Crushing on You

by Jen Trinh

“Oh.” She was silent, lost in thought.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Do you...think they’ll all assume that I got the job because of you?”

  “I assume they’ll think it was because of Cassie. They know you were her old college roommate.”

  “But you don’t think that they’d think I was just…” She trailed off.

  “What? Sleeping with me to get the job?” She didn’t say anything, so I continued, “One, I’m not your direct supervisor, nor was I the hiring manager. Two, everyone gets a job in tech through referrals. I got my job because of Emily, Cassie got her job because of me, and you got your job because of Cassie.” I squeezed her hand. “Why do you care so much about what people think?”

  She let go of my hand and scowled at me. “Wow, that was such a judgmental question.”

  “Well why should you care about what people think? Nobody cares how you got the job, as long as you can do your job.”

  She stopped walking, so I stopped beside her. “I thought you said you were an advocate for women in tech. Do you even know how hard it is to earn and keep people’s respect in a workplace environment? As a woman? People are always all too happy to put you down. I want people to know that I got the job because of my skills, not because I was fucking you—”

  “You did. You got the job the same way everyone else did. And because I’m not your boss, so it doesn’t matter that we’re sleeping together, okay? It’s not a big deal. Chill out.” We stood in the middle of the corridor just after the entrance to the subway station. Commuters streamed past us, ignoring us in typical New York fashion, with only the occasional sideways glance.

  Her eyes flashed and she poked an accusing finger into my chest. “Chill out? You’re so fucking patronizing sometimes, you know that? You think you know everything, don’t you? I bet you get off on lecturing me and taking care of me like I’m your pet or some—”

  “No, I get off on you being a strong-willed, passionate woman.” I grabbed her shoulders, pulled her to me, and kissed her.

  At first she froze, her lips clamped firmly shut against me. But after a moment, her body melted into mine, and she met my tongue with hers. Her arms wrapped around my waist and my hands shifted up to cup the back of her head, fingers slipping into her silky hair.

  “Get a room!” said an old lady as she walked by. Someone else jostled me as they passed.

  We broke our kiss and looked into each other’s eyes. Her gaze went from wanton to withering in a heartbeat, and she quickly looked away, clearly still dissatisfied. “Let’s take her advice,” I said. I took her hand again and we continued on in silence until we reached the subway platform.

  I turned to face her and sighed. “I don’t mean to be patronizing, Anna. I do think it can be hard for women in the workplace. But I know that you’re going to do a great job and I’m also sure that no one will care that we’re dating. I can think of at least two Stumpstash couples, and nobody mentions anything about their relationship at work.”

  She shook her head and continued staring at the tracks, not saying anything.

  “Anna, talk to me.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she bit out, crossing her arms.

  “Anna, don’t be like—”

  “Are you patronizing me again?” she snapped, turning back to look at me.

  I threw my hands up in exasperation. “If you’re going to act so fucking immature, then yes! You won’t tell me what’s bothering you. Let’s talk about it like adults!”

  A flexed jaw muscle was her only response. She was grinding her teeth.

  The train screeched as it pulled to a slow stop before us. When the doors opened, she angrily stepped inside. I followed her in, slowly breathing in and out.

  We found a spot near the door that led to the next car, then turned to face each other.

  “You know what your problem is? You think things are so simple,” she angrily whispered. “Everything is black and white and crystal clear to you. But things are not that simple.”

  “Where is this coming from?” I muttered back. “I didn’t say anything was simple. I didn’t—”

  “You’re so happy and optimistic, like everything’s always going to work out for you. Things don’t always—”

  “What do you want me to say? Geez, you’re fucked? Too bad for you? You have to—”

  “God, can you just shut up and stop telling me what to do? Just fucking let me talk for once?” She’d shouted that last bit. I glanced around and noticed several people staring at us.

  I clamped my mouth shut as a woman’s voice called out, “You tell him, sister!”

