Nothing But the Truth by Justina Chen Read Free Book Online

freebie T-shirt I got for running the Sound to Narrows 12K race with my cross-country team hangs loose and falls past my thighs. Not a good look, I’m sure. A glimpse of myself in the mirror confirms that, but as I look at my reflection, I wonder what it is that makes Steve hate me so much. Sure, my hair is more black than brown, and my eyes have a slight almond tilt to them. But my teeth are as white as snow, and half of me is just the same as him, Mark and 99.98 percent of my high school. So why does being part-Taiwanese make me all-disgusting in Steve’s eyes?
    My right cheek hurts from all my scrubbing, but I can’t stop squirting more soap into my hand and lathering again.The cold water makes my teeth clench, but I splash until my whole face feels numb.
    Here’s the thing: no matter how much I scrub, no matter if my skin is rubbed raw, no matter how much cover-up and concealer I wear, I can’t erase who I am. I feel like I’m stuck on some infinite teeter-totter: too-white, too-Asian; too-white, too-Asian. As much as I try to balance in the middle, I keep getting slammed, from one side to the other.
    Against my pale, cold skin, my eyes look darker than ever. I finally ask myself the question that hurts the most: How could Mark have joined Steve’s hate-spewing squad? Save getting a lobotomy, how am I ever going to forget the sight of him, driv ing away like he had no idea what Steve had just done to me?
    I turn away from the mirror. Running my red shirt in the washing machine a hundred times in a row, fading it to pink, would never salvage it. It’s stained forever, marinating in the memory of Steve Kosanko and his scummy new sidekick, Mark Scranton. I pull the photo of me and Mark out of my back pocket, feeling like I’m going to throw up as I look at his face, no longer gorgeous, but gross. I crumple Mark in my hand and flush him down the toilet.
    Mama would have had a conniption about the colossal waste of forty bucks if she saw me tossing my ruined shirt into the garbage. That would surely have brought on Lecture Number Five: You So Wasteful.
    But I don’t look back.
    The halls in between classes are usually a no-geeks-land as the exceptionally brainy and fashion-challenged hurry to avoid being picked on.
    I wish I could stay out here in the quiet where I can see forever down the hall. But this is a no-girls-land, no matter who she is, because Mr. Allen, the vice-principal, is waddling out of a classroom, heading straight toward me. He looks like a beluga whale, in the same puffy, white, harmless way.
    “Patty, anything wrong?” he asks, concerned.
    This is one of the times when being part-Asian works to my advantage. Mr. Allen takes one look at me and sees only what he expects to see from a girl whose last name is Ho: a studious Asian kid. He assumes that I have a perfectly acceptable reason for being late. Part of me wants to pretend that I was up to no good:
Nope, just looking for a safe place to get high, thank you very much.
    When it comes down to it, what can this beluga whale do when just yesterday he was the one who clapped the great white Steve Kosanko shark on the back and handed him the student citizenship award for the second year in a row? He was the one who announced to the whole school that Mark won the election.
    “All righty then. Better head to class,” Mr. Allen says, lumbering away and expecting the silent Asian girl standing alone in the hall to follow his directions. I hear and obey.
    I drift into Honors English late. Mrs. Meyers is leaning against the blackboard, legs crossed like she’s at a bar, just chatting with some friends. She scans my ice-numb face and her gaze drops down to my T-shirt. A question instantly formulates in her eyes. I may not be the most fashion aware, but I know better than to wear a too-big, orange T-shirt listing corporate sponsors unless I’m outside, sweating from runningor biking. I have become my mother, whose fashion sense is: the cheaper the