Chapter 20 Chanel
Chanel
When I walk into the math classroom, Ares is the first to notice me.
“Good luck,” he mouths.
I nod and try to smile like it’s no big deal, but the truth is that I can’t remember the last time I felt so tense before
heading into a test. There were no nerves beforehand, because I knew how I would do: badly.
Now it’s different. Now there’s a chance that I might not do badly, that all the time I threw into this, all those study sessions, might not be for nothing. Basic economics, really.
The greater the investment, the more desperate you are for returns. And maybe there’s also a part of me that wants to prove
to myself—and to Ares—that I can do this.
I slide into my seat, then double-check all my equipment before zipping everything up in the Gucci cosmetic case I’ve been using as a pencil case.
Around me, everyone is arranging their calculators or looking over their notes at the last minute, their pencils and rulers spread out on their desks.
A few people swallow audibly when Ms. Hoang starts making her way around the room to pass out the tests.
When she approaches me, she stops and sends me a stern look over the thick blue frames of her glasses. “I hope you do well,
Chanel,” she says as she hands over the test booklet.
“Thanks,” I say, my stomach clenching.
This would be so much easier if I were actually smart. I remember the days before Alice left, when I’d glance over and see
her studying on her side of the dorm room, her head down, her pen moving in a blur across the page. She’d earned the title
of Study Machine for a reason—in fact, I was certain that even machines couldn’t compete with her. I had no idea how she did
it. How do you stay so focused? I wanted to ask her. How does your brain manage to work so fast? How do you just always know the answer?
But I can also imagine Alice’s voice inside my head now, full of warmth and conviction. Remember that you’re Chanel Cao. You’re iconic. You can do anything.
I take a deep breath and write my name down carefully in the top corner, with my signature loops around the Cs and a little heart after the O.
Then I flip the test open to the first page.
Our results are released the next day on Airington’s school bulletin board. Out of habit, I search for my name at the very
bottom, but it’s not there. Not in the second or third last row either, and I’m just wondering what the hell I’m meant to
do if I actually fail this class when I spot my name in the middle row.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
“Chanel,” Ms. Hoang calls, making a beeline for me down the corridor. “Oh my goodness, excellent, excellent work on the test. Your
improvement is incredible.”
“Wait. Are you serious?” I ask, trying not to sound too excited. “There wasn’t a mistake with the grading?”
“No, you did wonderfully.” She smiles at me. It’s the most a teacher has ever smiled my way for reasons actually related to
school, and not because I was flattering them.
“Thank you,” I say, grinning, unable to believe it. Everything suddenly feels malleable—possible. Changing people’s impression
of me, changing myself, changing fate. The future. Why not?
“Guess your math mentor was pretty decent after all.” Ares’s voice floats over from behind me. “Good job.”
“Okay, but you can’t take full credit,” I say, turning around.
He offers me the hint of a smile. “No, I definitely can’t.”
“Are you impressed?”
“I was already impressed by you,” he says, and the strange thing is he sounds sincere.
And as I stare at him, smiling, basking in his approval and my own small victory, I think: I might love you. The horrifying thought emerges almost as a physical sensation, like a sudden stitch in your side or a muscle cramp. It’s the
first time this has ever happened, and I try to convince myself it’s fine, it’s not fatal, it’ll just go away if I ignore
it—
But over the following days, the thought keeps coming back.
In the leather back seat of the car, the windows rolled down, as Beijing’s night scenery rushes by in a blur of dazzling lights and motorbikes.
There it is, insistent, terrifying: But I love him.
At Sephora, when I’m testing out the latest lipstick shades in parallel, shiny strips on my forearm. Shanghai rose, heartbreak
mahogany, dark espresso, and—I love him. At the gym, determined to run until the burning in my calves sears away any sentimentality in me, but even then, I can’t outrun
what I’m feeling. At the spa, while a woman with gentle hands cleanses my skin of any impurities and massages my temples slowly,
a towel wrapped tight around my torso, sage burning in the corner. “Empty your mind,” the woman advises me. “Relax. Breathe
in. Let everything go—”
But I love him.
