Half of a Whole

Justin left me ruined, left me in my loneliness, left me as a part of a whole forever.

We were born on August 4, 1982. Him first and then I followed a minute later. I guess you could say that was the tone of our relationship, the way we were seen by our family, the way that the world would regard us. 

Our parents were ordinary— extremely ordinary; the only part of their lives that were out of the box were us— the twins. 

Mom didn’t have twins in her family and dad couldn’t remember if he had either. But somehow here we were— Justin and Jessica. No one in the family could recall whether or not my parents were at all surprised by the news of two, but also, they could hardly remember much of that time. Happiness seemed a luxury as most families, including our own, were struggling with the dilemmas of raising and funding a child. There is a high possibility that they had always wanted the two of us to become one. 

Either way, two came out, and our Mom was always so careful to mention how much she loved us whenever we brought up the struggles that they faced. Dad was more reserved about his love for us, mainly for me, but I think that happens with most families with more than one child— alliances are made, lines are drawn and one child was always the preferred. But don’t misunderstand me, our parents really loved both of us; favoritism just underscored our lives. 

Justin was born with the crown of the first born male, a blessing in the Asian culture, and was treated as such from our entire family. My aunts and uncles would dote on him through out our entire lives. He was given the first and largest helping of food right after our dad, the first chance to speak before I could and would have the first of everything. I was second class in regards to the hierarchy we were born into, and it was especially clear when our birthday would come. 

Celebrations were a large part of our childhood. We always had two parties— one with our family, extended and beyond, and then another with our friends. At these birthday gatherings, my family would make it a point to celebrate Justin’s achievements for that year: another year of straight A’s, another year of perfect attendance, Debate Club president, Student Body President his Junior and Senior year, Editor and Chief of the school newspaper and sometimes just for surviving. It was difficult to live in his shadow, and I remember one year I had done the unthinkable— I had surpassed Justin’s GPA that quarter and as I waited to be recognized as the smarter of the twins I was met with more congratulations for Justin’s ability to balance his education as well as personal life. Congratulations Justin on your new girlfriend! I always found our twinship a competition, but I think that Justin just saw it as something else— he just wanted to be seen as an individual— a whole person versus a half of a whole. 

Our family were traditionally Korean American and the ideals that our parents had grown up with were deeply embedded within our lives. We were close and Mom always wanted us to be around to have dinner with her and Dad once a week. It was our small tradition to sit around the dark mahogany dinner table every Sunday discussing the week ahead, the plans we had, the way we were all moving in our daily without one another. These dinners bonded us, and was the only time that I felt that Justin and I were equals. I knew what Mom and Dad expected of us and so did Justin, but neither one of us tried to show the other up— we just shared that moment together. 

Life seemed to move simply in our family— everyone doing what they had planned, pulling together to achieve the goals of our ancestors, everything was so simple. Then we lost Mom and Dad. They died on a flight due to arrive to NYC, where they were going to meet with our aunt and uncle to spend the week sight-seeing and enjoying the differences of a bustling city versus their quiet suburbia. They had planned this vacation for years and had no foresight, as well as the others, to not get on that flight that Tuesday morning. I never talk about this with anyone. Justin used to not talk about this with anyone. We ignored the sad truth as best as we could—together. 

The week was a blur of phone calls, family visiting, and postponed classes. Ultimately we had the responsibility of the estate, of their after-life, and everything else that came along. We spent the remainder of our college years cleaning house— trying to figure out what to do with the memories our parents left behind. 

Justin took charge, as he always had, and put the house for sale as we rounded out our last year in college. He made plans for the entire estate and set up accounts for both of us— separately. The year went by quickly and as he drowned himself in his to-do lists and meetings with lawyers I stayed in the background quietly wondering what would happen to us next. 

Unfortunately for me, as I thought of us, Justin thought of only himself. He had made plans for the next step without me. He had somehow applied for grad school during the dizzying final year and got into a program in New York. He had decided to go to the city where it had all happened. It was as if he was running towards the fire while all I wanted was to stay silently far away in the cold. 

