Two
The drive back home is awfully quiet.
I can tell, from the way Mom and Dad look at each other when we enter the house, pause in our tiny kitchen, all but communicating
through charades, that they’re working out some sort of script for this. Sure enough, Mom clears her throat and goes first,
her voice careful, her words rehearsed.
“We know this might be disappointing news to everyone, Jenna, but it’s too late to do anything now. We can’t change the past;
what’s important is for us to look ahead at our options. You still haven’t heard back from your safety schools....”
I nod along, just to show I’m listening. Just to stop myself from screaming. The dissonance of coming back to our house straight from Jessica’s semi-mansion is jarring. Here, the lights are dimmer, the colors duller, the furniture sparse rather than luxurious, and also completely mismatched, with a traditional Chinese-style chair sitting next to an old Victorian antique table. My dad’s work overalls have been draped over the chair to dry, and his toolbox has been crammed into the bottom of the bookshelf, under all the heavy volumes on financial planning and the award-winning nonfiction titles Dad only pretends to read because my uncle recommended them. A stack of dirty plates awaits us on the kitchen counter, neglected from last night, an unopened bag of goji berries lying beside it.
“I did tell you to sign up for the cross-country team,” Dad is saying, which earns him a pointed glare from Mom. He’s going
off-script.
I lean against the kitchen counter. Try to swallow the bitter lump in my throat. “Cross-country?”
“It’s meaningless to talk about this now,” Mom says hastily, stepping between us. “Let’s not—”
“It could have helped you look more well-rounded,” Dad presses. “Maybe if you exercised more...”
Even though I’d been determined to keep my emotions in check, accept whatever they threw my way, this is so unreasonable that
I can only stare at him. It seems to be a defining trait of many parents that they’ll pick one incredibly specific thing and treat it as the source or solution of all your problems. For my dad, it’s always been exercise. Have a
fever? Too little exercise. In a foul mood? Go exercise. A bad acne flare-up? Not enough exercise. Existential crisis? Exercise
will help. Find yourself kidnapped and stranded on a remote island? It could’ve been avoided if only you’d run a little more
in your free time.
“Whatever,” I bite out, knowing there’s no way to reason with him, to explain that the issue isn’t my lack of participation
in Havenwood’s sports teams. It’s that even if I did join the cross-country team and ran six hours a day until my legs failed and my lungs collapsed, I still wouldn’t be half as fast as Jessica, who moves with the athletic grace of a gazelle, who finishes entire marathons for fun , breaks records without effort. “I just... I don’t want to talk about this—”
“You can’t avoid the subject,” Dad says, his forehead scrunching. “We need to evaluate where you went wrong so you can improve
in the future.”
“Could we please not?”
His frown deepens. “What kind of attitude is that? Just look at your cousin Jessica,” he says, shaking his head hard. “You
two came from the same family, attend the same school, are the same age. She’s managed to get into Harvard—and what is it,
five other Ivy Leagues? Maybe you should learn from her—”
“Laogong,” my mom interrupts him with a warning glance. “I don’t think that’s very fair—”
“Only children talk about fairness,” he persists, waving his hands about, his gestures increasingly agitated, the way they
are whenever he goes into full lecture mode. “Do you think the world is a fair place? If you’re too weak, you’ll be eliminated.
Look what happened to the Roman Empire—”
If I didn’t feel like crying, I’d probably laugh. “First you’re comparing me to Jessica, and now you’re comparing me to Rome ?”
He flings a Chinese phrase at me then, one of those four-character idioms I’m not cultured enough to understand, but the sentiment
is clear.
I fix my eyes on the window behind him. Outside, the night sky is a somber violet, the silhouette of the Ethermist Mountains curving over the horizon. All the little houses are lined up one by one down our narrow street, made of the same cheap materials, with the same faded redbrick designs. From a distance it looks like the image of the idyllic suburban life, but instead of white picket fences and pretty lawns, we only have wild grass and dark cypress trees, tiny garages taken up by secondhand cars. Barely bourgeoisie, I always like to describe it in my head.
Not great. Not terrible. Just suffocatingly average.
We could have lived somewhere better. Somewhere with space to run around in the summer, with modern glass walls and large
sunlit bedrooms. But my parents had insisted on staying here, where it costs more for less, so we could be closer to my school,
thinking it would boost my chances of success. They’ve bet everything on me—their time and energy and savings—and this is
what I have to show for it. Sunk costs. A failed investment.
