chuckled, which he took as an invitation, inching closer.
The laughter drained out as I took a step back. “I can’t. We can’t. But not because I don’t want to. It’s . . . complicated.”
He sighed. “Because your mother disapproves of me?”
Of course he had noticed at the restaurant—Mǎmá Lu wasn’t exactly known for her subtlety. I looked away, not wanting to know what he was thinking.
His voice was barely above a whisper when he asked, “Is it because I’m not Chinese? Or because I’m Japanese?”
Both. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, what do you want?”
No one had ever asked me that before, including myself. It almost felt forbidden. Partly because it was, by my parents. But mostly because it made things harder. Which meant . . . I already knew what I thought.
I think I had stopped asking myself what I wanted after the pre-prima-ballerina dream turned nightmare. Dreams could hurt you if they didn’t come true, but if they never existed in the first place . . .
“That doesn’t matter either.”
His eyebrows angled up in surprise. “How can you say that? Of course it matters. It should be the only thing that matters.”
I shook my head. “You don’t get it. You must not know the kind of pressure I’m under, the type of guilt I feel.”
He folded his arms over his chest—tired, not confrontational. “I have a lot of pressure from my parents too. I don’t come from very much, and there’s a lot riding on me and my ability to provide for them in the future.”
Strike two, I couldn’t help thinking. My mother once broke up with a boyfriend because he was the eldest of six and would have to provide for the rest of his family, meaning it wouldn’t leave much for her and her not-yet-born kids.
“And,” Darren continued, “my parents didn’t want me to go to MIT. They wanted me to stay near home, go to a local school, and not abandon them.” He made air quotes. “But I got a free ride here, and when I visited, I knew I had found my home. I didn’t let them get in the way of what I knew was best for me, and I don’t regret it at all.”
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about your situation, and I’m sorry about the pressure you have and what you had to go through to get here. . . .” I trailed off, unable to say what I was thinking, that it was different for him. Because what did I know? Just like how he didn’t know anything about my circumstances. “Look, what I feel—the sense of duty—it’s debilitating, makes me feel so ashamed that I don’t even care what I want.”
“It’s okay not to agree with them,” he said gently, as if I were an animal he was trying not to spook.
“Not to them. They believe having different opinions makes me a bad person. In Taiwan during my parents’ childhood, filial piety was as much a part of life as breathing—ingrained from birth, expected from everyone. Confucius’s Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars—one of the first lessons in school—spoke of warming an icy lake with your naked body to catch fish for your mother, tasting your father’s feces to diagnose his medical condition, and feeding yourself to the mosquitoes to spare your parents’ blood.”
Too far! Too weird! the alarm rang in my head. I snapped my mouth shut.
Darren’s eyes had first widened during the Filial Exemplars and seemed to still be going.
After a beat, he said, “That’s absurd.”
His words cut into me, each syllable a pinprick. He didn’t understand. But maybe it was better if he never did. Because no matter what, this would end in flames, and it was cleaner to extinguish it now, small and contained, than later, when, say, a certain tongue clucker could be involved.
Even though I tried, I couldn’t keep my voice even as I said, “Not as absurd as going after a girl who can’t be with you. Can’t you take a hint?” I hated myself. And I hated myself more when pain flashed across his face. It’s for the best, I told myself even though I couldn’t tell anymore whether it was me or Mǎmá Lu talking.
The pain morphed into sadness, such a contrast to his usual brightness. “Maybe I saw something in you that isn’t there. I didn’t realize you were so brainwashed that you couldn’t think for yourself.”
I turned and ran. And I didn’t stop, not even when he yelled