SMS 23' | Yang and Yin

By the time I look over, the notification banner at the top of my phone has disappeared and I don’t catch the email’s header. My phone is still playing Netflix and I don’t want to interrupt the video, so I open my inbox on my laptop instead. As it turns out, there isn’t a header to miss. Just a link to a folder from a handle I don’t recognize, canary@gmail.com.

I cycle through the images in the folder one by one, then vomit in the little wastebasket by my bedside table. Even while I lose my dinner, I can hear The Good Place’s introduction theme playing gently behind me, chiming softly over my distress.

For as long as I could remember, you had always been yang.

Almost like an inevitability, Mom’s throwaway comment that day, that together, “You girls look like yang and yin!” secured our fates. Yang and yin. It’s supposed to be yin and yang. Yin first, yang second. Not that it alters the meaning, but even in a simile I didn’t come first. You weren’t even wearing white. You were in a pink letterman jacket that day, daisy-yellow camisole beneath it, with your signature pleated skirt framing your perfect legs until they reached your off-white vans. Your blonde hair was tied up in a flawless little french braid Mom helped you with that morning so that you’d look fierce on the first day of our freshman year. She forgot to wake me up.

Mom asked you, “Razzie, you have your club’s icebreaker event at 5:00, right?” Wait, I thought. There’s a what? Do I need to go to that?

You responded, “Yeah, but I got a ride from someone, so we’re gonna hang before it. Don’t wait up,” then fiddled with your hair, and idled by the door waiting for mom’s inevitable request to take a picture of us together, like a perfectly robotic sequence. Answer question. Prevent a possible in-depth response. Smile. Pose.

I was watching you, and you were so good at smiling before the flash in that practiced way, that “holding up an award certificate” way that mom loved to see, because she claimed it reminded her of the wide smile that came after you took your first steps. Apparently mom reserved those memory slots for you though, because she liked to tell me I had a B minus smile.

“You’re slouching.” No name, but we both knew who she meant. I said nothing. I turtled further into my gray hoodie. I don’t quite recall what else I was wearing.

“Jesus, Mom, lay off Alphie a bit.” It was a sweet sentiment, but despite your input, she frowned at the screen and lowered the phone, glancing around to find her car keys.

I didn’t have a ride home after class that day, but clearly that slipped mom’s mind. When 3 o’clock rolled around, I waited under the big oak in the corner of the quad for an hour until she called, apologizing profusely through my phone’s low-quality speakers.

—

History seems to love to repeat itself in a manner that must always be comical to whatever jerkwad of a god watches over our family. I almost feel like I’m thirteen again listening to mom ask about Raz’s college orientation day.

“You have to make a good first impression. Show them who you are, and don’t be shy about getting involved!” She gesticulates wildly with her phone in hand, camera already prepared. I watch her unceasing hands and imagine she flaps them so much she grows feathers and flies into the air, then gets sucked into a plane turbine.

Admittedly, the thought makes me giggle a little bit, which suddenly turns Raz and Mom’s attention to me while I’m sitting on the stairs by my luggage, out of sight and apparently, out of mind. Realizing she actually has twins, my mom makes up some advice on the spot.

“You too Alph, this is a great new start for you. I know you didn’t exactly have the time of your life in high school, but this is a fresh new start. A new start with lots of great opportunities.” Her palms are glued to the sides of her jeans like she’s in the middle of trying to wipe water off her hands. She’s already run out of things to say to me, which is fine because I stop paying attention whenever we make eye contact.

“Yeah, I know, mom.” I can pad it a little more, but behind her, Raz has come up with something else to say. Yeesh. Someone isn’t happy. Her brow is furrowed and she’s clenching her jaw for whatever reason, and I don’t want that escalating, so I let her do her thing instead.

It’s funny how you can complain about one thing during one moment and proceed to let it happen the very next. I know there’s always more I can be doing to stop it and more I can muster up. But living life at 110% all the time is just so exhausting. I’d rather drop it and move on. I brought this up once to Ezra, the one person who likes to stick around here and watch me pull this bullcrap, and they said it’s understandable and we all do it. Although whether that makes it acceptable or not remains up to debate.

Speaking of Ezra, at that moment they’re honking in the driveway for pickup, my sister gesturing at their presence through the door, pointing over her shoulder at the noise complaint waiting to happen.