“Dad. Please.” I take a deep breath. “Listen—”
“No, you listen first. I’m telling you that if you’d followed Jessica’s example—”
“I tried to.” I can barely form the words. I grip the counter, my nails digging into the stone. This feels like a murder scene,
all my worst fears, my insecurities, sprawled out and bleeding over the tiles before me. “I tried, I swear. I’m always trying.
But I—” My voice catches. “I’m just not that good.”
He doesn’t agree. But he doesn’t deny it either. His eyes are lined with some heavy, weary emotion. Disappointment, most likely.
The back of my throat aches. Don’t cry, don’t you dare cry. Not here. So I leave without another word. Neither of them follows me as I scramble up the stairs, into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. Everything’s a blur. I blink, blink harder, catch my heart before it can fall out of my chest. Then, in the dark, deafening quiet, I stare around me.
My latest painting is still sitting in the center of the room, right where I left it. It’s the self-portrait I’d been working
on earlier this morning, when I was trying to distract myself from college applications, trying not to let my hope consume
me. I remember being proud of it, admiring the smooth blend of moss greens and cream whites and smoky pinks in the background,
the sharp angles and shadows lining my nose and pursed lips, the bold black brushstrokes layering my hair. In it, my eyes
are focused on some distant point beyond the frame, magnolias blooming from the edge of the painting, their petals brushing
my cheek. I have one hand lifted, as if I’m waiting for something. Reaching for something.
But now, staring at the portrait, I feel a vicious stab of self-loathing.
I seize the closest acrylic tin and fling it at the canvas, watching the paint drip until my eyes are obscured and the portrait
could be of anyone, any sad, nameless girl who yearns for the world. Then, with the violet paint still wet on my fingers,
its sharp acid smell burning my nostrils, I bury myself in my blankets and wait for sleep to wash over me.
I wake the next morning with the sun in my eyes.
Strange, I think sleepily, blinking into the bright orange glare of the window. My bedroom is always dark, with its thick curtains and dull view of the brick house next to ours. Then I lift my arms to stretch, and the sense of strangeness digs deeper into my gut. The blankets draped over my stomach are too soft, too light, the pillows stacked higher than I’m used to. Even the air smells different when I inhale: it’s oddly sweet, like strawberries, some scent I know but can’t place.
I rub my eyes, hoping to wipe away the mist of confusion. But when I squint up at my raised hand, my skin appears... smoother.
The spilled paint from yesterday is gone, even though acrylic takes ages to wash off. Then I notice something that throws
me off-balance, makes everything in my head go fuzzy. There’s a birthmark between my fingers, no bigger than a coin and shaped
like a flower.
That was never there before.
What the hell?
I sit up slowly, mind spinning, and the strangeness only grows. The sheets are printed with a pastel floral pattern. Definitely
not the ones I slept in yesterday. Then the bedroom sharpens into focus, the details registering in pieces. A glass bookshelf
close to toppling beneath the weight of medals and certificates and textbooks. A schoolbag set neatly on a desk overlooking
the gardens below, a shiny MacBook already placed within it. The Havenwood uniform hanging from the closet doors, the navy
plaid skirt longer than mine, the front blazer pocket adorned with so many school badges there’s more gold and silver than
actual fabric. I’ve seen those badges before, stared at them during long, monotonous assemblies, marveling at the way they
gleamed beneath the spotlight.
Understanding slides into place, offset immediately by more confusion.
I’m in Jessica Chen’s room. But... how?
I try to recount yesterday’s events, searching for clues, an explanation. No, I’m certain I’d fallen asleep in my own bedroom.
Did I sleepwalk? Except I’ve never sleepwalked once in my life. And Jessica’s house is at least a fifteen-minute drive from
mine, too far to travel on foot in the dead of night. So then... then what? Maybe someone moved me here? But that doesn’t
make sense either. I distinctly remember locking my bedroom door. The only way to unlock it is from the inside.
The creak of a cabinet closing downstairs sends my thoughts bolting like a startled hare in another direction. Would my aunt
and uncle know that I’d slept in Jessica’s room? How am I supposed to explain this to them? The skin on my face feels stretched
full with blood, panic, and mortification taking turns kicking my gut. Had I been so sad that I’d gotten drunk at some point
last night? Is that why I don’t remember anything?
