I Hope This Finds You (I Hope This Doesn’t Find You #1.5)

Chapter 1

It’s an honor to be waiting outside the school gates for Julius Gong.

Not that I’d ever admit it to him, of course.

So I pretend to be busy rifling through my bag, even though I’ve already noticed him walking up the hill in my peripheral vision.

Difficult not to notice him when he looks like that: dark hair falling over his eyes, unfairly pretty face, his tie straight as his grades, his blazer sleeves rolled up halfway.

Despite the summer heat rising all around us, he’s still sticking to his winter school uniform, for no reason other than his utter disdain for shorts in any kind of non-beach setting.

When I was thoughtful enough to question him about it the other week—I mean, surely you’re hot in that—he stared at me for a deliberate beat, then said slowly, eyes gleaming, Yes, Sadie, I’m glad you think so.

Another reason why I can’t let him know I’ve been standing around waiting for him for the past half hour: His already inflated ego seems to have reached new peaks recently. And I’m probably partly responsible for it.

Still, as he draws closer, my heart does this funny little leap, like I’m seeing him for the first time in months, when I only just said goodbye to him last night on the steps of my family’s bakery.

“Waiting for me?” he asks, easily crossing the remaining distance between us, a faint grin tugging at his lips.

“No,” I say at once. “I was just—looking for something.”

“Looking for what?” His brows rise. “A convincing lie?”

“No,” I repeat, louder. I yank out my daily planner and flip the pastel-pink cover open to a random page. “This.”

“Ah, right.” He hooks one casual finger around the strap of my bag and tugs, pulling me closer to him so he can read the planner over my shoulder.

“You need to see what you were planning to do three Wednesdays ago? Wow. You know, I’ve only heard of people planning in advance.

I didn’t realize you could also plan in hindsight—”

“Shush. That was just the wrong page,” I insist, trying my best to focus on the planner while his breath tickles my neck.

At last, I find my list of tasks for the day.

Beneath the vaguely threatening title I’ve written out for myself—To Do, Or Else!

!!—I’ve highlighted and underlined Final Math Test. I make my way further down—submit chemistry quiz, annotate pages 10–30 of text study, update exam booklet, finish writing mock essay, review speech for valedictory dinner, buy thank-you gifts for all teachers and principal, check bakery admin email—before landing on a new task in someone else’s sharp, neat handwriting.

It says: take a break (and go on a date with Julius).

I hold the planner up higher and whirl around. “Wait. When did you write this?”

Julius gazes innocently over at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I recognize your handwriting, Julius,” I point out, biting my cheek to stop from smiling too wide. “I’m pretty sure I’ve spent, like, a combined total of eighty hours staring at it.”

“That seems like an underestimation,” he says. “You have, by your own admission, spent longer than that just staring at my hands—”

I wriggle free from him and march through the gates with as much false indignation as I can muster, knowing he’ll follow right behind. And he does, his footsteps falling quickly after mine. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to bring up the emails again—”

“Sorry,” he says, without sounding remotely apologetic. “Though I think you should rearrange the order of your tasks. Make the last task your first priority.”

“I’ll take a proper break after I beat you in the test today,” I tell him.

“Kind of cocky, aren’t you?”

“I must’ve learned it from you.”

Without glancing at him, I can tell he’s smiling.

I hadn’t thought it was possible to know Julius Gong better than I already knew him, not when I’ve spent ten years doing everything within my power to outsmart him, becoming attuned to his quirks and routines and habits.

But there’s so much more—with him, there’s always more.

More to do, more to hope for, more to say, more to learn.

New spaces carved into our routines for each other, new habits we’ve created together.

Like how, when we reach the math building, he pushes the heavy glass door open and holds it for me.

Or how, when all the other students start streaming indoors with their backpacks and tennis rackets, he naturally puts his arm around my shoulders, careful not to let anyone bump into me.

And isn’t it strange, I find myself marveling, how the safest I’ve ever felt is beside the boy I once considered the bane of my existence.

“I can’t believe you already have a list of tasks for the holidays,” Julius says, nodding to my planner as I wrestle it back into my bag.

“Well, of course,” I huff out. “I need to be productive.” And I fully intend to be.

During the half-year gap between when school finishes here in Melbourne and when college starts in the US, I’m going to complete an internship, learn a new language, get a part-time job as a tutor, hire and train two more employees to help out at the bakery, run a marathon, and read the forty books I’ve been meaning to get to all year.

“Rest assured that you’re on track to have the most productive holiday ever,” Julius remarks. “I hope that makes you happy.”

