Standing in the middle of Macy’s women’s clothing department, my five-year-old self felt that time proceeded like a slow-moving cloud, puffy and inching across a grey sky. While my mother’s fingers skimmed the tops of hangers in the sales section, I jumped under the clothes and hid in the middle of the ring of sweaters, wishing myself somewhere else and feeling as though I were swimming through a sea of itchy blankets. Static made my hair stand on end like a mohawk. The speakers overhead sang “How to Save a Life” by Fray, reminding me of someone with a cold who was sick in bed all day and desperately needed a tissue to blow his nose. My light-up Sketchers briefly turned my hiding spot into a discotheque. Beneath my feet, tan carpet was stained with God knows what. I was hungry and bored, and the dimly-bright lighting of Macy’s only accentuated my boredom and hunger.

“Mom, can we please go now?” I asked for the seventh time. We had been cruising the sweater section for twenty minutes already. Already, I’d watched four elderly ladies amble past, drifting at the pace of sailboat, their hands holding old-lady handbags.

“In a little bit,” my mother answered, slinging a purple sweater over her arm.

When I emerged from the ring of sweaters, I found my mother had wandered off to another rack of sales items. I could barely see her elbow poking out beyond a leather jacket. Around me, I saw nothing but racks and racks of clothes and the tan carpet beneath my shoes, like dead grass. The distant sound of cash registers beeped like the beckoning of mischief. I could smell the heady mix of perfumes in the Fragrance department. For some reason, my mother wasn’t worried that I might wander off. Briefly I looked at the exit and contemplated how close I could get to the toy shop before my mother noticed the blinking chaos of my light-up shoes as I dashed away.

But maybe she wouldn’t notice at all.

As the baby of the family, I was the forgotten one. My older sister had a million baby photos in our leather-bound photo albums stacked neatly in her bedroom. Professional photos, of course. There are also countless ones of her sitting in the backseat of the car, many of her in the bathtub, in shopping carts, in the park, doing the most mundane activities like eating, sucking her pacifier, standing around in her diaper, and sleeping.

There is only one known baby photograph of me, and my sister June is in the photo. We are sitting on my dad’s lap. My face looks like a squished peanut, and June is smiling and happy. I could understand if my parents just got busier after I was born and stopped taking pictures. After all, another kid means more attention to give to each child, more mouths to feed, more bills to pay. However, what was really annoying was that even after I was born, my parents still took plenty of pictures of June. She seemed like the center of their world. The only child in our family.

And to make matters worse, my sister always bossed me around. If I didn’t obey her when I was younger, she would say, “If you don’t do what I say, you’ll have to pay me ten dollars. Five, four, three, two...” If I didn’t do her bidding by the count of “one,” she would make me pay her the money. I don’t know why I paid her. Maybe I was afraid of what she might do if I didn’t. I had to beg my parents for the money and then run into her room and give it to her. It was as if she was my loan shark. 

Standing there in a field of cashmere, I thought about my place in the world. I was only five years old, but I was angry, rebellious, a little vindictive, if I were honest about it. I had a kind of a demon inside me that I had to let out. I don’t know why I wanted to do it. I just wanted to do something. Perhaps, it was the freedom of being bad with no one watching. My five-year-old mind reasoned, “What could really go wrong?” I glanced in all directions to make sure that no one could see my wrongdoing. With no one around me, I decided. Why not?

And so I did the deed.

The rush of excitement in the midst of the act was like nothing I’d ever experienced in my five long years. The whole incident took maybe ten seconds, but it felt good. It felt like bouncing in a bouncy house, or swinging on a swingset, or diving into a swimming pool on a hot day.

Hopefully no one saw me. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I’d been caught, but I imagined security guards carting me away to a room, where I’d live forever being deprived of fruit punch and sleeping on a cot made of itchy cashmere.

I sidled up to my mother, who now had an arm full of clothes.

“Come on. Let’s go look at the purses.”

That day amounted to the first day of my addiction.

The next time I did it, I was in a more public place.