Out of habit, I reach for my phone on the bedside table. But the wallpaper that glows over the screen is a photo of Jessica
from last year’s prom, flanked on both sides by Leela and Celine, her other best friend. All three of them look gorgeous—they
were the only ones who had worn full-fledged gowns, and the only ones who would be admired instead of ridiculed for it—but
Jessica is clearly the center of attention. She’s smiling straight at the camera, while the others are smiling at her.
I chew the flesh of my cheek, a third, ugly emotion squeezing its way through my insides. I had skipped prom, because all the dresses that I could afford looked awful, and all the dresses that looked good were too expensive. And because there was no point going, if Aaron wasn’t there.
“Focus. Find your phone first,” I whisper out loud—
And freeze.
The words are my words; I’m aware of my lips moving in the shape of them. I can feel the vibrations in my throat. But the
voice is not my voice. It’s higher, gentler, strange, and terribly familiar. I had heard it only yesterday.
A sudden bizarre thought grips me.
Impossible. This can’t actually be happening. Not by the laws of physics, or biology, or anything. But I let Jessica’s phone
fall onto the bed— her phone , a voice inside my head notes with new significance, her bed —and sprint into the adjoining bathroom, flinging open the doors. I crash to a halt before the mirror, my heart threatening
to beat out of my rib cage, my eyes wide.
No, Jessica’s eyes. The person reflected in the mirror is Jessica Chen. Her glossy jet-black hair. Her long lashes and slender neck and
perfectly proportioned body. And yet the expression on her face isn’t anything I’ve seen her show before—it’s raw bewilderment.
Utter disbelief.
I’m not just in Jessica’s room.
I am her.
“Jessica!” Auntie’s voice cuts through the air, and it takes me another moment to pick my jaw up off the floor, to realize
she’s technically calling me. Or the body I’m inhabiting.
I’m dreaming.
It’s the first possibility that pops into my mind. It must be a hyperrealistic dream of sorts. So instead of screaming, I
stare at the single toothbrush propped up on the bathroom counter, hesitate, and search around for a spare, unused one instead,
acting as I would after any sleepover. It helps that I’ve stayed at Jessica’s place plenty of times before, when my parents
were too busy working late shifts and couldn’t pick me up, or when both our parents insisted on getting us together for a
study session. Then I put on the uniform already laid out for me, noticing as I do that it’s free of wrinkles, and has the
same faint strawberry scent as the sheets. That’s where I know it from. It’s Jessica’s signature scent.
“This can’t be real,” I mutter, watching the face in the mirror move as well. I run an agitated hand through her hair, but
every strand falls perfectly back into place. Frowning, I repeat the motion with more force, and only end up creating a stunning
windswept look, as if a magical beach breeze has fluffed out her hair.
Somehow, it’s this ridiculous, unfair detail that pushes aside my initial shock, making room for other possibilities. Maybe
I’d inhaled too much of the paint fumes last night. Maybe I’m in a coma, and my damaged brain has decided to conjure up this
entire fantasy, weaving the scenes together based on my preexisting knowledge of Jessica and her family. We’d studied something
like this in our psychology class. Of course I’d forgotten most of the details as soon as I finished the end-of-semester test,
but the general principles still applied.
I’m feeling a little calmer by the time I head downstairs for breakfast, Jessica’s phone in my pocket, her bag slung around my shoulders.
Whatever this is—dream or hallucination or simulation—I simply need to ride it out. Wait for it to pass, for me to wake up.
Just because the world is vivid enough to seem real doesn’t mean it actually is.
Auntie gives me an odd look when I walk in, and my pulse quickens, certain that she’ll notice something off, that this will
be the first glitch in my new fake reality. I wait for her to ask me what I’m doing in her house. But she only pats the back
of my head. “Didn’t you sleep well last night? You’re never late in the morning.”
“Oh... uh.” I clear my throat, the sound of Jessica’s voice still a shock to the system. “I guess I was just tired....”
“Well, hurry,” she chides, already moving away to inspect her appearance in the reflection of the wine cabinet. She’s all
dressed up in a blazer and pencil skirt, her hair gelled back, her lipstick dark. “There are cakes in the fridge—I wasn’t
sure which ones tasted best and they all looked so good, I just ended up buying one of everything.”