I wanted to stay where we were. I wanted to stay somewhere I knew. I never wanted to go anywhere besides here. But I also didn’t know how to be anywhere without him. We had never been apart.

He never asked me to come, but when I brought up the subject, he simply said that the option was always there for me. That it was up to me to decide. I didn’t know how to decide. 

The date of his final departure loomed in the background and I had no plans, no idea of what I wanted to do with myself, so I did the only thing that I knew how to do— I followed him. 

On the flight to NYC, I gripped the arm rest hoping that our lives wouldn’t go as easily as Mom and Dad’s. I clutched to the hope that we would find ourselves in our new city safe and sound. I prayed that I would find some peace when we landed. I had hoped for anything to make me safe and whole again. 

Justin spent the entirety of the flight preoccupied— preoccupied by the movie playing, the book on his lap and the small bursts of sleep that found him through out the flight. He didn’t seem at all feeling about this— the lack of anxiety, excitement, nervousness only built in me more. I never tried to talk to him, to try to fill the nervous silence with my pleading for any kind of attention. I had only hoped that he would sense my need for him. Instead he turned his head to the window and slept. 

It’s true what everyone said. New York was probably the safest place to be at that moment. The streets still filled with people going about. The hustle of the city still alive as if what had happened a year ago hadn’t. But it had and it had happened to us.

While Justin went to classes and his new internship, I continued my journey of hiding— hiding from all of it. I found myself walking most of my days away. Walking to the library, walking back to the apartment, walking to my park bench, and then walking back. The library became my place of solace, sitting around the thick wooden tables and chairs reminded me of home, reminded me of Sunday dinners, reminded me of Mom and Dad. I would sit all afternoon holding a book in my hand with no regard to what was written on the pages, flipping aimlessly as I timed my movements of everyone else around me. 

When I would get hungry, I would eat. When I would get tired, I would sleep. My life was a routine without any time constraints. This was the opposite for Justin, who had timed his day hourly and sometimes minute. He found his solace in a busy schedule. We were the most different then. 

He tried to push me to be more like him— to find a job, to apply for grad school, to do something with my life. I resisted. This was what was helping me and he knew he could never talk me out of how I was feeling. It was how I felt. It was not logical. It had no time limit. He left me to the sounds of the city on my walks. But as time went on, Justin tried to introduce new elements into my life. He had attempted to include me in his social life, inviting me out to meet his new found friends and colleagues. Sometimes I would agree, sometimes I would convince myself that I could do it— that I could be a part of life once again. Those moments were short lived. They usually ended with me riddled with anxiety that would grow discomfort in my gut. The pain I had imagined would take on a life of it’s own and I would be alone once again.

In the beginning, Justin would cancel and stay behind with me but after so many times he grew tired of my incapacity and would leave to only return early in the morning or the following day. I would find myself blaming my inability to cope as the reason Justin and I had started to grow apart. But at the same time, I had hopes that our twinship would be enough to keep us bonded. 

Much as he had treated and dealt with the death of our parents, he treated me— he dealt with me. He had started to make new friends, date and explore the city while I was left to deal with the loneliness by myself. I urged myself to grow out of this. I sought help from therapists, talked to a number of specialists and joined groups that dealt with grief and loss; however, none were able to change me— to make me feel anything besides empty. At this point in our time in New York, Justin had been able to get a job, finish grad school and somehow successfully gotten me to get a part-time job at a coffee shop near our place. The step was small, but Justin had celebrated it as if it was the biggest accomplishment I’ve had in years. 

Truth was— it was. 

Although the job was small, and only part-time, the coffee shop proved to be good for me. The days that I worked there I was able to reintegrate myself back to the world. I was able to meet strangers and due to the quick paced nature of the job I was able to still keep myself hidden away from the prying questions of strangers that had time to care. The simple exchange of need and want was an added benefit to what the city continued to provide for me— a place to hide. 

