It’s already midnight when I trudge back to my room.
Abigail is waiting for me. She’s practically in the same position, in the same spot as when I left her, and I’m struck by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. It’s as if time has stopped, yet so much has happened. I can still feel the ghost of Julius’s hands around mine.
“Are you . . . still mad at me?” she asks.
I sit down and pat for her to sit as well. Am I mad? I search myself for any remnants of anger, but there’s nothing. I don’t want to argue with her. I just want to be around my best friend.
“This is what my mom always does when she’s about to lecture me,” she mumbles.
“I’m not going to lecture you,” I say. “I only have a few questions.” Her eyes widen in horror. “That’s also exactly what she says.”
“I mean it. I’m genuinely curious . . . Why did you do it?” I ask. It’s the one thing I can’t let go of, can’t fully wrap my mind around. “What was going through your head?”
She hugs her knees to her chest. I can’t be sure what I’m waiting for her to say, but it’s certainly not: “You know how I used to pour boiling water into plastic bottles before you stopped me and told me it could release
dangerous chemical stuff?” “Uh, yeah,” I reply.
“Or how I once almost touched mercury, thinking it was just a funny- looking form of silver?”
“Yes.”
“Or that time I convinced myself I could write a five-thousand-word essay during our lunch break?”
I shudder just recalling it. I had nearly broken out into stress hives for her. “Definitely.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never really been smart-smart or particularly talented. I’ve always known that. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to come in first in a race or be praised by teachers. My kindergarten teacher literally called my parents to the school to tell them I wasn’t making as much progress as
everyone else.” She lets out a quiet laugh. “And guess what my parents did?
They called the teacher narrow-minded and judgmental and stormed out of the office, and then they picked me up early and took me to get strawberry ice cream. They never made me feel insecure. But there are times when I still want to feel . . . useful. Needed, the way everyone needs you. And I mostly get that feeling when I’m giving advice to people or helping them work out the things going on in their lives. Does that make even a little bit of sense?”
“Kind of,” I say.
Abigail rests her chin on top of her knees, her platinum hair falling around her. “So I’m being totally honest when I say that I wanted to help you, and I thought I was helping you. I didn’t mean to go so far. I won’t ever meddle again, I promise,” she says. “But I’ll also understand if you’re still angry and want to drop me or violently smash a cake in my face—”
“I assure you, I’ve never once been tempted to smash a cake in somebody’s face,” I snort. “It’s a tremendous waste of food.”
She pauses, a faint, tentative smile touching her lips.
“And I assure you that I’m not going to drop you,” I tell her, giving her a light shove. “Even if I were mad at you, you can be mad at someone and still love them.”
“You mean it? We’re still— We’re cool?”
I nod. Raise my eyebrows. “Who else am I supposed to talk to when I’ve just kissed someone in the corridor during a rainstorm?”
I watch the understanding sink in. Her jaw unhinges. Her eyes light up.
She grabs my hand, squeezing hard. “You don’t mean . . . You and—”
I can only nod again, unable to help the grin spreading over my face.
“Holy shit,” she yelps, and all the tension between us thaws as she
springs up fully on the bed, and it’s like every sleepover we’ve ever had, giggling into our pillows and whispering with the lights out. “Okay, you have to tell me everything. Don’t spare any details—actually, no, you can
spare certain details, but, like, was it good? Was he good? Are you together now?”
I’m laughing so hard my stomach hurts, and even though I know we’ll both be exhausted tomorrow, we stay up talking until four in the morning, and when I finally do fall asleep, I feel lighter than I have in years.
• • •
“How was your school trip?” Mom asks from behind the bakery counter. I had braced myself for a mess when I first walked in, imagining burnt bread and invalid receipts and spilled jam and a thousand other mini disasters to sort through after my time away. But everything is in perfect order. The
SORRY, WE ARE CLOSED sign has already been hung up on the front door, and most of the shelves have been cleared.
I set my bag down on the spotless floor, then seat myself at an empty
table. My arms are still sore from the camp activities, and my shirt is all wrinkled, and my left shoe is damp from when I’d accidentally stepped into a puddle on my way to the bus, but I feel a smile drift up to my face, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t be smiling, why I haven’t been doing it more my whole life. “Good. Great, actually.”
She assesses me for a few beats, her eyes warm. “You look very happy.” “So do you,” I say in surprise, studying her too. It’s hard to place what,
exactly, is different, only that it is. Maybe it’s something about the evening light streaming in through the windows and softening her features, or the relaxed line of her shoulders. Or just how still she is. In all my memories of her, she’s moving around, restless, rushing to get from one place to another.
“Because you are,” she says. “Also, Max has good news. He’s been waiting for you to get back to tell you himself.”
I crane my neck. “Good news?”
The second the words leave my lips, Max pops out from the back room. “Surprise,” he calls, beaming wide.
I’m instantly wary. “Is this one of those jokes where you say you’re the surprise because your presence itself is a gift?”
“No, though I’m very flattered you think so,” Max says, pulling out the chair opposite me with a drawn-out scraping sound. “I have something better than that.” He pauses dramatically and clears his throat. “You might want to be seated for this.”
“I’m already seated.”
