One of the Others

Same Walk, Different Shoes

“Same Walk, Different Shoes” is a community writing project that Ben Wakeman organized as a practical exercise in empathy. The premise is simple. A group of writers anonymously contribute a personal story of an experience that changed their life. Each participating writer is randomly assigned one of these story prompts to turn into a short story written from the first-person point of view. The story you are about to read is one from this collection. You can find all the stories from the participating writers at Catch & Release. Enjoy the walk with us.

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Snow had begun to fall on campus, as I escorted my dearest friend, Ayame, safely back to her dorm room.

“You don’t understand, they wanted to hurt me,” my sweet friend quietly said. “They said to go back to China and take my flu with me…”

“But you’re from Taiwan.”

“They don’t know the difference, Saanvi. To them we are all the same.”

‘We’, she said. And I knew what she meant. Ever since I boarded that plane in Visakhapatnam and flew over the Sea of Bengal to study in the United States, I have been one of the others. Everywhere I go I am greeted with either untrusting stares, or awkward interactions revolving around either “my people’s” food or religion. There hasn’t been a week that’s passed where I haven’t wondered if being so far from home, so far from everyone and everything I love, so far from what feels safe and familiar is really my dream after all. There are plenty of universities where I could study in India if I really wanted to, but I know returning home would break my father’s heart and crush his dreams for me. “America is where you must go. It is the future, Saanvi,” was his mantra to my sister, Pari, and me. He had seen too many movies that showed an America that was very different than the one I have experienced. And Covid only made it worse.

Ayame had called me in tears an hour before. She was huddled in a bathroom stall, trembling and crying. I could barely make out what she was saying. By the time I reached the library, she had come completely undone. “I just want to go home,” she sobbed. “I can’t stay here anymore. I’m sorry, Saanvi, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Take some deep breaths.” Ayame rested her head onto my shoulder and wept, just as Pari had the day I left home. I held them both until their hearts could hold themselves up, and then we carried on with what we had to do. 

As we walked down the sidewalk, Ayame told me this wasn’t the first time these boys had harassed her. A week earlier, they sat at her table in the cafeteria and quietly told her they knew which dorm she was in, that they were watching her. “This is all your fault. These fucking masks, all these rules, you’ve ruined our lives.” Ayame sat quietly, head down and hands over her face so they couldn’t see her cry.

Ayame stopped and looked at me, terrified. “I’m scared.”

“I know, but they are just stupid boys. They say stupid things to feel powerful, because in reality they are weak and pathetic.”

“No. It’s more than that. They threatened to do the most terrible things to me, Saanvi. The most horrible things.” 

“What do you mean?”

“They told me Jimmy is a virgin, and if he catches it they are going to make sure he doesn’t die one.” Ayame closed her eyes, trying desperately to will it all away. 

“Who is Jimmy? Do you know them?”

She shook her head no. “They all wear their hoodies and masks, and I don’t dare look. I don’t want to know who they are.”

“We need to go to the police, Ayame. They can’t just terrorize you like that.”

“And do what? To whom? Nobody cares about us…”

She wasn’t wrong, and yet the idea of Ayame leaving school crushed me. She had been my one true friend since orientation. We were two international students in a foreign world. Our bond was immediate. We knew everything about each other’s lives. When Daanesh broke up with me, she was the one who held me and reminded me how there was so much more to life than a man who made me feel less than. She was right to show me his cruelty, to remind me how the words he used against me were the very things he felt about himself. I needed her here.

I reached for her hand and pulled her close. “Please don’t go, Ayame. I couldn’t bear it for one second. Not one.” She looked me in the eyes, two souls pleading for the other to understand. She turned away first, and I felt my heart break. She began to walk again, pulling me along like two leaves intertwined on life’s stream - for just a little longer.

After walking Ayame back to her dorm, I drifted on past the chem lab where she and I had teamed up, past the cemetery we had dared each other to step into our freshman Halloween, past the dormitory she and I shared before each of us were required to live in quarantine, and finally past the dive bar where we first met Peter. I know that she was as taken by him as I was, and I feared that part of the reason she wanted to go is because the green-eyed boy had chosen me that fateful night. It’s a lonely world when you are one of the others, and with so few things to hold on to, it’s easy to get swept away by sadness, loneliness, anger, fear, and love. Looking into his eyes I felt like they held the Sea of Bengal, and for the first time I felt like I had a piece of home with me.

There was a light dusting of snow on the ground when I reached his dorm. Peter knew the moment he saw me I was in trouble. He slipped his hand in mine, pulled me from the cold, and led me up to his room. As he shook the snow off my coat in the hallway, a deep and hollow cough echoed from the other end of the floor. 