I stare at her. Having cake for breakfast seems like an impossible concept. Mom would never entertain it. If exercise is my dad’s thing, then a healthy
balanced diet is my mom’s. That meant a steady rotation of boiled eggs, steamed corn, soy milk, and homemade whole-meal mantou.
Once every three months or so, we were allowed to buy white bread as a treat (or as a punishment, if you were to ask my mom,
because of the damage the extra sugar would do to our bodies).
In disbelief, I make my way to the fridge— Jessica’s fridge, in her kitchen—unable to shove aside the unsettling sensation that I’m stealing from someone else’s house. I feel
my eyes widen when I pull the door open. Inside, there are mini cakes of every kind and color imaginable, topped with slices
of glistening strawberries, crushed cashews, brown sugar pearls, fresh mango, heavy dollops of cream. They’re so intricately
decorated, so pleasing just to look at, that I almost feel guilty slicing into the mango cake, with its dotted white flowers
and golden flakes.
At Jessica’s massive dining table, by the open, sunlit windows, I finish it slowly, savoring the frosting as it melts on my
tongue.
“Oh, Jessica, before you go...,” Auntie says, her bracelets jingling as she reaches into her Chanel handbag. Real Chanel, I’m sure. I remember Mom pointing it out to me once in an online catalog, this exact design, the kind of bag she covets
but can’t afford. I had made it my goal to save up enough to buy her one as a surprise. “Here’s your lunch money.” Auntie
extends a thick wad of cash to me.
I choke on my last bite of cake. “This is—” Through coughs, I take the money very gingerly, certain there’s been a mistake.
“This is, like, seven hundred dollars.”
“Oh, sorry.” Auntie fishes around in her purse and retrieves another four hundred dollars, pressing it into my palms before
I can react. “There. That should be enough. Now, hurry, your friends are waiting for you—and leave the plate,” she adds when
I start to tidy up. “The cleaner will be here in an hour.”
Friends.
I step outside in a daze, the sun a warm balm on my cheeks, the cold morning air stinging my exposed fingers and knees. There’s a silver Mercedes parked in the driveway, all the windows rolled down, the paintwork so polished it looks brand-new, and I don’t know what surprises me more: the sight of it, or the two girls waiting inside it.
“Get in, babe,” Leela Patel yells, sticking her head out, her ponytail spilling over the side like a black stream of water.
This, in itself, isn’t too different from what I’m familiar with. Leela and I have been friends ever since we were assigned
to the same table in art class. We were both painters, both obnoxiously fascinated with the Romantic period, and both eager
to be loved by everyone. But the thing about Leela is that she is loved by everyone. While I’ve always considered her my best friend, I doubt that I’m hers. I might not even rank in her top
three. Those spots are reserved for special people like Jessica Chen and Celine Tan—who’s currently waving at me from the
passenger’s seat, a half-bitten croissant held between her teeth.
My footsteps falter.
If this really is a dream, it’s a bizarre one.
Celine has always scared me. She’s been at Havenwood longer than anyone, and she has a reputation as a poet, with a bunch of Pushcart Prize nominations and other prestigious awards to her name already. But while she could go on for pages and pages about how beautiful the moon is in midwinter until you’re moved to tears, I’ve also witnessed her verbally eviscerate people on the spot. Her features are the same: soft and sweet when she’s smiling, but hard as stone when she’s not, her blue eyeliner drawing out the intimidating angles of her face.
“If we end up running late for English, Old Keller’s going to kill me,” she grumbles between chews as I climb into the back
seat. Then she brandishes another croissant in front of me. “Want one? It’s still warm.”
“Oh, I’m good, thank you,” I manage, trying to hide my shock. There’s no way Celine Tan would ever deign to offer me breakfast, which means neither of them have detected anything wrong. They all think I’m Jessica. “I’ve already eaten.”
“And we’re not going to be late,” Leela reassures her cheerily, pulling the car into reverse. “But maybe the teachers would
be more lenient with you if you stopped swearing so much in class—”
“Nah, fuck that.” Celine dusts the croissant crumbs off her tanned knees, lifts one long leg onto the seat. “My parents aren’t
paying forty thousand a year for me to watch my tongue everywhere I go. And swearing is therapeutic .” She glances back at me and wriggles her manicured brows. “You should try it sometime, Jessica.”
