Chapter 1 #2
“She doesn’t seem to be close with anyone in her class,” Mr. Lee elaborates.
The trilingual group waiting for their parents in the back choose this time to burst into loud laughter at whatever it is they’re chatting about, the sound banging against all four walls.
Mr. Lee raises his voice, almost yelling, “That is to say, it’s somewhat concerning that she still doesn’t have any friends here. ”
Unfortunately for me, the noise levels happen to die down again halfway through his sentence.
And of course, everyone hears every last word. There’s an awkward pause, and about thirty pairs of eyes burn holes into my skull. My face catches fire.
I rise from my seat, wincing inwardly when the chair legs squeak against the polished floor, scraping against the silence. I mumble something about using the bathroom.
Then I get the hell out of there.
In my defense, I’m generally pretty good—an expert, even—at pushing my feelings aside and disconnecting myself from everything, but sometimes it just hits me hard: this horrible, crushing sense of wrongness, of otherness, regardless of whether I’m the only Asian kid at an elite Catholic all-girls school in London or the only new kid in a tiny cohort at a Chinese international school.
Sometimes I’m convinced I’ll spend the rest of my life this way. Alone.
Sometimes I think loneliness is my default setting.
To my relief, the corridor is empty. I retreat into the farthest corner, bend down into a half crouch, and take my phone out. Scroll through nothing for a minute. Feel intuitively for the rough string bracelet around my wrist, a gift from Zoe, let it comfort me.
This is fine, I’m fine.
Then I head onto the Craneswift website.
I discovered Craneswift a few years back, when I picked up one of their newsletters at a London train station, and I’ve been reading their stuff ever since.
They don’t have a massive readership, but they more than make up for it in quality and reputation.
Basically anyone who’s ever been lucky enough to publish their writing through Craneswift has gone on to achieve the kind of success I could only dream of: journalism awards, prestigious nonfiction writing scholarships in New York, international recognition.
All because they wrote something beautiful and profound.
Words just move me. A beautiful sentence will sneak under my skin and crack me open the way a phrase of music might, or a climactic scene from a movie. A well-crafted story can make me laugh and gasp for breath and weep.
As I settle into one of Craneswift’s recently posted essays about finding soul mates in the unlikeliest of places, the familiar blue website banner glowing over the screen, I can already feel some of the weight on my shoulders easing, the tension in my body dissolving—
A door creaks open and noise spills into the hallway.
I stiffen, squint down the corridor. Caz Song steps out alone, his gaze sweeping right past me like I’m not even here. He looks distracted.
“… all waiting for you,” he’s saying, a rare crease between his brows, an even rarer edge to his voice.
Caz has always given me the impression of someone pulled straight out of a magazine cover: glossy and airbrushed and digestible; marketable and inoffensive.
But right now he’s pacing in an agitated circle, his footsteps so light they barely make any sound.
“These are the parent-teacher interviews. I can’t just do it alone. ”
For one confusing moment, I think he’s talking to himself or trying out some weird acting technique, but then I hear the muffled female voice coming out through his phone’s speakers:
“I know, I know, but my patient needs me more. Can you tell your teacher something came up at the hospital? Hao erzi, tinghua.” Good child. Behave. “Maybe we can reschedule for next week—that worked last time, didn’t it?”
I watch Caz breathe in. Out. When he speaks again, his voice is remarkably controlled. “No, that’s fine, Mom. I—I’ll tell them. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“Hao erzi,” the woman says again, and even from this distance, I can hear the odd commotion in the background. Slamming metal. The beep of a monitor. “Oh, and just before I go—what did they say about those college applications?”
Applications.
I turn the unexpected snippet of information over in my head. This is news to me. I’d figured someone like Caz would skip the college route, go down the acting path instead.
But at present, the Rising Star himself is rubbing his jaw and saying, “It’s … fine. They reckon that if I can pull off a really great college admission essay, it should be able to make up for my grades and attendance record …”
A sigh hisses through the speakers. “What do I always tell you, ya? Grades first, grades first. Do you think the college admissions team cares if you play lead role in campus drama? Do you think they even know any Asian celebrities other than Jackie Chan?” Before Caz can reply, his mother sighs again.
“Never mind. Too late now. You just focus on that essay—are you almost done?”
It might be a trick of the low corridor lights, but I swear I see Caz wince. “Sort of.”
“What’s sort of?”