Peter quickly closed the door, pushed a towel to cover the floor gap beneath it, and then duct taped the open seams. “See! Duct tape fixes everything!” An old joke that never actually seemed to grow old. He cracked open a window, hoping to create something close to negative pressure in his room. I don’t know if it worked, but I know we both made it through the semester without catching the ick – as we liked to call it.

His face softened when he saw me still standing by the door. “You okay?” He cautiously approached. “Your hands… they’re shaking. Are you cold?” I hadn’t noticed the shakes, nor the cold. I was still numb. “Here, let me get you something.” he said as he grabbed his favorite hoodie. I slipped it on, savoring the way it held his scent. In a world full of CK1, I had somehow found a guy who loved patchouli.

Peter cleared the pile of clean laundry off his futon, making room for us. “Sorry it’s such a mess. I didn’t think anyone was coming over this year.” He said his joke with a self-satisfied smile that made him more boyish and cuter than ever. Peter’s dad jokes were even sweeter knowing his father had been absent for most of his life. His father’s long dance with alcohol left him divorced from his family and reality. Peter’s reality was growing up too young, caring for his broken mother, and carrying her dreams forward while finding his own way through an indifferent world. That he is such a gentle soul is, in and of itself, a tiny miracle.

As I got comfortable on the futon, Peter started his electric kettle. “My mother has a rule that when it’s snowing, you must drink hot cocoa and watch it fall. She thinks it’s a sin to walk past God’s beauty without acknowledging it.” He shakes the Swiss Miss packets, “I even splurged and got the kind with the tiny marshmallows!” He flashed that smile again.

“Why me?” I asked myself while watching the snow fall. Ayame was prettier in every way. Thinner, lighter and more perfect skin, straight hair, whiter teeth, and so much smarter. She was pre-med, fulfilling her parent’s dreams. I was in the PharmD track, not my father’s dream - but bloodless medicine and close enough to not completely disappoint him. Peter could have chosen her, but instead he chose the chubby, dark-skinned, crazy girl Daanesh said his father would disown him over.

The beeping kettle stole my attention back to the present moment. I looked up and found Peter watching me. He smiled sweetly, then poured the steaming water into the sugary mix. “You okay?”

“Scared,” I replied. “Sad. Confused.”

He made his way over with our drinks. “Here, this will help. I promise.” He could see I wasn’t buying it. “Serotonin.” He gently rebutted.

He wasn’t wrong. He also wasn’t right. What Ayame experienced had scared me, and what she told me had broken my heart. As I recounted her encounter, Peter sat quietly and listened. When I told him about the threats, he reacted the very same way I had, and I found myself responding the very same way she had, “Nobody cares about people like us…”

“That’s not true,” he pushed back. “I care, don’t I?” 

“Yes, but most people here aren’t like you. Most people are indifferent, and some are downright scary. And the indifferent people make the scary people feel like there are a lot more of them than there really are.”

“Okay, I hear you, but what about all those people we marched and protested with last summer? They weren’t indifferent.”

“Yes, and then everyone went back to their lives and to try and survive this nightmare we are all living in.” Peter nodded – there was no argument to be made. “I think it’s hard for someone who looks like you to understand what someone who looks like me, or Ayame, is really experiencing.”

Peter sat back against the arm of the futon, stung by what I said. He knew there was nothing he could say, and I knew there was nothing I could say, so we sat in silence for a few minutes watching the world turn whiter.

Peter sat up and wrapped his arms around me, “For what it’s worth, I think people like you and Ayame are what makes this place special, and I’m glad you’re here.” Sadness overtook me and I began to cry. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

I shook my head and tried to compose myself, “Ayame is dropping out.”

“What? Really? She doesn’t really wanna do that.”

“Peter, they threatened to rape her.”

“They aren’t going to do that. It’s all just macho, frat boy talk.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t know that. Stupid boys rape pretty girls all the time.”

He sat back in silence. I felt bad that he felt bad. It seemed the only things that spread faster than a novel virus were sadness and anger. I sipped my cocoa. “Thank you for this.”

“Does it make you happy?”

I nodded and smiled. “A little.”

“Do I make you happy?” He softly asked.

I turned to face him, surprised by the question. “Of course. Why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know. Everything just feels upside down right now, and you’re really upset at…” He gestured at everything.

“I’m not upset with you. I’m upset with the world. I’m scared, and lonely, and sad. I feel a million miles from my family, and the only real friend I have is leaving me. It just sucks.”

“You have me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, actually I don’t.”

“Well, you can’t do everything.”

“I’d like to try,” he replied.

“Who am I going to talk to when you upset me? You can’t be my girlfriend too.”