For worse, I love him. And that doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t even matter what I feel. What matters is how he feels, whether he likes me or not; that’s what my entire future is riding on, not fairy-tale fantasies.
I tell myself all of this. Yet—
When he texts me the time and address for his tattoo appointment on Saturday, I catch sight of myself in the mirror, and it’s
hard to convince even myself that my excitement about spending time with him is solely for strategic reasons. My eyes are
wide and aglow, my cheeks flushed as if the summer heat has come in early. I don’t look like a master manipulator laying out
traps to defeat her enemy. I look like a foolish, hopeful girl about to go on a first date. The kind of girl who gets her
heart broken too easily.
If it weren’t for the motorcycle, I probably would’ve missed the tattoo parlor.
Whoever chose the location seems to have done it on a whim—it’s smack in the middle of a random narrow street, removed from any malls or offices or subway stations.
The only other discernible spots nearby are a store selling nightgowns that would’ve been considered last-season ten seasons ago, and a wine bar that looks like it might sell its last bottle and die any night now.
Even the entrance to the tattoo parlor is half obscured by the shade of a willow tree. I’m about to walk right past it when
I spot the handwritten sign hanging off the neck of the motorbike like a price tag.
Book your tattoo appointment today. Room 2301, second floor.
A cartoonish arrow points toward the glass front door.
“How did you even find this place?” I mutter to Ares as I follow him inside. A steep set of stairs leads us upward, the buzz
of tattoo needles growing louder with every step. The air has that strange chlorine smell to it, like what you might breathe
in at swimming pools—something chemical and distinct and slightly plastic, tinged with the lingering scent of cigarettes.
“I found the tattoo artist first,” Ares explains. “Spent half a year comparing different portfolios and reading reviews from
old clients and figuring out the style I was after. There was another artist I wanted—his work is pretty cool and all, and
the way he draws the ink is like traditional calligraphy, but he’s based in Shanghai.”
This, I’m realizing, is the kind of person Ares is. Someone who’ll get a tattoo as soon as he’s able to, but thinks it over and puts in the research long beforehand. Someone who does everything for a reason. Someone who cares, underneath his general air of nonchalance.
“Thanks for coming, by the way,” Ares adds in an offhand tone, pausing on the top step, his gaze on me. “Not that I needed
the company but—it’s nice you’re here.”
Again, that horrible hope, unfurling inside me: Maybe he’s getting attached. Maybe he genuinely likes me. Maybe he won’t hurt me after all. “I’m glad I’m here too,” I say lightly as I move past him. “Couldn’t miss an opportunity to see you in pain.”
His voice trails after me, edged with amusement. “You say such romantic things sometimes.”
“Only to you.”
“Yeah, that can’t be true,” he says dryly. “What about all your other guys?”
“What other guys?” I ask, leaving it an open question on purpose. I can’t have him thinking I’ve already lost interest in
anybody else—that’ll only make him cocky—but he also needs to think he’s special.
Everything brightens on the second level. My imagination had been embarrassingly limited to the old mafia movies my father
watched; I’d pictured flickering neon lights and small, shadowed rooms and dingy curtains drawn over leather beds. Instead,
I’m surprised to find that the tattoo parlor reminds me of the hair or nail salons I usually go to. Modern, spacious, with
clean white walls and potted plants settled over the shelves.
The tattoo artist pauses the game on his phone when he sees us, his eyes widening slightly as they land on me.
A flicker of recognition—not uncommon. Maybe, hopefully, he follows me on Instagram, or, the worse scenario, he’s read the news articles about my parents.
But he’s polite enough not to ask about it, just springs up and leads us into a private room.
He introduces himself as Zaizai, a strangely endearing name at odds with the tattoos rippling over his muscles and his full beard.
As he prepares his equipment, he grins over at me. “You here to support your boyfriend?”
