The campus pond behind the gym had always been still, its surface like glass—so undisturbed that Lian often wondered if it was real. Today, he found himself there without meaning to, notebook in hand, but no urge to draw. The animals had been quieter lately. Or maybe they hadn't. Maybe he'd just stopped listening so hard.
Across the water, Jamie sat on the edge of the concrete, her reflection barely rippling. He hadn't spoken to her since the group project two days ago, when she'd snapped at him for correcting her in front of the others. He hadn't meant to; it just slipped out.
Now she looked calm, almost unreadable. No animal shimmered around her. No form floated to the surface.
He sat a few feet away. Didn't speak. Just listened to the water lap gently against the stone.
Eventually, Jamie broke the silence. "You ever wonder if you're the one that's hard to read?"
Lian blinked. "What?"
"You're always trying to figure people out," she said. "But have you ever thought maybe… we're looking at you too? Trying to decide what you are?"
He looked down. "And what do you see?"
Jamie shrugged, but not carelessly. Thoughtfully. "Sometimes… a turtle. Quiet, watching everything. But sometimes—lately—you seem more like… fog. You cover things. I can't tell what's underneath."
He didn't respond.
He thought of what Mr. Arman once said: "We reflect what they cannot show."
Was it possible that he'd stopped reflecting? That all he showed back was his own confusion?
Jamie skipped a small rock. It bounced twice before sinking. "I used to think I could read people too. In my own way. But then I started noticing how often I was wrong."
"I don't think being wrong means you're not seeing," Lian said. "Maybe it just means people aren't finished yet."
She smiled faintly. "Neither are you."
Back home, the living room felt dimmer than usual. His mother was asleep on the couch, an open photo album resting on her chest. Lian tiptoed past, but something pulled him back. He sat beside her and gently lifted the album.
He hadn't looked through it in years.
There was a photo of his mother when she first arrived in America. Her hair was longer, her eyes sharper. Next to her, a man—his father. Lian barely recognized the version of him in the picture. They looked like strangers standing too close.
He turned the page.
More photos. Some from birthdays he didn't remember. A picture of him at five, holding a crayon drawing of a dragon and a bird—his mother behind him, smiling.
He stared at that one.
The dragon looked angry. The bird looked like it was flying away.
He wondered which one was supposed to be him.
That night, he had another dream.
He stood in a field, ankle-deep in water. Animals walked around him, but none looked at him. They weren't frightening. They were just… there. Walking. Transforming. A fox into a falcon. A deer into a tiger. A snake curling into a dog's shape.
He saw Jamie in the distance. She was holding a lantern, walking calmly across the water, her reflection split and twisting. And then Mr. Arman—seated by a tree, reading. His shape flickered.
And then Lian looked down.
He had no reflection.
Only ripples.
In the morning, he didn't draw.
He opened his notebook, flipped past pages filled with years of animals, theories, questions—and stopped on a blank one.
Then, he simply wrote:
I don't know what I am.
And just beneath that:
Maybe that's the point.