My Backpack Still Smells Like Taro Bubble Tea, and I Start 10th Grade Tomorrow
I’m sitting on a half-deflated air mattress on the floor of my new bedroom right now, because our bed shipment got delayed until next Wednesday. All my boxes are stacked against the wall except the one with my sketchbook and my old high school uniform from Taipei, which I pulled out yesterday for no reason I can name. The uniform skirt still has that faint coffee stain from when I ran into a classmate with a latte between cram school and homeroom last year. I don’t even know why I brought it. I’ll never wear it again. It just felt wrong to leave it in the donate pile, I guess.
We got here three weeks ago. I kept complaining to my parents for two years that I hated how much homework we had, how all we did was study for the 11th grade entrance exam and never got to do anything fun. I was the one who jumped up and down when my dad said he got the job transfer to New Jersey. So why do I keep catching myself staring at the group chat with my old friends at 2am, reading the same threads about our teacher’s bad haircut that I’ve read 12 times already? That’s the thing no one tells you, right? Wanting something new doesn’t mean you stop wanting the old thing at the same time.
Last weekend my parents dragged me to a welcome picnic for new international high school kids at the park down the street. Everyone was super nice, but I still left with my stomach growling because when the guy grilling asked me how much burger I wanted, I said “just a little” out of habit – that’s how you answer when someone offers you food back home, you don’t take a whole big one and look greedy. So he cut me off a quarter slice, and I couldn’t get the words out to ask for more, I just stood there smiling and then went and sat on a bench and ate three packs of the complimentary lemonade crackers instead. No one noticed, I don’t think. I was too busy nodding when a girl from Korea asked me if I liked K-pop, because I only know like two Blackpink songs, but I didn’t want to be boring so I just said yeah.
My TOEFL score was good enough, I can write a five paragraph essay no problem, but casual conversation still trips me up all the time. Last Tuesday the girl who lives two houses down, Lila, she’s going into 11th grade here, knocked on the door to bring us chocolate chip cookies. She asked if I wanted to grab boba after my first week of school. I said yes immediately, because hello, boba, but then after she left I realized I didn’t get her number, I don’t know which boba shop she meant, and I’m not even sure if she was just being polite and didn’t actually expect me to say yes. I’ve been checking the front window every afternoon waiting for her to walk by so I can ask, but she hasn’t come by this week. It’s fine, whatever, it’s not that big a deal. I just overthink everything right now, I guess.
I toured the school last week. My locker is number 314, combination 12-24-8. I practiced it 15 times in the empty hallway last Wednesday, and I still almost messed it up on the 15th try. All the lockers are way bigger than the ones back home, I could fit two of my old backpacks in here. That’s one good thing. The bad thing is everyone has those big $50 Hydro Flasks covered in cute stickers, my mom got me a plain $4 stainless steel one from Walmart that has a dent in the side because I dropped it moving it in. It keeps my iced tea cold just fine, but I still catch myself tucking it behind my books when I walk past groups of kids, just in case they notice.
Back home I had cram school until 9pm four nights a week, and homework that took me three hours to finish every day. Here my summer reading was just one 200-page YA novel. I finished it in a day, and then I had the whole rest of the week to do nothing. I ended up scrolling TikTok for six hours a day, and by the end of the week I felt so bored and empty I almost missed the endless stacks of test practice papers. I didn’t tell my parents that. They’re already stressed about the mortgage and my dad’s new job, I don’t need to add my weird first-world problems to that. I did sign up for art club, though. It doesn’t need tryouts, it meets after school on Wednesdays. I draw all the old street food stands from near my old house in my sketchbook – the mango shaved ice guy, the fried chicken stand that stayed open until 10pm. I don’t know if I’ll ever show anyone.
Tomorrow’s my first day. I laid out my clothes already: high waisted jeans that don’t have any holes (I don’t want to look too out of style, but I also don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard) and a plain gray hoodie I got at a 7-Eleven promotion back home. I stuffed three packs of my favorite lychee candy in my backpack, just in case I need something to fidget with when I’m sitting alone at lunch. The bottom of my backpack still smells like taro bubble tea, from when I spilled a whole large one on it last April before a math test. I washed it three times, and it still lingers. It’s kind of nice, actually. Like a little piece of home that came with me, even when I didn’t plan for it.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. I might forget my locker combination and be late to first period. I might make one friend, or no friends. I might love it here, or I might spend the whole next year counting down the days until I can go back for winter break. No one’s posting the messy, awkward parts of moving, right? Everyone posts the pretty photos of the new house and the new school and says how excited they are. I’m excited, sort of. I’m also terrified. That’s just how it is, I guess. I’m going to go blow up the air mattress a little more, because it’s even more deflated than it was an hour ago. Tomorrow’s coming either way.
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