“Steven, you’re funny! Everyone thinks so; why do you always hyper-focus on this fact?” Anna said in an exasperated tone.

“Because it’s my thing, Anna! I’m not perfect like you, and I’m certainly not better than perfect like your fucking boyfriend, okay?” Steven rarely raised his voice to his sister and he felt immediately ashamed at doing so. But Anna just didn’t get it. Steven’s dad had impossibly high standards when it came to him, and it wasn’t fair. He’d never told Anna, but on more than one occasion their father had commanded he come to his study, where he lectured him about how hard he had worked to get their family where they were. As an immigrant, Edward said he worked four times as hard to be seen as equal to a Caucasian. It was true that he had been born into wealth the same way Steven had, but Edward’s Korean father sent him to America to be educated. He was shipped off to an East Coast boarding school when he was only ten years old. Children of any race and upbringing can be cruel, but entitled white children were often especially cruel. His classmates were not welcoming in the slightest. So he had to fight hard to earn their respect, working with a speech tutor to lose his accent until he spoke perfect English, exceling at sports, and making sure he ranked at the top of his class when it came to academics. The only way he was able to garner the attention of girls in his school was by careful calculations on his part.

Marrying Steven’s mother, Greer, was not only about love, but also about Edward’s desire that his future children would travel an easier road than he did. Edward had the money and the intelligence, but it was Greer’s old-family name that opened the right doors in society. Edward warned his son that as a half-Korean, half-white man, Steven would face racism, not as overtly as he had, but in subtler ways. Steven needed to understand it would always be present. Steven’s father told him how he would never truly fit in with Koreans or with Caucasians; however, if Steven played his cards right, his own future children would have it easier. He could not afford to fuck up, and as far as Edward was concerned, Steven was a disappointment from the moment he got kicked out of Collegiate in the fifth grade.

Steven hated the pressure, always feeling torn between being the person his father expected him to be and figuring out who he wanted to be for himself. Steven wished he could tell Anna the truth, but he could never bring himself to do it. “God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to yell. I’m just … I know you’re trying to help. I’m just an insecure asshole.”