Years had passed since we arrived in New York, and soon enough I had a routine, a timed one that required some permanence. I slowly fell into small talk with my co-workers and with that came connections outside of Justin that provided some sort of semblance of normalcy in the eyes of my twin. 

I still kept myself tucked away from anything outside of the library, coffee shop and the apartment; but the addition to some social interaction made Justin feel like I was getting better. He finally admitted to me that he was in a relationship with a girl he had met in grad school. He had been with her for over two years and failed to mention it to me in fear of my fragility. I had known someone had entered his life, I had felt it in the way he talked and moved in the apartment— I had heard it in the silent conversations I had with him while we sat across from one another during dinner. But he finally had spoken her into true existence and I didn’t know how to respond. 

I think my silence came as a surprise to him, I think he had thought that I was able to incorporate another person in my life now, I think he thought I was better. I wasn’t. 

He showed me her picture, he talked about who she was and where she worked and how she made him feel. He talked to me about how she helped him grieve the loss of our parents. He told me that for the first time since Mom and Dad he felt whole. 

And there it was. Everything that I had been searching for— he had found. Everything that I had been searching for us to do together— he had found in another. 

The conversation was surround with my silence and Justin’s frustration. Another argument with the person I had shared my entire being with since we were in Mom. I had hoped that he was done telling me everything he wanted to. I had hoped that he recognized and felt that I had enough— that I had hit my maximum. But for the first time, I saw anger in his eyes towards me. I saw the frustration that had accumulated since our parents death turn in his eyes. He had enough of my incapability— of my incapacity to be. 

Then he said the words that would forever change us: I’m moving out. 

I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe that this was the moment that we had gotten to. I begged him to stay. I begged him that I would try to be better, that I would try harder. But the truth was he had been planning this for the past six months. He had planned to move in with this new girl, his new person that he couldn’t be without. He had just been waiting for the right time. The right time to tell me the news— the news that he had moved on wholly without me. 

He left. I stayed. The new girl tried to meet me every chance she got, but anytime I felt that she may impose herself on our time I cancelled. I hid. I ran. 

Our time became filled with arguments as this continued. Our time that was supposed to be a reminder that we only had one another at the end of it, became conversations and screaming matches over why I couldn’t just get over this and move on. This new person became another burden in our twinship. Soon enough, he began to treat me how he had when we first moved to New York— the burden to be dealt with.

I continued to live the way we had when he left. I worked part-time, walked around the city, went to the library and went back to that apartment every night. The loneliness was palpable without Justin— without my family. 

I decided that I needed to do something. I needed Justin and I knew that he ultimately needed me as well. We had a bond that was unlike anyone else’s. No one could replace a twin— no matter how much they loved them. So I tried. I started small by calling him and asking to speak to her. I think the initiation on my end showed Justin my willingness to change, my undying love for him and our family. 

It had been awkward, at first, talking to her about things that I had already known— things that Justin had talked about, shared with me, and showed me. But as the weeks continued, I got to enjoy her voice— her company. I started to understand how she could make Justin feel the way he felt, I finally understood that what Justin was doing for me the entire time was shielding me from his own pain due to my fragility. He had truly taken on the role of the oldest son— shouldering the burden of the entire family. I had finally decided that she had become a part of his found family. A family he had chosen to support him when I couldn’t. And then I decided to meet her. 

I picked the place, the coffee shop, and they came. All three of us nervously sat around the dark wood table on a Sunday, sipping a coffee and picking at muffins and scones in front of us. The air felt different and for the first time, I saw Justin nervous and anxious. He watched the two of us talk— waiting for a bomb to go off. And as the conversation grew steady between the three of us, the ease and simplicity of old Sunday dinners started to come to life. We laughed and for the first time I let someone new in. I thought that the conversation would be introductory for me, that it would be a getting to know of sorts and then I realized the sparkling stone on her hand. 

It was clear. He had decided to move on. He had moved on. He had moved on without me. Without me by his side. And for the first time in our lives, he would have a family without me. And I would be alone.