  Anna glanced at me, then looked away and shook her head. A moment later, she quietly hissed, “I’ll tell you when we get home.”

  I grimly nodded and reached for her hand. She let me take it, but her hand stayed limp in mine.

  ◆◆◆

  When we got home, we both went into the kitchen to prepare dinner as we’d planned. As sous chef, she helped me slice vegetables for that night’s veggie lasagna.

  “Which playlist of yours should I put on tonight?” I asked. It had become a ritual of ours to listen to her playlists while we cooked.

  “Murder at Midnight,” she said, vigorously chopping a zucchini.

  “I hope that’s not foreshadowing for something,” I joked, selecting the playlist that she’d requested on her computer.

  She didn’t smile, just kept cutting. “I’m having my period.”

  Ah. At least she wasn’t pregnant. “Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked earnestly.

  She stopped cutting but didn’t look up. “If I want something from you, I’ll ask.” She wiped a stray lock of hair out of her face, then continued cutting. I frowned, but stayed silent.

  A few minutes later, after finishing chopping the vegetables, she washed her hands and sat down with a glass of wine, silently watching me work. I kept my mouth shut, hoping that she’d eventually get around to telling me what was going on.

  Finally, she sighed and said, “Look, there’s some shit you need to know about me.”

  “Ok.” I started wiping my hands so that I could go sit with her. She held up a hand to stop me.

  “Wait. Keep cooking. Just...don’t stop, don’t interrupt me. If you say anything, I’m going to stop talking.” Her eyes bored into mine, and I remembered what she’d said on the train. I wanted to let her have her say, didn’t want to be a flippant asshole. I slowly nodded, relit the burner, and resumed sautéing onions.

  “I didn’t...have the happiest past. So I’m going to tell you about it, because I think it will help you understand a little bit more about me, and about my...my doubts. Where I’m coming from.”

  She took a sip of wine and began.

  “My dad was...mostly ok. He loved me and my mom in his own twisted way, and did his best to take care of us. But he was flawed. He drank a lot, and I mean a lot.” She took another sip.

  “When he drank, they fought, and when they fought, he beat her and he beat me too.” Her lip quivered.

  I burned my hand on hot lasagna noodles and bit back a swear. Her dad had beaten her? Light spankings had been normal in my household growing up, but beatings? Fuck. I stared at her as if I could see the scars, but of course they were gone, only left on the inside.

  “They mostly fought about money. He was a chef at the Chinese restaurant where my mom was a waitress. They didn’t make much, and I think he felt guilty about not being able to earn more. He used to apologize to me, sometimes, and to my mom, when he couldn’t afford to buy us things. But mostly, he just got frustrated and beat us for wanting shit that we couldn’t have, and called us ungrateful.” She twirled her wine glass by the stem and stared into the ruby-red liquid.

  “My mom was a beautiful woman, and when he was in a good mood, he’d joke and tell her, ‘Beautiful women like you shouldn’t have to work.’ He kinda meant it, too. He had a weird sense of manly honor or something, and he felt like he should b
e the sole breadwinner of our family. But I think he mostly said it because my mom believed it too, and that’s what she wanted to hear. She was so pretty that her family had always thought she would marry well. Instead, my dad knocked her up, and her family always looked down on him, said that he’d ruined her. They resented him for that, and he hated them right back.” She took another sip of wine, a bigger one this time.

  “That’s why, when I was growing up, my mom’s side of the family encouraged me to marry a rich Chinese guy. Specifically a Chinese guy, because my family was pretty fucking racist. They told me that she’d fucked up by marrying a low-life, but that I needed to marry a rich Chinese guy who would help take care of me, and all of them.” I met her eyes. That explained some things. I thought about how my own family hoped that I would marry a Chinese woman...of how my parents and their generation could be simultaneously so well-meaning yet so closed-minded. I nodded in understanding.

  “‘Don’t be like your mother,’ they’d say to me. Even my dad said the same. He wanted me to be pampered, and not to have to slave away on my feet all day like my mom did.” She reached over to the laptop and paused her playlist. I’d been listening to her so intently that I’d completely forgotten that it was still playing.

