This Is My Brain in Love: List 1

My amah is the first one to make a sound. It’s a soft, noncommittal hum. Two notes, questioning, neither approving nor disapproving.

Because we can’t move. Not now, after I’ve found an actual bubble tea place in this godforsaken backwater.

Not now, when I’ve painstakingly identified a group of people I can tolerate as friends, and even found a best friend.

This is the “Nothing Is the Same Anymore” trope.

But as our game evolved from a joke into a way of seeing life, I realized that tropes are more than just clichés. They’re neither good nor bad. They simply are, like earlobes and Winnie-the-Pooh. They’re a reminder that all stories are cut from the same cloth, with patterns that are recognizable, even when they’re unique and surprising.

It’s arrogant for me to imagine that I can swoop in with ideas from a high school Intro to Business class and turn around a restaurant that’s been floundering for years.

It’s the last day before summer vacation, and I may be the only one at St. Agnes High School who’s apprehensive about it. The twenty-four-hour news cycle of my mind is on overload.

My anxiety only ratchets up when Javier and I walk into the media studies studio, which feels strange because for the past ten months it’s been my favorite place at St. Agnes.

When I enter the classroom, Mr. Evans grins up at us like we’re prodigal sons returning.

A fair and impartial review of my prospects concludes that I’m too young to be one of the executive-level editors.

“To Will Domenici, I’m delighted to bestow the title of Most Likely to Respond to a Tech SOS Within Thirty Seconds.”

“With his history of reliability, tech savvy, and eye for design, I think you guys will agree that the Spartan couldn’t have a better assistant online manager.”

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the fact that the web team is an integral part of the success of any paper, it’s just that I feel like I have more to contribute.

I wait for the caveat for five excruciating seconds.

You’re only a sophomore, and you’ve already got the most important attributes of a good journalist. Integrity. Attention to detail. Work ethic.

“Did you end up applying to any of the summer programs on the list I sent out? That’s one way to start honing those investigative skills.”

When my eleventh-hour effort to see if the Observer-Dispatch has any job openings fails, my mother wangles me an interview for a data mining internship at the hospital.

Five months later and I had had guidance from pretty much everyone at the St. Agnes Lower School, up to and including Father Healdon (twice), and my stomachaches had progressed to bouts of nausea with the occasional vomiting episode thrown in for fun.

My mother conceded that it was the right thing to do when my really bad symptoms stopped after the first month of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Mr. Johnson’s welcoming smile freezes infinitesimally as he gives me a once-over.

I still prefer not to get The Look at all, because invariably it leads to The Question, which can range from cloyingly polite (So, tell me about your parents, Will?) to offensively blunt (What are you?).

He says it the way a checkout clerk asks you if you would like a receipt with your purchase: with minimal inflection—practically a negative inflection—giving you the impression that they have an equally negligible interest in your answer.

“What is the stipend for the internship?”

I think about my sister, and how she says that your reaction to cognitive dissonance says volumes about who you are.

Whoever made the poster has hand-illustrated it with little anthropomorphized sushi rolls and dumplings with thought bubbles saying things like “A-Plus needs YOU!”

“You can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.”

At least the floor doesn’t have any obvious stains—it’s a drab brown low-pile carpet that could probably hide a mass murder.

I run upstairs to grab our nicest serving plates—the ones that stay in our curio cabinet all year—and a pair of lacquered wooden chopsticks.

Her hands are perpetually chapped and Band-Aided to cover her bleeding cuticles.

“Ai-yo, why didn’t you tell me I gain so much weight?” she laments.

The girl at A-PIus is quite pretty, or would be if her mouth wasn’t twisting in dismay.

“Hi, William. I’m Jocelyn Wu,” she says as she extends her hand. I try to subtly wipe mine against my pants before holding out my own.

I knew the emojis would be a hit. I knew it! My dad frowned and said it looked “not professional,” but I was right. I let myself preen for just a second and then settle down to business.

I can agonize for hours over things that seem trivial to others.

“Good answer,” I blurt out a millisecond before the silence gets uncomfortable. I blush. God, how condescending.

He takes it in stride, and I wonder if it’s because he’s been told too many times how “articulate” he is.

But if it sweetens the pot any, I can also add the Netflix password that I stole from my BFF into your compensation package.

When Jocelyn offers me a job on the spot, our role reversal is so absolute it’s dizzying. All of a sudden, I’m no longer the supplicant. I’ve been chosen, and I don’t know what to do with my newfound power to reject.

Because I can honestly count on my hands the number of times in my life when I’ve felt unadulterated happiness.

I’ve never been a bouncy Tigger, or a kind and steadfast Piglet.