falling is not the same thing as dying
<div style="text-align:right;">[[a cute high school game.|firstperiod]]</div>9:00 AM
Tennis is your first class of the day. [[Fuck this French-ass sport.|humanathlete]]
Go to class. (click-replace:"Go to class.")[Walk out of the building. (click-replace:"Walk out of the building.")[Turn left and follow the semi-empty path. (click:"semi-empty path")[
Empty, because anyone with //real// commitment to varsity sports would have [[shown up an hour earlier.|butwhy]]]]]Sports is one way for Asian kids to get into college. To prove that you're not a little robot to a panel of old admissions people whom you've never met.
The racquet is your humanity in your hands. Your
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|heart3)[(transition: "dissolve")[heart.](click:"heart.")[
Is it heavy? (click:"Is it heavy?")[Is it light?(click:"Is it light?")[
If you threw it away, [[would you be free?|firstperiod]]]]]]]]
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Diana is sweating, running up and down the court. [[She's always practicing|doubles]], even though you're pretty sure that she'll end up in pre-med or accounting or all those stereotypes that you've always hated because she doesn't look brave enough.(click:"she doesn't look brave enough.")[
You're here because you're not brave enough, and you don't want to be alone.]
A tennis ball from a different court flies over the fence. You resist the urge to call [["HOOOOMEEE RUNNNNN."|bravery]]That's not a ball that you could ever hit. You mama didn't [[spend a hundred dollars a week on a private coach|a dud]] so that you could smack tennis balls over the fence like those white girls. (if:$unhappiness is 0)[
You've been an investment before a corporation ever sunk its claws into you, except you could always quit a job. [[You don't get to quit being a Chinese girl.|nohappiness]]]
The girl who hit the ball over the fence is smiling when she turns around.
[[Laughing.|crimes]]My mother reminds me that I could have been thrown away. I could have been stupid. Instead, I have accepted both her education and her geas. The Chinese know that girls are expensive. Girls should be grateful that they were allowed to live to their first birthday. There are many, many girls who do not.
Is it kinder to make brides out of girls from birth, or to take everything away at her wedding altar? The girl you love told you this: her relatives thought that educating her was wasteful.
[[At least the urbanites don't say it aloud.|bravery]]
(set:$unhappiness to 1)Sometimes that kid ends up going to Stanford.
Sometimes that kid ends up going to a state university and railing for immigrant justice and making video games about blood and death and living a homosexual lifestyle and fighting god with their bare fists.(if: $smarts is 0)[[[
Sometimes you buy an item sight unseen and it just comes defective, you know?|bravery]]](else:)[
For now, you have laps to run.
<div style="text-align:center;">(FIN.)</div>]The unranked girls aren't practicing. Nobody wants a teenage girl for her service aces. People want her to make every bad feeling go away. A perfect ace in service.
You laugh with the girls. [[That's when Maddie believes you to be her accomplice. A sister.|signifier]]
Ya really done fucked up, my friend.She spares you an audience, and waits for the other girls to pick up the single ball as a group.
"Hey Sisi, do you have a boyfriend?"(click:"Hey Sisi, do you have a boyfriend?")[
You're a [[huge fucking lesbian|tennisboys]] with a big-ass crush on a girl who insults you daily (that's how people from Beijing express their affection), but sure.
You'll play.(click:"You'll play.")[
[["No, not yet."|toolate]]
]]
You're late, but the coach will let you play anyway. The team can't afford to lose you, and nobody in Republican Country watches(click-replace:"watches")[rewards] teenage girls for being good at hitting a ball.
If nobody respects the game, then you have committed no crime.
You enter open the green fences.
[[Walk in.|shuffling]]She's also your doubles partner in competitive matches, [[so you don't get mouthy to her face.|shuffling]]The thought of the tennis boys looking at you too closely makes your skin shrivel up like a salted snail. Also like a salted snail, you'd be dead.
[[No, boys don't have permission to speak to you.|signifier]]You never had common cause with Maddie. Despite having a temper that matched her hair, she was the kind of suburban white girl with zero sense of adventure. She was apple pie, and you were a face-numbing bite of Sichuan peppercorn.
Her parents probably voted for Trump in 2016.
She put her racket down on the bench, ending any pretense about practicing today. Free P.E. credit was truly the participation trophy of high school. [["Aren't you afraid of being left behind?"|whatbehind]]
Okay, they probably voted Romney and McCain too.
It's time for the entire class to pick up tennis balls, but neither of you budge from your spot. [["Haha, what do you mean?"|clarify]]As if Maddie ever had reason to speak to the foreigner before. As if you had not traversed public school like a ghost. As if the Ashleys and the Haileys and the Katies had eyes for the kid dressed in the sweatshirts that cost twenty-five cents at the garage sale.
[[High school is hell.|toolate]]"I mean, how are you going to get the [[practice|clit]] if you don't start dating boys?"
Her concern is visible. How are you going to move forward(click:"forward")[
<div style="text-align:center;">without (click:"without")[<div style="text-align:right;">
a man?(click-replace:"a man?")[a future?</div></div>
<div style="text-align:left;">Does tennis matter if you've got boobs and butt?
The boys on the other side of the courts aren't having this talk. They're practicing their swing. They're stretching. The coach watches them like a hawk.
[[The apple pie girl is smarter than you.|smartgirl]]</div>]]]
All girls are brides. Maddie is looking out for a future where she exists.
Do you even(click:"Do you even")[
have a future?(click:"have a future?")[
The coach is calling for the loiterers. "Stop standing around, girls! Five laps around the court!"
[[Press A to run.|a dud]]
(set:$smarts to 1)
]][[I'm going to assume this means that Maddie's boyfriend knows what a clit is.|clarify]]