“It’s a figure of speech,” he says, annoyed. “Cooperate, please.” “Aiya, just hurry up and tell her, Max,” my mom urges, stepping out
from behind the counter to join us. She even takes her work apron off, which is how I know that whatever’s coming is a big deal. I’ve seen her fall asleep with that thing on.
“Okay. So basically, a scout for the Hunters—yes, the Hunters—has been coming to a few of my games and . . . in short, they’re interested in recruiting me. Like, super interested. Like, if this were a marriage, they’re already shopping around for the ring. And it’s occurring to me as I speak that that’s a weird analogy, but, like, whatever, because they’re interested.”
My jaw drops. “I— Oh my god.” It’s all I can think to say. “Are you— are you for real?”
He grins at me. “Obviously.”
I’m still fumbling around for proper words to express how elated I am, how relieved, how shocked, so I slap his arm instead.
“Hey!” he yelps. “Why are you hitting me—”
“When was this? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“I mean, it’s kind of been a developing situation for the past few months, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up too quickly in case you were disappointed . . .”
Past few months. I’m aware that I’m gaping, but I can’t help it. This entire time I’ve been worried sick about him and his future, desperate to
solve every problem to come up, because I thought that he wasn’t worried at all. That he simply didn’t care enough. But he’s okay—far better than okay. And this bakery is okay too. And, somehow, so is my mom, who’s smiling at both of us, her eyes bright.
And I have to wonder when things changed. Or if it’s been like this for years, but I was buried too deep in my own guilt to look up and see for myself that everything is really, truly fine.
My chest aches at the thought, joy and sadness mingling together. “I’m happy for you,” I tell Max. “Genuinely.”
He wrinkles his nose, but he also bumps my shoulder. It’s what we used to do when we were on the same team in basketball and won a game against our dad. And I’ve missed that. Not just our dad, but being on Max’s team. “Don’t you dare go all sappy on me,” he warns. “Save it for when I break a world record.”
“Fine. Then I’ll save you the speech and go do something productive.” I look around for a cloth. “Have all the tables been wiped already? Because I can—”
“No,” Mom says.
“No?” I repeat, confused.
“You just got back,” she says. “Rest. Relax. Do whatever you want to do.”
I hesitate. “Are you sure?” “Go,” she insists.
I’m sorry. The words rise instinctively to my lips, but I push them down, seal them shut with the part of me that believes everyone else’s
happiness should come at the expense of my own. Try something different for once. “Thank you,” I say quietly. It feels foreign. Strange. Yet it tastes sweet on my tongue, like forgiveness, like the rising spring air, like the lingering scent of strawberry shortcakes.
Like a beginning.
• • •
On the bus ride home, I take the window seat and compose a brand-new email:
Julius,
I’m writing this to inform you that you’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met. You, with your smug, razor-sharp smiles, your mocking eyes, your arrogance, and your vanity. Your voice when you call my name, your hands when they wrap around mine. I’m not so familiar with vices—I like to think I have none, but if anything were to count, you would be my only one. It must be an addiction or an obsession. I have never known anybody as completely as I know you, and yet I
still want to sit next to you, draw close to you, closer. I want you to tell me every story, want to listen to you speak until the night sinks in the sky and the stars fade out. I want you to hold me like a grudge, keep me like a promise, haunt me like a ghost. You’re so beautiful it enrages me.
Maybe you’re expecting an apology after all this time, so I’ll cut to the chase:
It’s not coming. I apologize far too much—I’m working on it, I promise—but I’m not sorry for those emails.
You know that evening when I stumbled across your conversation with your brother? All right, not stumbled—followed. That’s beside the point. Afterward, I could track the hurt in your eyes, and everything in me burned. I’m not sure if I expressed myself clearly enough then, if I’d convinced you enough. If not, then let me establish for now and forever that you will never be second. You will never be inadequate. You will never be anything but good.
Because you care how your parents see you. Because you will talk about anything except the things that actually hurt you. Because you never commit to something if you can’t see it through to the end. Because you are brutally hard on yourself, and you have never gone easy on me in a competition or test. Because you challenge me, you distract me when my brain is being cruel, you sharpen my edges when the world tries to wear them down. Because every time I tired during
class, I would catch your eye across the room, and remember why I needed to keep going.
Since I’ve decided to peel back my pride for the length of this email, let me tell you a little secret. When I was fourteen, I would stare up at my bedroom walls and wonder what it was like to fall in love. Most of my inspiration came from songs and the movies. But still, I imagined it. What it would be like to be someone who had somebody else. I would imagine tenderness. The concept of infinity. Of endless patience. Imagine them chasing after me even when I run. Cradling my sorrows in the palm of their hands. Imagine them caring, trying to understand.
And now there’s you. This whole time, it’s been you, and I didn’t even realize. In retrospect, it makes sense, doesn’t it? In order to beat the enemy, you have to understand them intimately. You have to observe them, learn their weaknesses, memorize their every word, track their progress, predict their next move. For ten years I thought I was preparing to destroy you, when really I was preparing to love you.
All of which is to say I really hope this finds you. And I hope you find me too.
Sadie
I receive his reply within ten minutes. It’s only two sentences:
You were right, Sadie Wen. I am completely, helplessly obsessed with you. Love,
Julius