“I—” His jaw clenches. “I mean, I still need to brainstorm and outline and … write it. But I will find a way to write it,” he adds quickly. “Promise. Trust me, Mom. I—I won’t let you down.”
There’s a long pause. “All right. Well, listen, my patient’s calling for me, but talk soon, okay? And make sure you focus on those essays. If you put in even half as much effort into them as you do memorizing those scripts, then—”
“I got it, Mom.”
Something like worry briefly pinches his features as he ends the call.
Then, as he spins to leave, he sees me squatting like a fugitive in the dark of the corridor, caught staring at him for the second time this evening.
“Oh,” he says, the same time I stand up and blurt out, “Sorry!” and the rest of our sentences spill over one another:
“I didn’t see—”
“I promise I wasn’t trying to—”
“It’s cool—”
“Just about to head in—”
“You’re Eliza, right? Eliza Lin?”
“Yes,” I say slowly, and even I can hear the wary edge in my voice. “Why?”
He raises a dark brow, all signs of worry now wiped clean from his face. Fast enough to make me wonder if I’d imagined them there in the first place. “Nothing. Just trying to be friendly.”
An innocuous reply. Perfectly reasonable.
And yet …
She still doesn’t have any friends here.
“Did you … hear what Mr. Lee said earlier?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to retract them.
Erase them from existence completely. There are certain things you simply shouldn’t draw attention to, even if both parties are well aware of the issue.
Like a bad acne flare-up. Or your homeroom teacher declaring you friendless in front of your entire class.
The fact that I don’t really need new friends makes this no less embarrassing.
Caz considers the question for a second. Leans against the closest wall, so half his body is angled toward me. “Yeah,” he admits. “Yeah, I did.”
“Oh wow.”
“What?”
I let out a small, awkward laugh. “I was kind of expecting you to lie about it. You know. To spare my feelings or something.”
Instead of responding directly to that, he tilts his head and asks, his tone guarded, “Did you hear me on the phone?”
“No,” I tell him without thinking, then cringe. “I mean—well—”
“Very nice of you to care about protecting my feelings,” he says, but there’s a curl of irony to his voice that makes me want to evaporate on the spot.
And then an even more horrifying thought materializes: What if he thinks I’m a fan?
Or a stalker? Another one of those wide-eyed, overenthusiastic classmates who follows him everywhere like a disciple, who was waiting out here just to get him all alone?
I’ve witnessed it happen myself a dozen times before: students ducking behind literal bins or walls and springing on him the second he rounds the corner.
“I swear I didn’t mean to overhear anything,” I say frantically, holding up both hands. “I didn’t even know you’d come out here.”
He shrugs, his face impassive. “All right.”
“Really,” I say. “Swear on my heart.”
He gives me a long look. “I said all right.”
But he doesn’t sound like he fully believes me either. My skin prickles, embarrassment and annoyance warming my cheeks. And then my mouth decides to make everything worse by saying the most ridiculous thing: “I’m not—I’m not even a fan.”
A terse second passes, his expression shifting briefly into something impossible to read. Surprise, perhaps. I can feel my insides disintegrating.
“Good to know,” he says at last.
“I mean, I’m not an anti-fan either,” I splutter, with that dreadful, helpless, out-of-body feeling of watching a protagonist inside a horror film: when you want to scream at them to stop, but they keep moving closer and closer toward their own doom. “I’m just neutral. Nothing. A—a normal person.”
“Clearly.”
I clamp my mouth shut, my cheeks hot. I can’t believe I’m still standing here with Caz Song, who apparently has a unique talent for making me feel even more self-conscious than I usually do.
I can’t believe we’re still talking, and Mr. Lee’s still inside that crowded classroom with Ma, and both of them think I’m still in the bathroom.
This is a nightmare. Time to figure out an escape strategy before I can embarrass myself further.
“You know what?” I crane my neck as though I just heard someone call for me. “I’m pretty sure that was my mom.”
Caz lifts both eyebrows this time. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Yeah, well, she has a soft voice,” I babble, already moving past him. “Hard to pick out, unless you’re really accustomed to it. So, um, I should probably go. See you around!”
I don’t give him a chance to reply. I just bolt back into the classroom, ready to grab my mom and beg Li Shushu to come pick us up as soon as possible. After an ordeal this mortifying, I can never, ever talk to Caz Song ever again.