They’re driving me to my new home for the next four years, and I suppose that’s my cue, so I stand up and hoist my duffel over my shoulder, gripping the tall handle of my crusty, decade-old luggage just a tad too tight. Before I open the front door, I catch in my peripheral vision bedazzled acrylic nails reaching for my shoulder.

Sunflower’s trying to make contact. I don’t quite process what she says until a moment later, but in a show of surprising sincerity, Raz tells me to keep in touch. And to call her when I get onto my campus.

Huh.

Ezra’s brand new Volkswagen somehow already drives clunkily like it’s running on fumes after sticking it out for 20 unfortunate years. What in the world did they do to it. Their belongings always end up disheveled like this, but if you lend them a pencil or something, it’s like they return the pencil to you longer and sharper than it was originally. The pothole we hit in this contradiction of a car feels like a pot-earthquake fault, and it jolts me awake after 20 uncomfortable minutes snoozing in the passenger seat.

I have to give them a bit of a hard time. “Dude, does this thing not have tires?”

“Alphie, sweetheart, little miss no-license, I can and will throw you out of this car.”

“You and what upper body strength?”

The dramatic gasp that leaves their body startles me for a second. They’re 6”1’ and built like a truck. If I told you they won in a fistfight with a shark, you’d believe me.

“I had to help you load your crap into my trunk because you couldn’t lift it off the ground, you ungrateful little–”

“It’s the strength of the soul that counts, okay? Not the biceps.” I look down at theirs and not so subtly make eye contact with the bulldog tattoo on their upper arm peeking out from beneath their rolled-up sleeves. I stick my tongue out at it.

I hear squeaking coming from the back of the car. The luggage must have toppled over with the turbulence earlier and started rubbing its plastic shell against something.

“What else do you have in the trunk?” I say, craning my neck to my left to peek at the backseat.

“Golf clubs, I think? The golf club was looking for equipment donations and my dad said he had an old bag lying around. I don’t know what’s in it, but I brought it. Thought maybe there’s something they can use?”

I nod. On any campus, Ezra is basically everyone’s little helper. People love them because they can’t set boundaries, and when Ezra gives them an inch, they always have to take a mile. They’re a different breed of wallflower than me, and I guess that's why we get along.

I’m reminded of my sister as I pick at my corroded gray nail polish. We were never exactly enemies, nothing that would warrant an “I finally want to get along” speech, we were just distant. She’d never made an effort to reach out before, so I suppose I should interpret that as effort. Admittedly, it’s nice that this seems to open up some new possibilities for us. Maybe when I’m home it doesn’t always have to be the same old same old.

“Raz told me she wanted me to keep in touch with her.” The words stumbled out before I even thought about it.

“Oh, damn. Ice queen is reaching out?”

“God, she is not an ice queen. We weren’t close, but it’s not like she killed my puppy, man. I don’t have anything against her.”

“Dude, I’m telling you, something isn’t right with her. Her vibe is off.”

“You can’t keep holding a grudge against her because she said pink wasn’t your color.”

“One, pink is my color, and two, yes. Yes I can.”

I hesitate. “Well–” And I get my arm smacked.

“Okay, but seriously,” they say. “She was so popular in high school and yet nobody really had anything good to say about her. She was like skinny jeans as a person.”

“What does that even mean–you’re talking about her like she’s some random chick! She’s my blood!”

“I mean, are you offended?” They stifle a giggle, and admittedly, I have to think about this one.

“...Not really.”

We sit on that for a while before Ezra breaks the silence.

“Okay, fine. All I’m saying is that I’m pleasantly surprised. Emphasis on the surprised. But I’m happy for you. I’m glad you two are kindling something. You always talk about her like she’s your cousin thrice removed that just happens to live in your house and suck up to the adults in your family.” I hum in agreement, and for the rest of the ride to our campus, my sister doesn’t get brought up again.

Despite my friendly tiff with Ezra on the ride over, move-in day goes pretty smooth. I guess I kept a more open mind after Raz and I’s interaction. My roommate was super welcoming, even though I was late to come meet her because Ezra and I have no self-control when it comes to getting tea, and she helped carry one of my bags to our room. She’s a junior, and usually students don’t stay in the dorms that long, but she’s on the student activities committee and says it’s more convenient to be here. Fittingly, she also has a way with words, and I got convinced to join the track and field club even though I can’t go up 5 flights of stairs without vomiting afterwards. Their first meeting is tomorrow. I think I might die.