“Stop trying to drag our sweet, darling Jessica over to the dark side,” Leela says, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching
out to shove Celine’s shoulder. The car lurches slightly, my stomach jolting with the motion, but the two don’t seem to notice.
“And not to, like, get caught up in the specifics, because you know I’m always on your side, babe—but you only pay twenty
thousand a year.”
Only a Havenwood student would use the word “only” next to “twenty thousand . ”
“That’s just because of my scholarship.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Well, I’m trying to speak on behalf of the student body.”
“Please.” Leela snorts. The car lurches again as she turns abruptly onto the main road, and I grip the seat belt tighter.
“As if most of us aren’t on academic scholarships.”
“Most of the smart ones,” Celine corrects, then considers it for a beat. “But fair. The others don’t count.”
I bite my tongue. I’m one of the others they’re talking about; I sat for the scholarship test the same year Jessica did, and failed it by two and a half points.
One stupid algebra question, the number six mistaken for a zero, a variable overlooked—and my life marred irrevocably because
of it, my parents forced to take up extra shifts, work that much harder for years and years without complaint.
But then Leela catches my eye in the rearview mirror and heaves a theatric sigh. “Of course Jessica has the least right to
complain, what with her full scholarship and all.”
“I didn’t even realize they gave out full scholarships before Jessica,” Celine says, in a tone caught between admiration and
envy, her smile sharp as cut glass. Nobody’s ever spoken to me like this before. Nobody’s ever looked at me as a threat. It
feels better than it should. Then she adds, “Guess they make exceptions for the best.”
I suck in a silent breath on the word, play it over in my head like an incantation, warmth expanding inside my chest, spreading
all the way down to my fingertips. Is this what it’s like for Jessica all the time?
“You look so pretty today,” Leela remarks, and for five terrifying seconds, she spins around completely in the driver’s seat to study me. “Well, you always look pretty, but your hair is gorgeous like this . You should wear it down more. If you want,” she adds quickly, like she’s scared of saying the wrong thing. “You can pull off
any hairstyle, really.”
I lift a hand to my hair, remembering suddenly how Jessica always ties it up in a high ponytail. “Really?” I ask.
They both nod along, with shocking enthusiasm.
“Oh yeah, for sure,” Celine says, tearing off the end of the croissant she’d offered me with her pearly white teeth. “You
literally have the shiniest hair I’ve ever seen. What do you use to wash it again?”
Probably an expensive brand I couldn’t pronounce if I tried. “The tears of my admirers,” I reply. “It’s super organic.”
There’s a pause.
I tense, waiting for them to realize I’m not who they think I am, to scream “Imposter!” To demand that I bring the real Jessica Chen back. Maybe then this beautiful, unbelievable dream will end.
But they burst out laughing at a volume that feels kind of unwarranted.
“Oh my god,” Leela gasps, clutching her stomach. “You’re hilarious, Jessica.”
As the car speeds down the winding road at least five miles per hour over the limit, with Celine blasting some sad song I don’t know from her phone speakers and Leela singing along, my disorientation thickens. There are the familiar, gloomy gray trees spread out on either side of us, with their soft watercolor washes of brown and green, the wild vegetation crawling toward the nebulous horizon; the warmer gray of the concrete pressed beneath the tires; the pale sunlight smudged against the windscreen; the mist-wreathed mountains rising and falling together. There’s Frankie’s Bakery, famous among the locals for its warm lattes and glazed cinnamon rolls in the fall; the crumbling marble statue of some dead saint standing alone on the corner of Evermore Avenue; the brooding black lake Tracey Davis once tossed her ex-boyfriend’s phone into, where one of the boys in our class stayed under for so long on a dare that his friends called an ambulance.
This is the town I’ve spent my entire life in, its streets and valleys as intimate to me as the lines of my hand, but now
everything’s different. Because I’m here as Jessica Chen, with her best friends, and for the very first time, I feel like
I’m one of them. Someone pretty and smart and talented and full of promise; someone the world bends around, rather than someone
who bends to the world.
It’s a dream, I remind myself, rolling down the window and letting the wind whip my hair from my face, the crisp air on my skin a counterpoint
to what I keep repeating, over and over. It’s a dream.
It’s only a strange, vivid dream.
But I’m no longer sure I believe that.