The Way I Loved You

PROLOGUE

ONCE, when I was younger, my teacher, one day asked the whole class, a bunch of youngsters who were still struggling to pronounce the easiest of words correctly, 'what we wanted to be when we grow up'. I cannot quite remember what age I was, but I remember how that happened in first grade and everyone had immediately answered, like they had already thought of it before, and it was a no-brainer question, while I stayed in my seat clueless of what to say, because I never thought of what I wanted to be when I grow up.

As far as I knew, at that age, I was just living my life. There were no expectations from my parents, and all I did then was eat, play, and sleep. I never thought ahead, because what was the point of scaring the present you of a future that was so many miles away?

In that way, you could never grow up, if you always looked ahead, and did not live in the present, where your world was happening right in front of you. However, that was not why I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

My excuse was that I was just a little child, who at that age was meant to be playing pretend tea parties with her stuffed toys, watching cartoons until bedtime. No kid that age should have to limit themselves to a profession when they could be anything and everything they wanted to be.

Now that I am older, I understand that those kids did not mean what they said on that day, they said it out of pure childishness. Their answer was born out of what they saw on television, and Doc McStuffins was the show reigning at the time, that was why quite a number had their bet on being a doctor when they grew older. Some wanted to be Nurse Hallie, the purple hippopotamus who was the nurse in the show.

At that time, I was a little girl, intimidated by all her peers, as she watched them one by one over-excitedly raise their hands to answer, and she could not even come up with anything because that was not what went through her mind after classroom and she is all alone in her bedroom. I, for one, wanted to taste everything life had to offer. I wanted to play the piano, just like my father did, and eventually play it out, if I had the bravery to do such a thing.

I wanted to write stories too, I had half-written stories and while some were completely done, I never showed anyone except my parents, and then you, when you happened in my life.

The teacher listened attentively to everyone's answers, and even though many beaming faces were right in front of her, trying to get her attention, she managed to notice the uncomfortable girl sitting at the corner of the classroom, trying to be unnoticed.

I was the kind of student that always had their head down, because, unlike the others I had nothing to say or to contribute to the class. What could anyone say when the whole class thought of you as a weirdo, because I was not just one person, but a merging of two people in one body, as I shared both Korean and American genes?

"Laurene, what would you like to be when you're older?" My teacher, Miss Anne's voice was filled with warmth—it always was– when she asked me. Her eyes tried to seek mine, but I tried to look away, because I thought by looking at her eyes, she would have found out my little secret, that I, unlike the others, did not know what I wanted to be.

Honestly, when I look back at that moment there was no need for me to be paranoid. It was okay to not know what you want to be in the future. It was okay to be clueless. I was just intimidated by the fact everyone had an answer, while I did not. So, I told her, the first thing that came to my mind, "A superhero," I answered. "Just like my mother. She saved lives."

The whole class erupted in a fit of giggles and I shyly lowered my gaze. Miss Anne tried to put down the laughter but it never stopped and some kids started talking about how I was too under the bus to realize superheroes were not real, like I didn't know that.