Crushing on You

by Jen Trinh

  I would never hear his boisterous laugh again, the one he saved only for me, for our private moments together. I’d never again feel the perfect fit of his body against mine, the feel of him inside me, his weight so comfortably crushing me into the bed.

  His smell, his smile, his eyes, his hands...his affection...they were no longer mine. And it fucking hurt.

  After one full elevator ride down and up, I walked back into the office and asked my boss for the rest of the day off. She took one look at my face and said, “Take tomorrow off, too.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Yeah, he told me while he was here.” Apparently, Cassie already knew that he was moving to San Francisco.

  “I guess that’s all. He just wanted to apologize, say it’s over, and tell me that he’s moving.”

  “I see. Nana...you going to be okay?” On screen, Cassie’s face was scrunched up with sympathy.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I’d cried it all out at the office earlier. And I knew that we weren’t right for each other. It was a painful truth that I just needed time to accept.

  Cassie bit her lip. “You know...you could move to SF, too.”

  The thought had crossed my mind earlier, but...“No thanks. My life is here.”

  “So don’t take this the wrong way, but what’s so great about New York? You told me that you mostly just hang out with Asher and his music buddies.” She bobbed her head around, excited. “If you came here, we could meet at a bar every Sunday instead of on Google Hangouts!”

  I slowly shook my head. The idea was tempting, but I didn’t want to just follow Ian, and I didn’t think that it would actually make me that much happier. I needed to figure things out on my own. For real this time.

  Part of me knew that I’d been a hypocrite with Ian. I’d judged him for not living a life for himself, but at least he acknowledged that he’d wanted to live for others and went all out for it. He’d been successful, in his own way. I supposedly knew what I wanted...but how much was I really doing to achieve it?

  I’d felt helpless for so long, stuck in situation after situation, with no easy way out. My solution had always been to run away or blame others. But deep down, I knew that I had only myself to blame. I wasn’t helpless...just scared.

  Tears flooded my eyes when I thought about the first time we’d ever gone climbing together. How he’d believed in me and helped me learn to believe more in myself. Or about how, even though we’d lived together, he’d given me space to grow on my own, like I’d asked him to. Or when I’d admitted that I was serially dependent on others, how he’d looked me in the eye and challenged me to do better.

  Don’t just sit there and cry, do something about it.

  He hadn’t let me wallow in self-pity, something I regularly did and hated about myself.

  Something I was doing even then.

  I sighed. There was no reason to dwell. He was a great guy, and I was broken. I really didn’t deserve him.

  But maybe...maybe I could.

  “Cass, I need your help. I need you to hold me accountable.”

  “For what?”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m going to fucking take control of my life.”

  Chapter 22

  -Ian-

  It took a few weeks for the transfer to happen, and for me to arrange for my mom’s and my belongings to be shipped to SF. She’d opted to stay with my aunt and uncle, so I decided to just rent a place in Pacific Heights instead of buying. I wanted mobility, the option to move when I figured out what I wanted to do next...because something definitely needed to change. I used to think that I was still young, still had time to figure things out, but now time just felt so short. I was getting old, and Stumpstash was starting to get old.

  I wasn’t sure how much longer I could work there. I wasn’t excited about my projects, nor about tech at all, really...yet I was living in the thick of it. Every company that I looked at seemed to think that it was somehow saving the world. It was certainly truer in some cases than in others, but most of the time, it was a gross exaggeration. Software engineering paid well, and it was easy for me, but I wanted to do something that actually made the world better, or brought people joy, or that I truly, genuinely cared about. But what?

  I didn’t know, and I didn’t know how to figure it out. And with my dad’s passing so young (he was only 63), I could feel death lurking around the corner, waiting for me. The days started to feel a little bit like I was just killing time while I slowly crawled towards my appointment with the afterlife. Going to the gym, eating, sleeping, taking care of myself...all of that was just delaying the inevitable. Why bother?