“It does,” I say cheerily, which earns me an affectionate shake of his head.

“I suppose it’s just as well,” he says, “since you won’t have to set aside time to plan out our trip—”

“Oh, I’ve already set aside time for that,” I cut in.

He arches a brow. “So the bet’s still on?”

“Of course it is.” It’s all I’ve been thinking about ever since we made the deal two months ago.

Whoever scores higher in this final math test will get to plan out the entirety of our upcoming US trip before he starts college at Stanford and I start at Berkeley, and the other person will have to go along with absolutely everything.

Even if my pride weren’t on the line, the idea of not being able to control every single factor while traveling around another country is horrifying.

And with only six months to go before we leave for the US, we’re already seriously pushing my limits when it comes to planning ahead.

If I don’t start booking tickets and finalizing details soon, I might actually break out into stress hives.

It’s not like I don’t trust Julius to organize our itinerary, but I’m used to doing these things by myself; from family vacations to girls’ trips with Abigail, I’m always the one people turn to for the check-in time and reservation code and restaurant recommendations.

Plus, Julius and I clearly don’t have the same idea of what makes for a pleasant trip. While I was leaning more toward a cute, cozy, conveniently located Airbnb, Julius has been eyeing a five-star boutique hotel with Pegasus statues and fountains inside the lobby.

“Just checking.” Julius fixes me with that beautiful, infuriating look I hate almost as much as I love. “No backing out if you lose.”

I slow to a stop in front of the math classroom. Lift my chin. Meet his gaze. “You’re the one who’s a sore loser.”

“Only because losing is so rare for me,” he says. “It offends my very being.”

“You offend my very being.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“Okay, that was unnecessary,” I say. “You don’t offend my very being. Well, you do, or you used to, but only sometimes.”

“When did you become so romantic?” he says dryly, but he reaches into his pocket and hands me a strawberry-and-yogurt granola bar.

It’s both my favorite brand and flavor, the ones that are only available from the organic supermarket all the way on the other side of town, where everything costs triple the price and the customers almost exclusively wear Lululemon.

I blink at the bar in my hand, confused. “What is this?”

“Has all that late-night studying impaired your ability to recognize basic food, Sadie?”

“I know, but—I mean, why? Are you trying to poison me?”

He scoffs. “We’ve gotten dinner together like fifty times by now. I literally made you that steak dinner in my house just the other week—”

“It was delicious, by the way, I loved the sauce—”

“I can cook it for you again,” he says immediately. “But my point is, if I wanted to poison you, I would’ve had far better opportunities to do so.”

“Valid,” I concede. “But then—”

“You always lose your appetite before a test, don’t you? You can take a few bites or save it for later if you’d like. I just don’t want you fainting from hunger in the middle of class.”

As I slip the bar into my blazer pocket, I feel a rush of gratitude for him so strong it’s almost violent, like an attack on my system.

Everything in me rendered raw and vulnerable, left reeling in his wake.

God help us the day he finds out how much he affects me.

“Thank you,” I tell him. “And—good luck with the test.”

The expression on his face is half smile, half smirk. Smugness without malice. “I don’t need any luck.”

“Yeah, sure you don’t,” I say. Then, scanning the corridor to make sure there aren’t too many people looking our way, I quickly step toward him.

Reach around the back of his neck, hands finding his hair, and stand on my tiptoes.

Before he can react, I press my lips to his.

Soft, slow, open. Perfect. He exhales shakily, his arms already tightening around my waist, leaning into me, as if he’s amazed this is happening.

When I release him, his eyes are wide, dazed, like he’s forgotten where we are for a few seconds, before sharpening back on me. “You definitely did that on purpose,” he accuses. “To mess with my head before the test.”

I have to bite back my laughter. “Then maybe you shouldn’t let yourself get distracted so easily.”

“Can you blame me?” he says, with an air of something like resignation. Like defeat. “Have you seen yourself?”

And it’s almost as if I’m able to: I see myself reflected in his eyes, my cheeks flushed and my ponytail swishing, and he’s watching me with such clear, unabashed affection that it’s difficult not to believe he wants me.

Makes me slightly dizzy, to imagine I could hold that much power over another person, let alone someone like Julius Gong.

Then the first warning bell sounds and I straighten, forcibly pushing aside all tender thoughts of him. For the next period, he will not be my first and greatest love but my first enemy, my greatest rival. I will obliterate him. And then I will hold him gently while we celebrate my victory.

“See you in there,” I tell him, and turn on my heel before he can do something evil and ruinous, like kiss me back.