Push

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.

Growing up with Enemies I didn’t know

I don’t really remember much of anything before maybe.. 6th grade.

My parents always told me that before I lost my memories, I was a very happy kid. Lots of boys liked me and I rejected them. I had a lot of girl friends and was not bullied at all. I had a best friend from kindergarten to 1st grade but then she moved away to Mexico. Her name was Monica. I would play with her and a few other people during my first years of school.
I wish i can remember more but it was all a blank.
Most of you are probably wondering, “how did you lose your memory? when? where?”

Let me tell you. It’s pretty stupid.

When I was just finishing 6th grade, our house was on fire. We never found out the cause of it, but the firemen had to spray water all over everything we owned and had, so it was pretty much un-livable. My parents felt as though, it could have been someone that didn’t like their successes in business and such. But from what we know, it started from the basement. How unfortunate for us.

Luckily, it was already close to summer vacation and I didn’t think anything of the fire except a lot of people in my school knew and wanted to offer love, support, money, a space to eat and stay. But we got it covered. We decided to live with my god parents in a city that was about 2 cities away from school but it wasn’t so far of a drive. School was ending also, so it didn’t matter so much where we were driving from. I didn’t really talk about the fire or anything to my friends because once I start 7th grade, it would be in a new middle school and new people.

Once summer vacation hit, my parents decided we should go to Vietnam for 3 months and spend it there since they just built a house over there to stay, a vacation home. I was so excited because I love to travel; but at the same time, I was so nervous because I hate to travel. Traveling was fun when you arrive to the destination… But everything before that like flying, airline food (at the time it sucked but its a bit better now) and just the smell. I have chronic motion sickness so it didn’t help the cause.

So I remember when I was flying to Vietnam, it wad a good maybe 14 to 15 hour flight and my parents brought in dry ramen cups so we asked the stewardess to give us hot water. It was the best! Good food always helped me with my dizziness. Once we landed to Vietnam, we arrived to our new vacation home. It was beautifully green with trees and flowers all over it and a giant glass door in the front. My aunt helped prepared our welcome so it was very nicely put together. The house was at least 5 floors, and 4 bathrooms and 5 bedrooms i think…, it’s hard to remember. But also keep in mind, I was traveling with 6 people including myself.

So after visiting family, cooking at home, eating, going out and having a great summer. I discovered Facebook when I was maybe heading to 7th grade, so around 13 to 14 (I was a bit older than most kids because I was home-schooled for a year). And I started to rediscover and discover old and new friends. But at the time, Facebook was the newest thing and everyone would rather use MySpace.

Once August hit, I asked my parents when are we coming back home to the US? I am enjoying my time but I wanted to make sure I had enough time to buy school supplies at Staples because I love getting those list and buying all the junk I most likely won’t ever use. The most surprising news my parents gave me was, “we’re not going back.”
My response? Nothing. I was angry, but I was mostly confused. “Why?” I asked.
They told me they have enrolled me into a school called SSIS, Saigon South International School, and I will be attending in September.

That was news to me.

So my whole life changed, as soon as the fire started. But yeah… about my memory loss? Wow, I really pushed this story.

After the bullying and torture happened in 7th grade (another story for another day), I was alone and didn’t have friends. But once 8th grade hit, a new girl named Victoria joined our class and the teacher assigned me to be her buddy. We definitely became close friends because of our love for food, going out, making stupid jokes, and a lot of other things. So when hanging out with her once, we decided to use our bikes to race to the restaurant we always go to to grab a bite after school. When racing, usually there’s no cars or motorcycles. I was racing and I was winning until a motorcycle came around the corner and we smashed into each other. I came flying out off my bike and I hit my head on the cement brick, and the motorcycle fell on top of me.

I woke up at my new friend’s home. My bike was totaled but fortunately, my friend’s dad happens to be a doctor. And he examined me and helped me take care of my injuries and also drove me home. He told me I had a very bad concussion, and my left chest was completely black because when i passed out, the motorcycle’s engine was pressing on my chest and it burned through my shirt and into my chest. It didnt make any damage but only to my skin. But it eventually healed up with no scars.

I didn’t realize my memory loss until a few year later because ask me about my time in 1st grade or 2nd grade or maybe 5th grade and it was all a blur. My memory isn’t doing too well and i forget a lot about important memories I’ve had over the years. My boyfriend is afraid one day I’ll forget him. Sometimes, I mix him up with memories with other people and sometimes, i just don’t remember us going or doing things at a certain event or place.

It still scares me to this day that I might be Drew Barrymore from 50 first dates.