  I even lost interest in climbing. Every route in the gym felt the same. Getting to the top of a finite wall, following a route that someone else had set...climbing in a sea of indifferent, or deluded, tech people. None of that held any appeal to me. What was the point of getting stronger? Of facing fears or challenges that were artificially constructed? And continuing to do so, over and over and over? It just seemed like an unnecessary hassle, not worth the effort anymore.

  Eventually, I stopped going to the gym. Most nights, I just worked late, ate at the office, and went straight home.

  The only thing that kept me going was my mom. I’d wanted to be strong for her, to keep her going...but instead, I found myself holding onto her like a lifeline. The knowledge that she needed me was what got me out of bed each morning.

  I visited my mom, aunt, and uncle for dinner every few days. While she was still quieter than before, her spirits seemed to have picked up with the added company. Each time she smiled or laughed, I was a little bit more relieved.

  My mother was a very intuitive woman, and it wasn’t long before she noticed that something was wrong with me. One night, she pulled me aside after dinner. “Let’s go walk around the park.” She put on her walking shoes while I told my aunt where we were headed, then we set out towards Dolores Park.

  Even that late, there were people still hanging out on the grass, talking and smoking. My mom dramatically held her nose and waved her hand in front of her face at the smell of marijuana. I jokingly breathed in deep, and she slapped my arm and told me to stop. I laughed.

  “Ian. Don’t do that. You’ll get cancer.”

  “I’m young and healthy, Ma, I’ll be fine.” But I did stop. Shame filled me at the thought of how insensitive my joke had been, given her health scare.

  “Ian. You need to take better care of yourself. You’re young, be happy. Don’t look so sad all the time.”

  I was surprised. Whenever I was with my mom, I always tried to act happier than I was. In some perverse way, sometimes I actually believed it. “I am happy, Ma.” I grinned. “We’re here in beautiful California, with our family. And I have the best mom.” I put my arm around her shoulders.

  She frowned, not buying it. “You need to get married.”

  Sigh. Not this again. I shook my head. “I will. I’ll go home and start messaging women right after this, just for you.” I squeezed her shoulder.

  She looked up at me, still frowning. “Ian. What do you want to do?”

  I stopped walking and turned to face her. “What do you mean? I’m happy to get married, I just have to find the right person, first.”

  She reached up and patted my cheek. “You’re a good boy. But what do you want?”

  I frowned. “I still don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  She took my hand and pulled me towards the park, continuing our walk. After a few minutes, she asked, “Do you know why we watched so many dramas, your Ba and I?”

  We crested a hill, and I turned to take in the San Francisco evening skyline. “Because you were bored?”

  She shook her head. “Because they represent the lives we could have had, but were too afraid to try for. Oh, we were happy together,” she said and waved a hand at me when I tried to interrupt. “I’m not saying we wanted to experience crazy romance stories. Though I wouldn’t have minded if your Ba were a CEO who beat up
bad guys and swept me off my feet. The point is, those characters always have to choose: do they stick with what they know, with what’s safe, or do they follow their hearts? In the dramas, they always follow their hearts. But when your Ba and I first came to the US, life was hard. We didn’t have choices. We had to do what was safe so that we could have a good life together. We did what we could to survive, so that we could raise you responsibly.”

  She kneaded my hand in both of hers. She’d been a masseuse, and it was her subconscious way of comforting people. “But we’d always dreamed of more,” she sighed.

  The faraway look, the sparkle in my mom’s eyes...it reminded me of Anna, her expression when she talked about music.

  “You know, when your Ba was younger, before we got married, he wanted to be an artist. He used to draw all kinds of things...people, animals, food...himself. When I first met him, he didn’t have any photos of himself as an adult, so he drew a self-portrait and gave it to me. He was so handsome. I wish that we had kept his drawings. They were good.” She sighed. “But when we came to the US, he had to pick up a trade. He had a friend who did HVAC, who was willing to teach him the skills. It was hard work, and it paid well. But it wasn’t art.”

