I.
The baby's mother is overjoyed to learn that she's having a girl, because she has always, always wanted a daughter. She envisions adorable dresses and ballet lessons and giggly slumber parties - all experiences she missed out on in her own childhood.
While she herself is not a traditional wife and finds it hard to imagine she'll be a traditional mother, what she wants more than anything is a safe, ordinary life for her daughter.
The baby's father is...less enthused when he learns he will soon be outnumbered in his own house. His many brothers all have many sons, and so, he believed that he too would add a boy to his family tree - a son who would carry his name and legacy, a son he could shape into a man.
He does not know what to do with a girl. He does not know how to raise a daughter.
...
In the delivery room, a name falls from the mother's lips as she cradles the child in her arms. It's soft and pretty - her favorite flower - and the perfect name for a baby girl.
It is too soft, the father thinks. Too pretty. He hates the smell of that particular flower.
As if sensing the opposing forces in the room, the baby begins to wail.
Her name is Jasmine.
...
But not for long.
As soon as she learns the alphabet, she's spelling it however she wants.
Jazmin. Jasman. Jazzmen.
Her many frustrated teachers ask her to please spell it the right way, which makes no sense to her, because it's her name, so however she spells it is the right way. She spends a month stubbornly scrawling Jazsmenne onto all her assignments in an act of defiance.
The truth is, it doesn't matter how many ways she spells it.
The truth is, she just doesn't like it.
When she was younger, her mother read her stories of beautiful princesses who also had flower names, who were kind and gentle and all the things a little girl should be. Her father, on the rare occasion that he actually spent time with her, told her tales of wives who did as they were told and nothing more, who were quiet and obedient and all the things the world expected of a woman.
And all of these qualities may have fit her name, but they don't fit her.
It's like a frilly dress two sizes too big, made of layer upon layer of promises that swallow and overwhelm her, promises she can't keep.
Eventually, she runs out of creative new spellings and is just about resigned to living out her life as a Jasmine, when a thought comes to her. It's simple, really. She can't believe it never occurred to her before.
The next day at school, she writes three letters on her sheet of paper.
J-A-Z.
It's a perfect fit.
...
Here's the thing.
She tries.
She really does try to be the person her parents want her to be.
...
Much to her mother's displeasure, the new name sticks.
It's Jaz! or Jazzy! that ring from the streets or through the phone as her friends call her to go shoot hoops or play tag in the park. What a waste of a pretty name, her mother mutters. And when her daughter comes back home, stomping through the door, knees scuffed and dirt on her face, her mother can't help but think, what a waste of a pretty girl.
Perhaps Jasmine could have been the type of girl who wore ribbons in her hair and played the piano and took dance lessons, but Jaz is decidedly not.
Jaz makes it exactly 12 minutes through her first ballet class before she is kicked out by the teacher with a formal notice citing "disorderly conduct," which is really just a nice way of saying that she punched another girl in the face.
Her mother is furious because she's not the perfect daughter she imagined, and her father, well, he's realizing the only thing worse than a daughter is one who misbehaves.
The letter conveniently leaves out the fact that the other girl is a bully who was terrorizing the younger, smaller students in class.
If you ask Jaz, the other girl had it coming.
No one asks Jaz.
...
With ballet out of her schedule and a burning need to get out of the house, she decides to enroll in karate. If she can't be a good daughter, maybe she could try being a son. Or at least an imitation of one.
Karate, she can do. She likes it and she's skilled at it, and for the next three years, she takes lessons twice a week after school. She gets good enough to compete in local competitions, and she wins some, then most, then all of her matches, qualifying for the state championship. And for the first time in her life, she thinks at least one parent might be proud of her, because her father takes the day off to drive her to the big match, and right before she steps onto the mat, he leans down to whisper in her ear.
Do not disappoint me, is what he says. But Jaz, still young, naive, and desperate for his approval, hears something different. What Jaz hears is good luck.
In the end, it doesn't much matter what is said or heard because she loses.
She puts up an admirable fight, gives a solid performance, but the fact is, her opponent is bigger and stronger, and no matter how good she is, there is someone better. At the end of it, every inch of her is sore and she knows her skin is sure to be black and blue in the morning.
On the drive home, her father doesn't speak a word, not even after she apologizes, not even after she promises to do better next time.
He says nothing, and the silence hurts more than her bruises ever could.
...
Here's the thing.
She really does try to be the person her parents want her to be.
But the person her mother wants is not the same person her father wants.
And she ends up disappointing both of them.
...
There is nothing tying her to New York after she graduates high school, and no amount of part-time minimum-wage jobs could have ever made college a possibility, so she takes the only option left for an aimless teenager like herself. She joins the military.
With the meager funds she's saved up over the years, she buys a one-way ticket out of town, packs a bag, and bids her parents an awkward goodbye. Her mother gives her a tearful hug, aghast at the thought of her daughter veering so far off the path she had envisioned. Her father simply stares at her, silent as ever.
In that moment, she looks at them, really looks at them, and sees something she never saw before. Two people who are perhaps unsatisfied with their own lives, who tried to fulfill their dreams through her.
Fuck. That.
Her life is her own and she'll be damned if she lets them make her feel guilty for living it.
She slings her bag over her shoulder and walks out the door.
Perhaps Jasmine would have turned back one last time.
Jaz doesn't.