  “I think my dad was ashamed that he couldn’t take care of us well. He felt guilty. But he made himself feel better by telling us that he’d just work harder and save up until he could open his own restaurant.”

  She looked down into her wine glass, her hands finally still. “He died of liver cancer when I was in high school. He never opened his own restaurant.” She tipped the glass to her lips and drained the wine, then poured herself another glass.

  My hands froze and I looked up. My legs twitched to go to her, to comfort her, but I could tell that there was more to her story, and I didn’t want to disrupt. I took a deep breath and focused on seasoning the sauce.

  “My mom took her family’s advice the second time. My grandma had a friend whose son was single, an older Chinese lawyer. He lived in a nice house, drove a fancy car. On paper, he seemed like a perfect guy, and she was so pretty and charming that he proposed right away. Without my dad around, and after paying for his medical bills, we desperately needed cash. So my mom ended up marrying him.”

  She clenched her fist around the stem of the wine glass.

  “And they had this big, grand wedding, a huge to-do, with over 200 people there. And my mom...she was so beautiful. She looked so happy, so much happier that day than she’d ever been with my dad. And I think she really believed that it was going to be happily ever after for her.”

  She forced her hand to open and gently placed the glass on the table.

  “But he fucking sucked. He was so much worse than my dad. He thought that just because he was rich and educated, he could look down on everyone. He expected my mom to be perfect and loyal to him in every way, and he expected the same of me. He called my mom a slut if she so much as talked to another man. All he ever cared about was appearances.”

  “My mom’s family changed their opinion of him when they saw his true colors, but they still outwardly bragged about him to others. About him being a lawyer, or driving a Mercedes, or being so rich that my mom didn’t have to work. They never mentioned how he loved verbally cutting everyone down and making people cry. Bending people to his will. My mom resented him, too, but she felt like she couldn’t leave. She didn’t want to deal with the shame of a divorce, and she’d gotten used to the lifestyle. She would rather put up with his bullshit than be a divorcee or work in a restaurant again.”

  I shook my head and forced my hands to relax. My parents had fought prodigiously when I was younger, and they’d half-heartedly mentioned divorce once or twice, but they’d never hit or verbally abused each other the way that Anna’s parents had. I shot Anna a sympathetic look before mixing together the egg and ricotta.

  Anna continued. “Everything was about appearances and reputation to my family. Everything had to look good. That was their guiding principle—do whatever looked best to the outside. Whatever happened in private didn’t matter, as long as no one found out.” Another sip of wine.

  “I avoided him as much as possible during high school. He yelled at me over nothing and everything. Any time I so much as raised my voice or gave him a dirty look, he slapped me.” Her voice quieted. “And sometimes when he slapped me, I’d see...something else in his eyes. Like he wanted to do other things to me.”

  I channeled the overwhelming desire to nut-punch her step-dad into angry sauce stirring. I ended up having to wipe some off of the counter and off of my shirt, and I scalded my hand on the side of the pot.

  Fuck that fucking guy. I began layering the lasagna.

  “The last straw for me was when I’d just started college. I finally had the freedom to ignore them, so I did. But he was paying for my tuition, at least at first, and he was a fucking control freak...so when I didn’t pick up their calls, he and my mom just showed up to visit me one day without telling me. I’d just started seeing this guy who was half-black, and when they showed up at my dorm, they found us in my room alone together, and my step-dad lost his shit. My boyfriend didn’t know what to do, so he just left, even though I’d asked him to stay. Then my step-dad chewed me out and started hitting me, saying all of this terrible racist shit about how bad it would look for our family. And my mom...she agreed with the things he’d said. She scolded me just as badly.”

  Anna looked straight into my eyes, her own eyes brimming with unshed tears. I finished layering the lasagna as quickly as I could. I knew that it was hard for her to tell me all of that, but why the fuck was I making lasagna? There was so much that I wanted to say to her...but still, I kept my mouth shut like she’d asked and just worked faster.