  I remained silent, shocked at these revelations about my dad. I thought about the sketchbook that I’d found among his belongings. What else had I not known about him? Why hadn’t he shared those dreams with me?

  My mom sighed again. “And I was almost a professional ping pong player.”

  I stopped and gaped at her. “You were almost a professional ping pong player?”

  She nodded and swished her hands around as if she were grasping an invisible paddle, penholder style. “I was number one in my school. But your grandparents convinced me to come to the US with your Ba instead.”

  I shook my head, astounded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shrugged. “We didn’t have a ping pong table. If we did, I would have taught you. And besides,” she said, leveling a look at me, “you never asked.”

  “Seriously?” How could my parents not have mentioned these things to me before? These secret dreams of theirs inspired me more than their lectures or praise ever did. They added color and beauty to the simple reality of their lives—rough and plain on the outside, but with a dazzling, kaleidoscopic interior that I wished I’d known about earlier. I smiled, eyes misting, and silently vowed to learn more about my mom and her secret life. And maybe, when it didn’t hurt so much, she could tell me more about my dad’s, too.

  My mom continued walking, so I followed, placing my arm around her shoulders again.

  “The point is, we came to the US and had to start from scratch. We gave up our dreams so that we could survive, build a life together, and have you. But there’s no reason why you have to give up your dreams. We’re fine now.” She smiled. “You don’t need to watch Asian dramas like we do.”

  My tears spilled over, and I pulled her in for a hug. As their only child, I’d thought that their dreams for me were so simple, and so different from my own—that I had to sacrifice something for them to be happy. But really, our dreams were the same, a beautiful jug shimmering just out of reach, waiting for me to make a big, committed move.

  I’d given up without even trying. That was the worst kind of climbing mentality.

  She briefly patted my back before releasing me and saying, “Speaking of dramas, we should go back so that I can watch my show. It starts in ten minutes.”

  I laughed, wiping my tears away. “You don’t have to watch them anymore, either, mom. Maybe you should pick up ping pong again.”

  She waved her hand, dismissing the idea. “No way. I like dramas. This one is especially good. It’s about the ghost of a man who possesses his former wife’s dog and saves her from constant danger. The last episode ended with her stuck on a cliff. I want to know what happens.”

  I roared with laughter. “Is the dog going to climb up the cliff and save her?”

  She patted my hand and walked faster. “Let’s go find out.”

  We got back in time and I ended up staying to see what happened.

  The dog climbed up a cliff to save his lady love. He even did a slow motion doggie dyno.

  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrf.

  My mom, aunt, and I were all crying, but I was the only one rolling on the floor.

  ◆◆◆

  Cassie could also tell that there was something a little off with me. She checked in on me frequently and invited me over for dinner sometimes. I usually refused, citing too much work to get through, which was often true. But by the fourth or fifth time, I felt rude refusing any longer, so I gave in and promised to come over on a Tuesday night after work.

  “How are you doing, Ian? What’s going on in your life these days?” She popped the cork out of the bottle of wine that I’d brought and poured me a glass, followed by another glass for herself. We walked over to the dining table, where Michael was already sitting with a neat glass of Bulleit.

  “I’m okay. Just trying to figure stuff out.” I took a sip of wine and sat down at the table.

  “Like what?” she asked. She picked up the salad tongs and began serving each of us some strawberry arugula salad.

  I laughed dryly. “Ah, everything. What I want to do with my life. My goals, my dreams…” I paused and gave Cassie a look. “Relationship stuff.”

  She nodded knowingly, then glanced at Michael. “You know, Ian,” she said, putting more salad onto my plate, “Michael and I were thinking about doing shrooms this weekend.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I’d known that things like acid and shrooms were pretty common in Silicon Valley, but I hadn’t thought that Cassie was a user. She seemed so innocent sometimes. Except when she was drunk, which she currently was not.

