After starting 10th grade, I realized I was not as strong as I was in middle school. I wasn’t fearless, courageous, and I was weak. I started to feel emotions and was hurt by certain things like love and friendship. These types of things were starting to matter to me more than I ever thought it could.
I was feeling lonely when I didn’t have friends or felt lonely when there was no one to talk to. These useless feelings meant something to me.
Going to school… was empty to me.
I went to class, did my homework and project, go home and eat and sleep. Same things just repeat. But that all changed when I went to my first period (math) and someone tossed me a little note to my desk.
I was a bit flustered because I thought it was a bee or a fly. But I noticed it was this very small white paper tossed over to me. I looked around and everyone in my class seems to be minding their own independent work and I noticed one guy sitting diagonally from me and he was looking at me a few times.
I opened the note and it said Hi! My name is K. Are you new here?
And I looked back and I do remember this guy’s name when we had to do an icebreaker in class. He was average looking Vietnamese guy. He was originally from Vietnam so his English was a bit hard to understand. He played a lot of soccer and I noticed him when I was hanging out with the seniors and juniors after school and we would watch people play soccer. But I never really took notice of him.
He’s not a bad looking guy but I didn’t know him.
I took a pink piece of my journal that i brought to school to keep track of homework and stuff and I wrote back introducing myself. I think after that, we were doing it for a whole 3 weeks until we were able to hang out or talk.
He was the first to initiate.
After a few weeks, our math period was ending and he walked up to my desk and asked me, “Hey, do you wanna hang out after school?” And I said sure. So that’s what we did, we hung out, we talked, and it wasn’t so hard to just hang out with him and get to know him. We only hung out for a few weeks after the note passing and then he asked me out. I said yes.
It was just that simple.
We both took interest in each other and it was very comfortable to talk and walk together.
Funny thing is that i found out he was one of the tenant’s son that was living in one of my dad’s properties and that K actually helped my dad with building a lot of things when I was in Vietnam. Though it was for a job and money, but it was nice for someone I know to help my dad out with work.
So overtime, weirdly, I started to notice something. I didn’t like to hold his hand or kiss him. I think I was starting to wonder what sort of comfort did I feel from him. It started to feel like a friendship more than a relationship and almost as if i saw him as a brother and not a boyfriend.
It started to sicken me.
But luckily, it’s been 2 months and we were not so deep in the relationship and I wasn’t so invested in our time together (as cold as its sounds, it’s true). So one day while walking home, he pushed me against a building and tried to kiss me and it was the last straw.
I pushed him gently and told him, that i dont think we can work out. I think we can only be friends because i only see him as family. We talk so comfortably and i can’t think of holding hands or kissing him without feeling sick to my stomach. Unfortunately he didn’t take it too well.
He started to yell and push me back and forth. This was not the reaction I was expecting. I thought he was on the same level of likeness in our relationship, but i was terribly wrong. He had strong feelings for me but didn’t know how to show it. He was rocking me left to right and up and down and I just felt so scared and sick. Then he pushed me down so hard onto the ground because i refused to be with him. He pushed me so hard that my left shoulder hit so hard to the cement stone on the sidewalk and i started to bleed and bruise. He looked like he felt no remorse.
As he was able to walk away from me. He saw his father walking toward our path. He was meeting up with my dad at my house to pay for the rent and saw what his son has done to me. He pulled onto K and slapped him. He apologized to me and walked away.
I actually don’t know what happened to his family but I heard from my dad, they decided to move out after and said that K’s dad looks guilty but my dad was wondering if there was damage to the apartment (which there wasn’t).
So I didn’t tell anyone about this other than my sister and one of her closest senior friends. I just told him he pushed me but I was okay.
And one day, we were going prom dress shopping for my sister’s senior year, I was trying out some dresses for fun.
My sister, our friend, and I were in the same dressing room and as I was undressing, they both saw the big bruise and covered at least my whole shoulder blade to the middle of my back. I was dressing up and I heard someone sobbing behind me.
I saw my friend crying and she started to apologize to me.
I didn’t know why.
It wasn’t her fault or anyone’s for that matter.
It was mine.