  Voice high-pitched and trembling, she continued. “She eventually realized that he was going overboard. She tried to get him to leave, but he refused, just told her to go wait in the car. I think she could tell that he’d lost it, that something was wrong with him, because she refused to leave us alone together.”

  Anna held a hand to her cheek. “So he slapped her. I remember her holding her hand up to her face, shocked and hurt. He used to hit me all the time, but he’d never hit her before that. She’d thought she was safe from him, that he was different from my dad...but she knew then that he wasn’t. She was stuck with him as much as she’d been stuck before. She was helpless, and she knew it.” Anna stopped to blow her nose into a napkin.

  “But at least,” she whispered, voice thick, “at least she still refused to leave me alone with him. She stood her ground that day, just that one time, for me.” She sniffed. “And that’s...that’s when he started beating her in earnest.”

  I hurried to put the lasagna in the oven and wiped my hands on the dish towel, then went to sit with her. Finally. I took her hand and gave her my full, undivided attention. A lone tear slipped down her cheek.

  “He hit her and said that it was her fault that I was such a slut. I tried to get him off of her, but he was stronger than both of us, and he hit me too. Luckily, Cassie came into the room and she grabbed her tennis racket and started threatening him. Jessa and Lisa were living in the room across, and they heard the noise and came in too and got him out of the room. He finally gave up and ran away before the campus police could get there.” The lone tear had turned into a stream, steadily dripping down her face.

  “I never pressed charges,” she sobbed. “My mom asked me not to. She never fucking divorced him. She even defended him and told me that he was right—” I pulled Anna to me and held her close as she shook and cried into my shoulder, scrunching my shirt in her fists.

  “I never want to be like her. I don’t want anything to do with them. That’s why I cut my family off. I don’t fucking talk to them anymore and I never will.”

  I kept silent and just held her, stroking her hair and occasionally wiping her tears away. Inside, I boiled with anger, trying to envision what her step-dad looked l
ike so that I could imagine beating him. Why the fuck were people like him allowed to exist? Allowed to terrorize and abuse innocent people like Anna? My hands itched to strangle him. Instead, I reached over to the nearby tissue box and handed her a kleenex. She noisily blew her nose and sobbed.

  After a couple of minutes, she quieted and stopped shaking. She lifted her head and looked at me, inspecting my face, then wrapped her arms around my neck, her voice heartbreakingly raw as she said, “I’m so glad you’re not an asshole.”

  I held her close and stroked her back. Me too.

  Chapter 17

  -Anna-

  I wasn’t sure how Ian would react to my past. He’d finished prepping the lasagna, then sat there quietly, not judging, not trying to fix anything, just listening to my story. He held me at the end and just let me cry onto his shoulder.

  I’d found myself a wonderful human being.

  “Thanks for telling me,” he finally said, kissing my hair. I nestled my head deeper into the crook of his neck.

  “Thanks for listening. And for not saying anything.” I really appreciated that he’d just let me talk, like I’d asked him to. It would have been difficult for me to tell the whole story, had he interrupted me. For that reason, I hadn’t even tried with my exes. All Asher knew was that I didn’t talk to my family anymore. He hadn’t cared about the rest, and likely wouldn’t have fully understood.

  With Ian...I saw the sympathetic looks he gave, his nods of understanding when I explained what my family was like. The fear of shame, the paramount importance of appearances. He knew.

  I loved that I could share my burden with him.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “you’re nothing like your mom. You’re passionate and independent and I—”

  “Shhh.” I put a finger on his lips. “You don’t have to tell me that stuff. I know that I’m not as strong and independent as I want to be. I’m trying, but it’s hard, and it really triggers me when people point out that I’m doing a shit job of it. I just...wanted you to understand. Like why I find it hard to depend on people. And why I don’t like feeling trapped.”