  Michael also raised his eyebrows. “We were?”

  Cassie glared at him. “Yes, we were. Remember?” She placed more salad onto his plate too, though he tried to move his plate away and she had to chase it a little. I smiled at their antics.

  “Oh yeah? What’s it like?” I asked, genuinely interested. I’d toyed with the idea of trying psychedelics before, but wasn’t sure how to get my hands on any.

  Cassie sat down and steepled her fingers. “Well. Let. Me. Tell. You. They totally blew my mind.” She spread her fingers out from her temples and made a “bwah” sound, demonstrating the blown-ness of her mind.

  I laughed. “Uh huh. In what way?”

  She went on, her eyes wide with enthusiasm. “It’s different for everyone, but for me, I just felt so...content. It’s such a mundane yet underrated feeling, contentedness. Like you realize, things in life aren’t that bad, and everything’s actually kinda nice. There’s always an upside to things, you know?”

  Michael snorted. “That’s what you remember the most? I remember you taking off—”

  “Bupbupbup,” Cassie warned, frowning at him. She looked at me again and said, “It also made me really appreciate what I have with Michael. It brought us closer together in a way that I never could have imagined. It was like we were in our own little world...and I guess I’d acted like we were, even though we were out in Big Sur with a bunch of our friends.” She blushed.

  I chuckled. Shroomed-out Cassie must’ve been even crazier than drunk Cassie. “I see. Sounds pretty fun.”

  Cassie glanced at Michael again, then looked at me. “I was wondering if you wanted to join us this weekend? For your first time, you might just want to be somewhere safe, so we were thinking about doing it here. We wanted to keep it chill anyway.”

  I chewed on a strawberry and thought about it. I had been wanting to find new inspiration, especially after my talk with my mom, and all the VCs and big shots in tech seemed to swear by psychedelics. Besides, I hadn’t yet decided what my “big thing” for the year was going to be. I’d considered quitting my job and taking three months off to climb around Europe, hoping to rekindle my love for climbing out in Spain or in the Italian Dolomites...and maybe I still would. But I
could do this, too.

  “Y’know, honestly, that’d be awesome. Thanks so much for the invite.”

  ◆◆◆

  On Saturday, I went over to Cassie’s again and ate a handful of shrooms.

  For the first fifteen minutes, nothing happened.

  “It takes a little bit to kick in sometimes,” Cassie explained. She’d told me to dress comfortably, so I was wearing joggers, a t-shirt, and a hoodie, the same one that Anna had borrowed on the plane. It was comfortable, but also comforting. I’d wanted both, just in case my first experience with shrooms went south.

  Cassie was wearing a green dinosaur onesie, of all things, and Michael wore a matching pink one.

  They were disgustingly cute.

  “What do you do when you’re tripping?” I asked. Their living room was cozily furnished with a thick, navy blue area rug and light gray sofa set. Michael’s dog, Frankie, lay on the floor by my feet, busily tearing apart a chew toy.

  Michael put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the couch. “We usually just like to chill, listen to music. Maybe put on some cool visual stuff to look at.”

  Cassie swiped and tapped on her phone, then music began to play from their surround sound speakers. “I like to put on Anna’s playlists. She makes the best playlists to get high to.”

  I could see that. Her music was so dreamy and sensual, so different from the repetitive tunes that I heard on the radio. My stomach clenched at the thought of her.

  Michael nodded slightly when I put my hand on my stomach. “I see it’s starting to kick in.” In answer to my quizzical look, he added, “It often causes some stomach discomfort.”

  Ah, that explained it. Not Anna.

  My eyes began to swim, and the lines around the furniture became fuzzy. I closed my eyes against the sudden brightness of the room, and my legs prickled with numbness. I’d been sitting upright in the loveseat, but I abruptly needed to lie down. I sank into their rug.