“Why would I upset you?” he joked. “Besides, if I did, I would want you to tell me first.”

“You know what I mean. Friends are important. Besides, if I put everything on you you’d think I was…” I stopped. Too much. Too soon.

“What?” He gently asked. I closed my eyes and shook my head. I had said enough. “Tell me…” I shook my head again.

“Let’s just… Can we just lie here for a moment?”

“Of course.” He scooted back on the futon and I leaned into his chest. His heart beat against my ear, as he gently rubbed and kissed my head. This was Peter, the quiet bass player Ayame and I swooned over the night we first saw his band play. Behind his grunge look, was a sensitive man with deep disdain for cruelty and injustice. I love how divergent his inner and outer life seemed, and how he always made me feel safe.

“Why me?” I quietly asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“Why didn’t you choose Ayame?”

He liked to pretend he didn't know we were both into him. “How do you explain why we choose anything in life? I’m attracted to you.”

“But why? I mean, she’s so beautiful in every way. Guys are always checking her out.”

“So are you, Saanvi.” Peter replied. “One person being beautiful doesn’t make another any less beautiful. Besides, I’ve never met a smarter, funnier, sexier girl in my life.”

I wanted to push back, to call him a liar, to confirm how Daanesh made me feel.

“You know you’re beautiful, right?” I shook my head and pressed my finger to his lips.

“Let’s just lie here.” I said, as I snuggled in closer. His heart quickened.

“Who made you feel that way?” He quietly asked.

“Let it go. It’s okay. I know I’m not ugly.”

“That’s just…” Peter paused, searching for the right words. “That’s so fucked!” He quickly stood and walked to the window. I had triggered something painful.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I sat up.

He shook his head. “I don’t like that kind of talk. I’m sorry, I just don’t. I used to listen to my mother talk that way because my father would say the cruelest shit. And none of it was true. None of it.”

“Okay, I hear you. All I meant is that people like me aren’t who you see in magazines or on TV.”

“Those people are boring. They all look the same. Hangry.” 

“Hangry?” I laughed.

“It’s funny because it’s true.” He walked over and opened his closet. “Come here.”

“What? No. What are you doing?”

“Just come here. I want to show you something.”

I begrudgingly walked over to where he was standing. I looked at his ratty t-shirts and jackets, confused. “Okay… What am I looking at?” Peter opened the other door, revealing a full length mirror. I laughed and turned back to the futon. He caught me, spun me back around, wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. I could feel his breath on my neck. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t see what he saw, so I tried to feel it instead. “You are so beautiful in every way a woman can be,” he said as he kissed behind my ear. “I love your smile. How it makes your eyes go round like daisies and your dimples deepen.” I took a deep breath and gently let it out. “In fact, I love how your eyes always show me exactly how you feel. How amber flecks appear when you’re relaxed and happy, and how they turn to coal when you’re angry.” I felt a smile escape and ripple through my body. 

He pulled me closer. “I love that quiet laugh you make when you feel embarrassed, even when you have nothing to be embarrassed about.” I lowered and shook my head.

  “How you shake your head and look to the ground when I compliment you.” I lift my head, open my eyes and find him smiling at me in the mirror. “You have no idea, do you?” I shook my head at him. Staring into those emerald eyes, I lost myself in a sea of kindness. 

“I want to show you more,” He said, gently pulling the sweatshirt over my head. He kissed my neck again, while his hands gently caressed my stomach. The tops of his thumbs gently brushed the bottom of my breasts and suddenly my body became electric. My spine straightened as I pressed back into him, feeling his warmth against my lower back. I turned my head and said his name. “I love how you say my name,” he said as he tenderly kissed me. 

“Even when you leave, I can’t stop thinking about you. How sweet you smell, the taste of your kiss, the smooth, silky chocolate of your skin, and how when I run my fingers down here you…” I let out a quiet moan and he beamed. “There isn’t one part of you that doesn’t drive me absolutely crazy, that I don’t think about when you’re not here.” 

He ran his warm fingers along the inside of my thigh, and my body trembled. Feeling it too, he pulled me closer, kissing me deeply. I reached behind me, searching to please, but he gently intertwined his fingers with mine and brought them back around to my stomach. He kissed my shoulder and sweetly said, “I want to show you everything I love about you. Would you like that?” I kissed him.

He took my hand and led me to his bed. I could see us in the mirror, and for the next two hours he spoke to me in an ancient language where no words could suffice and no lie could ever exist. For the first time I understood the true power in letting go, that to surrender is to trust, and to trust is to love. He made me feel the way no man had ever dared.

When he finished, he rested quietly beside me. We looked into each other’s eyes. He kissed my forehead and sweetly whispered, “Everything is going to be okay.”

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