My dad and I were in 99 Ranch to buy fresh crabs and seaweed snacks because, for some reason, all we needed were those two items. My father stood at the tank of crabs waiting for the clerk to scoop out selections. I liked hanging out with my dad, but I thought it was gross that he was a dentist. He had photos of people’s mouths on his camera, their gums all gushing with blood from dental surgery. As a kid I thought my dad was disgusting but I was his little girl, and he protected me in the Haunted House at the state fair, so I almost felt guilty for thinking he was gross and for what I was about to do.

While my father had his head turned away to point out the crabs he wanted, I wandered over to the frozen aisle with its taro cakes and mochi. Maybe it was the cool air or the smell of vanilla or the fact that my father’s back was turned and the aisle was empty, I’m not sure. But I couldn’t resist the urge this time. I looked both ways down the long aisle. Briefly, an elderly woman pushed her cart by but entered another aisle. I could still hear her squeaky wheel as it rolled to the beat of the song “Hui Jia” that played overhead. My pulse quickened and my face felt hot, but my mind had already made itself up. I was going to do it. Again.

And I did it.

It only took me a second this time. I was quick as a camera shutter. Of course, once I’d finished, I felt guilty, but still exhilarated, as if I couldn’t get enough of this freedom. Yes, it was freeing, being able to do as I pleased and not caring about the consequences. It was amazing that I could be doing something so terrible and yet get away with it, with no one looking or finding out. With my face feeling hot but cool, I strode over to my father and acted as if I’d merely gone to browse the frozen goods. None the wiser, he was holding a bag of crab legs. “You ready to go?” he asked. I nodded, and we left the store.

After that, I got a little out of control. I sought the reward of adrenaline again and again. Looking back, I realize I compulsively engaged in the behavior to alleviate some absence within myself.

As time went on, the feeling of excitement was harder to achieve, especially with a concern for safety always present on my mind. I had to let go of my worries to achieve more exhilaration, more of the feeling of “getting away with it.” To get my fix, I had to grow more bold. I started to do it everywhere, at 7-11s by slushee machines, in other people’s houses, and even at restaurants. I knew I was going to get caught sooner or later but the sheer joy of it all kept me going. Over time, my behavior intensified, decreasing my aversion. I was no longer as careful as I had been in my early days.

Then one day, my sister and I were at the Plaza Mall, a massive indoor shopping center where we like to go on rainy days to shop. My parents wanted to pick up smoothies, so they let my sister take me with her to Gamestop to buy a Pokémon game. She was obsessed like that; she loved water Pokémon. Why? I don’t know. She strode in front of me, her hand holding her cell phone and her eyes glued to it. She was ten years old but already texting like a fiend. She had three best friends and I had one. She was allowed to sit in the front seat but I had to stay in my booster seat. My grandfather gave her a fishing rod for Christmas, but gave me a Dora the Explorer tent, as if he didn’t trust me to catch a fish. Everyone in the family called me “Mei,” meaning little girl, but they called her “June,” her name. 

We turned a corner and reached the section of the mall where the massive skylight shone down on a seating area surrounded by tall potted plants with thick green leaves. No one sat on the benches to see me. But my sister was only five paces ahead, so I hesitated. With the beam of light shining down, however, it was as if God himself were summoning me. It was my chance. I was on a stage, with the brilliance, the imagined crowd, that sense of being at the center of the universe. And, of course, I couldn’t resist. How could I?

So I did it.

My sister turned around just in time to catch me.

“What the heck are you doing, Mei?” she asked, her eyes big and perplexed, as if she didn’t know me.

I quickly pulled my pants back up over my bunny underwear. “I don’t know,” I said.

“You know they have security cameras everywhere now, right?” she asked pointing at the ceiling.

I looked above and saw the round black glass ball gazing at me.

“They do?” I asked, horrified. Briefly I remembered all the places.

“Yes!”

That time at the mall was the last of my addiction.

To this day, I notice security cameras wherever I go, and that feeling of being watched keeps me in line. Still, however, I have that urge somewhere inside me to act out. How else can I right the wrongs of my world?