No Tissues, Only Tears

No Tissues, Only Tears

By J



           No one pays much attention to strangers in the hallways of my schools. I don’t even acknowledge anyone besides friends and acquaintances as I swim in the river of people rhythmically travelling up and down the stairs, back and forth the hallways to their classes. 

          I hardly know anyone in my English class. I don’t even know all the names of the people in my class and I really talk to only three people. We were advised at the beginning of the term to not sit with our friends daily because we might be tempted to disrupt the writers’ atmosphere with our giggles and our little conversations. I had nothing against that. It would even more than disrespectful of me to do so, especially since I was warned, more so if someone was calling for our undivided attention while reading their writing. Therefore, almost every day, I would walk into the class and sit down with strangers to my left and to my right.

          By the second week however, there was a girl that seemed to grab my attention. I knew her name only because it was advertised on her name tag: Jane. Even though I hardly paid any attention to the other students as they flushed in the room, I would always notice when she walked in. She looked like the silent type. She hardly raised her hand in class and when she did, spoke gingerly, as if the words she spoke would break if she said it any louder.

          She would never take the initiative to talk to me. No stranger in my school would actually. It was an unspoken but known rule that boys should always take the first step. Also, the fact that she was a senior and I was a junior made me feel that it would be weird of me to talk to her out spontaneously. Even though our school was 74% Asian, we weren’t even the same race. Her last name Ko, was Korean, and my last name Kwok, was Chinese. We had nothing in common besides being in the same class and our initials.  It seemed a strange coincidence that she had the same initials as I did though. Maybe it was God’s cue to try to talk to her. I wasn’t attracted to her, but her soft eyes and faint smile behind her stoic lips made her glow. 

          There was a day, as I was waiting for my friend right before English class, I saw her run up to what was probably her boyfriend. Around him, she obviously seemed a lot more open. A gentle smile was subtly etched on her face and sometimes I could hear her laughing as I stood outside my class, not wanting to be the first to walk in. Even though she was a second-term senior with her college admission no longer affected by her grades, she always came to class on time. As usual I would notice her coming in, her poker face put back on as she settled down.

          Usually, when I catch someone or even a stranger looking at me I would raise my eyebrows in acknowledgement. However, she was different. With the number of days I spent in the same room as her piling up, the chance that she might catch me glancing at her when I shifted my eyes around the room increased. When she did, I shifted my eyes to my notebook or someone else. I think she did the same, her eyes were always looking around too. I remember reading her piece on Nicenet about a boy who gave her flowers on Valentine’s Day in the 5th grade. She wrote about how she “caught him glancing at [her]” but never interacted. Was I that awkward boy to her? It would be terrible for my image for her to believe that the chubby kid she didn’t know was crushing on her. My vision is really bad though. Now I believe that maybe she really didn’t look back at me. It could have been my entire mistake to believe so, but even during that handful of times when I thought she did, I still darted my eyes away.

         I actually met her little sister, a sophomore, while watching my friend’s volleyball game. I recognized her by her eyes, which were just as soft as her older sister’s. She was a cheerleader and unlike her older sister, she was pretty famous and high profile. She seemed noticeable shorter and had really straight hair compared to her sister’s.  I would hear my friends sometimes remark on how cute a certain cheerleader, which was her, was. We talked a little and she seemed to laugh at everything. I told her that her older sister seemed really quiet compared to her, but she seemed to disagree. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, NOT REALLY.” I began following her little sister’s Tumblr blog a few days later. She wrote about Jane and how she loved when she was in a good mood. It was weird picturing Jane so hyper the way her little sister depicted it.

        When I was assigned new peer editors for my class for the final paper, I found myself partnered up with Nicholas. When I saw Jane pick up her slip of paper, which indicated which group she would be in, she walked around the class searching for her group. However, the number of people sitting down with their partners increased while the number of people still standing up decreased. Part of me hoped that she was my partner. I could get to know her more. Part of me hoped that she wasn’t. I couldn’t even bring myself to speak to her during a day she sat next to me when we were supposed to talk about the writing we just read. Every day before that day I would easily discuss the piece that was just read. That day I sat awkwardly, squished between the two groups of chattering classmates. But she did become my partner. She actually talked to me asking if I wrote my rough draft. I smiled and replied. While we were peer editing she was chuckling constantly when our English teacher walked by because we were editing my other group member’s old college essay for what was maybe the second or third time.

        One day, I decided to get to class earlier than usual. I sat in the corner and decided to sit with my friend that day. I didn’t see her with her boyfriend that day. She came to class 20 minutes late, sniffing silently and wiping her eyes. Her head was tilted downward, and her lips were slightly puckered. She takes the seat next to mine and puts her head down for a few seconds before she regains herself. She continues to sniff stays quiet. Lemony Snicket once said that “When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.” However, I didn’t want to be noble. I wanted to cheer her up. Put the smile I never see back on her face. I didn’t have tissues to offer her. I regretted using the bathroom early in the period during that point because I could get some, but to go out again would have been strange. My friend advised that maybe it was only allergies. Something still felt wrong. I ripped small pieces of paper from my notebook, wrote a rough draft for my note then refined it then quickly slipped it to her. I saw a tiny, fragile smile in her face appear then disappear. It was so hard to see that I sometimes question whether I really imagined it or not. She whispered with a voice so quiet that she practically mouthed it. “Thank you.”

After school, I went to a grocery store near my house to buy a small package of tissues.

                                                                     

                                                                          “Allergies getting to you too right?”

                                                                              “No, it’s for someone else.”