But this first day has been promising. Things are looking up for me. It’s nice to be around fresh faces, with their histories and personalities a mystery to me and my family and history a mystery to them. There’s no Raz versus Alph here. No comparing grades, no comparing looks. Hell, as far as these people know, I’m an only child. Mom might have been BS’ing at the time, but she was right. This is a new start. This does open up new opportunities for me.

I haven’t checked my full class schedule yet, so once I’ve unpacked in my room I say bye to Ezra, who lives a building down, I thank my roommate for being so accommodating, and I unwind a bit. I figure I should read through some of the class materials and see if I can give myself a headstart for when my classes start next week, but after 15 minutes that plan falls through and I’m organizing stuffed animals on my desk while Netflix is playing on my phone, its back propped up against the wall. The stuffed animals and The Good Place season finale are more important. As I set down my stuffed lion’s arm over the shoulder of my bunny, like Mr. Lion’s making a move on her, I hear a ping sound from my phone.

But by the time I look over, the notification banner at the top of my phone has disappeared and I don’t catch the email’s header. My phone is still playing Netflix and I don’t want to interrupt the video, so I open my inbox on my laptop instead. As it turns out, there isn’t a header to miss. Just a link to a folder from a handle I don’t recognize, canary@gmail.com.

This is exactly how you get a virus, I think, trying to convince myself that I should delete this email and move on. Literally nothing good ever comes out of opening links from email addresses you don’t recognize. This could be unsolicited photos of genitalia or images that aren’t going to let you sleep tonight. And you need to sleep tonight. Or you’re gonna pass out in the middle of the track thing you agreed to.

But the folder’s title. It’s not random numbers or a clickbaity phrase or overly inviting. It's a name, with an underscore between the words. I feel like I’ve heard the name before. There’s a little bell ringing in the far, far back of my mind. I know this name, I’ve seen it somewhere. I’ve heard it somewhere. It has to be something. This isn’t spam. This probably isn’t a virus. I mean, it's still a bad idea. It’s still a terrible idea, actually, to open it, probably.

However, as Emily Dickinson once said, “The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care.” She did not mean that I should open suspicious email links on impulse. She did not mean I should forgo the judgment that has allowed my laptop to live virus-free for as long as it has. But momentarily, I choose to believe I have her support in what I plan to do.

I cycle through the images in the folder one by one, then vomit in the little wastebasket by my bedside table. Even while I lose my dinner, I can hear The Good Place’s introduction theme playing gently behind me, chiming softly over my distress.

My head is a throbbing mess. I can’t form one thought without it spilling into another. The room won’t stop spinning, the events of my day are flashing before me and I think I’m going to faint. There’s only one thing in my head before I lose consciousness on the dorm’s dusty, discolored carpet.

“I forgot to tell Raz I arrived…”

—

It's been about four months since school started up. I’m heading back home to spend my idyllic Thanksgiving with my bed and my shower. I got my license, but Ezra didn’t want me driving that many hours on my own, so the trip back so far has been friendly banter and Disney sing-alongs.

But there’s an internal debate in my brain that hasn’t reached its conclusion yet. Every so often I miss the end of Ezra’s sentence and I have to ask them to repeat it. It takes me a few extra seconds to respond to their jabs. Before long, they ask me what’s wrong. I take a minute to think about what I should say.

“Well, I haven’t seen my family in months.“

“Oh no…woe is you, I know how much you missed them, you wouldn’t stop talking about it—” That deserves a smack. “Ow–hey, you can’t hit the damn driver!”

That lightens up the mood and we’re both laughing, but they don’t let it drop yet.

“Okay, but seriously,” they push. “What’s bugging you?” I pause. I have to contemplate exactly how much to expose.

“I mean. I don’t really know how to say this.” I pause again. There’s 30 second breaks in between my dialogue, but they’re patient. “Ez, you were right about Raz.”

“...Did I say something about Raz recently? I don’t think we’ve talked about her since you moved out?” Their genuine confusion makes it all the more hard for me to continue. I stare at the red light keeping the car stationary.

“You said something wasn’t right with her. You said her vibe was off.”

“...Yes?” The air in the car suddenly feels so thick I could cut it with a butter knife. Sweat is leaking out from my underarms and my clothes are too warm. My hair can’t seem to stay out of my eyes, and my hands grip the leather seats to keep themselves steady.

“The day I moved on campus, someone sent me an email with a link to a folder.”

