I excuse myself to the bathroom, feeling the press of nausea at my temples. I rip open a pad, dizzy as I slip it into my underwear. I didn’t expect it to come a week early, but I made sure to always have period products in a small secret pocket in my backpack.
That was the other thing about being a girl. The blood of it. The monthly mess in my pants, the stains I could never properly scrub off my bed sheets. Ever since I started bleeding two years ago, life has not gotten any easier. I can’t count the pairs of underwear I’ve ruined since then or the days I’ve spent bedridden with pain.
If I was a boy, this wouldn’t be my problem. I wouldn’t have this week of weakness when my skin dances between hot and cold or my flesh becomes so sensitive that even a pinch will bring me to tears. There were other small things that I couldn’t do because I was a girl, like pass the family name on to my future nonexistent children or have my education paid for, although the latter was mostly due to my family’s financial situation. But it’s this monthly madness that comes with being a girl that I hate the most.
I often think about how unstoppable I would be if I didn’t have to deal with my period. I imagine all of the laps I could run, unencumbered by cramps. The delight of the wind in my hair. The sweat running down my back. My abdomen, blissfully pain free. I don’t even like exercising.
I dream of all the things I could make with my hands, the scarves I could knit and the shirts I’d embroider, without the biological exhaustion squeezing the life out of my body. On the more practical end of things, I could spend more hours studying and increasing my school ranking. I might have been on the list for the ten highest grade point averages, but I certainly wasn’t number one.
It’s infuriating knowing what I can be if I could change one part of myself. My brother’s life stretches wide before him, leaving enough room for mistakes I couldn’t make. The same is true for my younger sister, but no one in the family has a talent for failing like he does. Rui can be imperfect and loved. Ming and I don’t experience such miracles.
I am used to it. Succulents thrive under neglect. But Ming is not a succulent. She’s a lily and she needs the water that Rui positively drowns in to survive. Sometimes she looks for that water in me, but I’m as dry as the desert that holds my roots.
With Ming, I am allowed to be the impossible: a reliable disappointment.
I toy with the star charm at the end of my necklace. I press every point into the soft skin of my index finger, trying to distract myself from the sharp squeezing cramps with pain I could actually control. The dull spikes in my finger work for a few class periods.
That is, until I get to gym class.
We have basketball this semester. The teacher runs through warm-ups with us, stretching our limbs from the floor to the ceiling. I’m fine as we touch our toes and twist our hips. But my body betrays me once we start shooting hoops.
As the ball arcs perfectly through the air and swooshes through the hoop, agony shoots up from my legs to my stomach. It takes everything in me not to bend over immediately. I excuse myself to the bathroom. Once I feel the cool air of the hallways, I crouch against a wall, unable to bear it.
“Yan, are you okay?”
My head snaps up at the familiar voice drifting by. Through the blur of pain, I recognize Mikael.
“I’m fine.” I cringe at how ragged my voice sounds.
He lowers himself to my eye level. “You don’t look fine to me. Can you move right now?”
I shake my head. Being this close to the ground is the only thing that stops me from feeling the full extent of my cramps.
“Tell me what you need.”
I’ve never seen someone so desperate to help me. Maybe that’s why I ended up telling him that I wanted a cup of hot water. Even though his eyes cloud in confusion at my request, minutes later he appears, having exactly what I asked for in a paper cup.
“I snuck into the teacher’s lounge,” he says by way of explanation.
I take a slow sip of the steaming water. My muscles relax and I ease my legs from a curled up squat to stretching them flat against the floor.
“You can move.” Was I imagining it or did he sound relieved? It would be stupid if he was worried. I was in pain, not paralyzed.
Still, I fear the slightest movement would bring back a riot of cramps. Even though I made sure to move slowly, any effort to stand forces me back to the ground.
Mikael holds my arm to steady me. “Let me walk you to the nurse’s office. You look like you have something bad.”
“Just a stomachache,” I reply.
“Ah.” His face tells me that he understands that this was a special stomachache. “My sister gets those. She takes ibuprofen whenever it hurts that badly.”
“It’s not that bad.”
He eases me down the stairs, walking in step with me even as I lurch forward. Moving never felt like such a nightmare.
“I have some Advil,” he offers. “It’s a small dose of ibuprofen.”
I shake my head. “I’m not allowed.” Ever since I complained about my period cramps to my doctor, my mother has kept a bottle of painkillers for me. She warned me about taking them whenever I felt the cramps, telling me to ask only if I truly needed them. It may sound cruel, but I knew she was only looking out for me. Her liver was ruined from the sheer amount of painkillers she took in the past, a fate she did not want me to have.
After all, a ruined body was a useless one.
He doesn’t press about the pills, or rather, the lack of pills. He drops me off at the office and releases me. I register the cold absence of his grip with surprise.
“I have to get back to class.” He smiles apologetically. “I left during an exam.”
I jump back from him. “You should have never walked me here. Won’t you fail?”
“It wasn’t a burden for me.” The light from a nearby window dances on his face. I am struck by the softness of him before he speaks again.
“Besides, I never fail.” There it was again, his sharpness. My name wasn’t the only one on the list of students with the best grades in the academy. I remind myself that he was a lot smarter than he looked even if my eyes tended to skip over his name on the list.
“Thank you,” I tell him. Maybe I didn’t need to suffer alone.
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