It’s a simple question, but it sends my thoughts spiraling in a hundred different directions, scattering into a hundred different
breathtaking possibilities. I can’t just say the truth when I don’t even know what the reality of us is. Boyfriend feels too normal a title—made for couples who can stroll hand in hand through parks and go on coffee dates and kiss without
the threat of supernatural visions looming over their heads. Couples who can plan out their futures together without plotting
against each other. But friend would be wrong; it’s too casual, too light, failing to account for the fact that he’s bitten bruises into the tender skin
on my neck. Crush is too flippant and middle school, and mortal enemy might be a tad too heavy to drop into everyday conversation.
Everything between us feels hazy and undefined, like the rippling light of the moon on water.
“He doesn’t really need my support,” I say, glancing over at Ares to assess his reaction. His expression appears very deliberately
neutral. “He’s got great pain tolerance. I’m just here out of curiosity.”
“You have great pain tolerance?” Zaizai asks Ares. “That true?”
Ares shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
Zaizai busies himself applying a layer of Vaseline to the skin under Ares’s collarbone, and then sketches out the same tattoo
I saw in the vision. “This is what you wanted, yes? Any adjustments you’d like me to make?”
“I can’t really see it myself from this angle,” Ares says.
“Here, I’ll take a photo for you.” I grab my phone and snap a few photos in rapid succession, holding it up for him to review.
But when I’m done, I don’t delete them; instead, I save the photos to set as my lock screen wallpaper for later. Just another
little detail to feed the dating rumors at school about me and Ares; proof that I’d been right beside him for a milestone
as significant as his first tattoo.
“I don’t know,” Ares muses, turning to me. “What do you think?”
But I’m distracted by how the sunlight streams through the window and touches his jaw, the look of simple concentration on
his face. For a second, he isn’t the boy who’ll set my future ablaze, but a boy I might’ve bumped into by chance on the lake
banks. Just a boy with long hair and soft lips and quick, steady hands.
“Why are you asking me?” I say.
“Because,” he says, “I trust your opinion.”
“I’m not, like, a tattoo expert or anything.”
Before Ares can reply, Zaizai grins. “Of course your boyfriend’s going to care whether or not you think it looks good.”
Ares doesn’t say anything to confirm or deny it, but as Zaizai cleans the needles, he glances over at me, a private, amused look just between us, smiling with one corner of his mouth, almost shy.
“In that case, yeah. Yeah, it looks good,” I say, and think to myself, Wouldn’t it be nice if we weren’t destined to ruin each other?
Briefly, I let myself imagine it: a future that doesn’t end in flames.
A future where happiness isn’t just possible, but simple.
I show him my favorite Italian restaurant, the one in Chaoyang District, with the sunlit terrace and stunning views of the
city and three-star Michelin rating. We order too much food for just us, eager to try everything, and he helps me brush my
hair out of my face when I lean forward to eat. Pushes the door open for me on our way out. Holds my purse while I carefully
reapply a layer of lip gloss. All of this, without me having to even ask for it.
When my mom’s away on another business trip, we spend the evening indoors, the sheets draped over our bodies, my cheek nestled against his chest. His laptop is propped up at the edge of the California King bed, and we pick out a drama from last year, the kind that’s so terrible it’s good.
We take turns making fun of the characters’ wardrobe choices and the wildly outdated depictions of China.
But I’m only half watching anyways, because I’m gazing at him, tracing out the black lines of the tattoo under his collarbone.
A perfect crescent moon. In this future, a moon is just a moon.
It doesn’t mean pain. So I love that tattoo, just like I love everything about him: the crisp American curl of his accent, the way his dark hair falls over his eyes and he has to push it back when he’s in the middle of talking, the way he swears under his breath in seven different languages, the way he walks down the street like he owns it, the rotation of plain black and gray sweaters he wears, the pair of sunglasses he carries around everywhere with him, even when the sun isn’t out.
But then the tattoo needle whirs to life, forcing me back to the present, the reality of us. Because he isn’t really my boyfriend, and I can’t let my guard down just yet—not when the blood moon is less than a week away.