Heat colors my cheeks, and I burrow deeper beneath the covers. Still, it doesn’t make me feel any better telling him.
Mina: My mom wants one thing out of my life, and I want another.
Leo: And what do you want?
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? At the end of the day, what I want will never happen. My dreams are unrealistic, and that’s why they’re called dreams.
Mina: To be myself. Do what I want. Live out my dreams. Have my parents’ pride be something attainable and not a myth. It’s the classic tale of never knowing what it feels like to be good enough because the woman who birthed me will forever be disappointed in the creature she made.
Leo: Promise me something.
Mina: What?
Leo: If anyone tries to make you feel less than, you cut them off and tell them to get fucked.
I take a deep breath. If only it were as easy as he makes it sound. And as stressful and awful as being in my mother’s presence is, there’s always that dreadedwhat if.
What if she was right about everything, and I need to fall back onto something? What if I can’t afford a roof over my head? What if Joyce leaves me, and I need to try to find a place to live on my own?
Despite every cruel thing my mother says, she’d give me back my own room in a heartbeat.
Aside from that, saying no to my Asian mother just isn’t in our vocabulary. It’s such a foreign concept that sounds like it’ll blow up in my face like every other time I’ve done such a feat. Shifting careers was already like Armageddon.
Mina: She’s my mother. She literally kept me alive well beyond the time I was capable enough to leave the nest. I can’t cut my mother off or tell her no.
Leo: Why not?
Mina: She’s my mother.
Leo: So she gets a free pass to treat you like shit?
Yes.
That’s exactly what it means.
Mina: It’s hard to understand. We have different family dynamics and cultures.
Leo: An asshole is an asshole whether you’re related to them or not. I know they’re the only family you have, but what does that matter if the people meant to bring you up are constantly tearing you down?
Mina: I know you’re right. I know what needs to be done, but I can’t bring myself to lose that safety net because what if I regret it, you know?
Leo: If it helps, there hasn’t been a day where I’ve ever wished I made a different choice about walking away.
I set my phone down and stare at the ceiling, asking myself a question I don’t think I’ll ever be able to answer: would Irather be free, but lonely and unhappy, or shackled and just as unhappy?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Leo
Your parents don’t love you, and you think he will?
The comment hasn’t stopped replaying in my head since I saw it on Mina’s phone last night. That was what Jack said using a burner account on one of her posts.
It’s him. I fucking know it is. Only he would say shit like that, and it’s been going on since he started that group chat—I still have no idea how he found her message to me, and I don’t believe him for one second that I left my phone unlocked on it when I went to the showers.
Harassing Mina with those messages was a punishable offense in itself. He’s taking it too far. He’s dragging her into his fucked-up games like he’s done with so many people before. This is what he does. Psychological warfare.
A comment like that after what she finally revealed to me the other night? Too far.