“That’s literally how you get a virus, but carry on.”

I tell them the name of the folder. They raise their eyebrows and claim they remember something.

“Weren’t they the kid from high school with the greasy brown hair who was always wearing way too much clothing? I think I saw them with your sister sometimes. Wait, what was in the folder? Who was the email from?” Their questions mirror mine when I first opened the email. The deja vu makes me want to hurl. Without thinking, I spit it out.

“They killed themselves a year ago.”

The car doesn’t halt or swerve. It keeps moving perfectly smoothly. Smoother than expected. Ezra’s face is unchanging, stoic.

“...What?”

I don’t have the instincts to formulate a response, so it just hangs in the air for what feels like an eternity. Ezra’s brain is working faster than mine is, they say something else before I form another coherent thought.

“Wait, what does this have to do with your sister?”

I don’t want to answer this. They look like they don’t want to know. It’s jarring how their face is perfectly relaxed in denial. Besides the fact that their jaw is slack and their lips are slightly parted. They probably don’t realize their mouth is open.

“The folder. It said.” 19 years of speaking the English language and suddenly I don’t know a single word appropriate for this conversation. “It was hhhhher fault.” The h sound has to reintroduce itself to my tongue and it drags out my enunciation.

There is nothing to elaborate upon, it seems. We sat in silence for an hour. The radio’s pop music is so incredibly inappropriate right now, but neither of us move to turn it off. We only speak once nudged to, when the car navigator says we’re 20 minutes away from my house. Crap. We’re 20 minutes away from my house.

“Okay, wait, wait, she didn’t kill him,” I blurt.

“Why the hell did you wait a whole goddamn hour to say that??”

“I didn’t realize you could interpret it that way until just now!” We’re hollering at each other by now and our energies are all over the place. It’s not hostile, but it’s definitely hectic.

“Then what did she do??” In gripping the steering wheel harder, Ezra triggers the car’s horn accidentally, and the noise startles us, as if it’s telling us to get our heads on straight and calm down, we’re on the freaking road.

“There were screenshots. And a couple videos, I think? And I mean, I’ve never…seen her like that before?”

“Never seen who like that before?”

“Raz?"

“But what did she do?”

“I think she led some pretty horrific bullying on him.” That’s all the sense of it I can make at the moment.

“What the hell…” they murmur. “I’d assume it was pretty horrific, he’s gone.” Now that it’s completely out there, neither of us seem to know what we’re really meant to say. But once again, Ezra’s faster.

“Wait, did you tell anyone?”

“No! I couldn’t! Who could I have told?”

“Police, his family, anybody??”

“The police can’t help in that kind of way! If she never did anything to technically harm him, she wouldn’t get in trouble! She was just a ringleader!”

“Holy crap. You need to tell your family about this.” Jesus, there it is. That’s the burning question.

“I know, I know! That’s what I’ve been turning over in my head for a while!”

“Why is this even a question? You need to make sure they take measures so that she won’t do this again to someone else. Didn’t she get into some prestigious college? They took a phony!”

That hadn’t occurred to me. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might not have been a one-time event. What if there was someone else? As long as they’re not well-known, she could have done this to anyone. How many people knew she was a nightmare? Who even sent me that email?

“Ffff—sssssckuuuh—” once again, words fail me. “God, I know, I know! But how do I even bring this up? I can’t just walk into my house swinging!”

“Alph, this isn’t the kind of thing you can dance around! They need to know!” They’re right, I know they’re right. There’s no other option. They have to know.

“Nnnnnn—Okay! Okay, okay! When I first get the chance to, I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them as soon as possible, right as I walk through the door.”

The GPS system in its little British accent reminds us, Turn right. 300 feet from your destination.

“Yeah, you can do this. Seriously, they need to know about this. Tell me how it goes. Do you want me to wait outside while you tell them in case things get ugly?”

“No, no, you haven’t been home either. It’s okay, I’ll handle it.”

“Okay, okay.”

When we arrive, Ezra doesn’t back into the driveway, but parks on the curbside.

“Stay safe, Alph.” Over the cup holder in the front seats, we embrace.

“I will,” I say, and I depart towards the unknown.

When I reach the door, I feel like I’m on autopilot. My right arm raises without me asking it to, and it knocks without my input.

The door creaks open. I’m given an awkward, forced hug, and invited inside.

Then, without hesitation, I resume my role as yin once again.