CHAPTER FOUR
I’m still in an optimistic mood when my parents drop me off outside the LAX gates.
“Do you see them?” my mom asks, scanning the busy area. “They said to gather here—”
“That’s them, isn’t it?” I point at the small group standing off to the side of the bag drop counters. Even through the steady streams of wailing children and tired mothers holding neck pillows and younger guys who magically all look attractive in the airport lighting, I can spot the raised blue flag with the coiling dragon printed over it. It’s the same logo that’s included in the Journey to the East itinerary I’m holding and the introductory brochure my mom’s shoving into my other hand.
“Yes. Perfect. You better go join them.” She gives my shoulder a light squeeze and steps back. “Be good, okay?”
My mom has never been one for sentimentality. Whenever my school arranged for field trips or weeklong camps, she was always the first to say goodbye while the other parents clung to their children and wiped at their eyes.
The same cannot be said of my dad, who pulls me into a fierce hug.
“We’ll miss you,” he says. I’m so tall that he has to stretch his arms to fully reach over my shoulders, but I’ve never felt safer, more at ease. “If anything goes wrong, or if you get hurt, or if you feel sad, just call us, okay? Anytime. We’ll book the first ticket there and fetch you ourselves.”
“Okay, okay, stop it,” my mom tells him, clicking her tongue. “You’ll embarrass her in front of her new peers.”
“He won’t embarrass me,” I say firmly, hugging my dad back tighter. “I’ll miss you two as well.”
When I finally let go, there’s this weird, queasy sensation in my gut, like I’m already homesick. But I don’t let any of that show on my face. I just smile and walk away and wave until I can’t see them anymore.
Until I find myself standing in front of the group I’ll be spending the next two weeks with.
There are about a dozen people here, not including the stern, gray-haired man whose faded shirt is the same shade as the flag he’s holding. More girls than guys. All my age. I take inventory of each individual within seconds, something I’ve learned from photo shoots. When you’re always meeting strangers you’re about to work with in close proximity, you have to quickly pick up on the group dynamics, who you should stick to and who you shouldn’t, who might be rude to you and who you can ask for help.
Already, a trio of sporty girls have formed in the corner, talking loudly and giggling and adding one another’s numbers to their phones. One girl is in the middle of a serious call from the looks of it; she keeps frowning and flipping through her spiral notebook and reading out long series of numbers. Another girl stands a few feet away from them, with the bulkiest carry-on bag I’ve ever seen strapped to her back. It’s so massive, especially compared to her small, scrawny frame, that I’m concerned it’s going to crush her. She looks like she’s at risk of being crushed in general; her features are soft, timid, her dark brown hair tied loosely into a ponytail that spills over her cotton dress, and she keeps her gaze lowered to the floor.
Then I turn my attention to the boys. One of them instantly catches my eye and grins at me, as if we already know each other. He has good style, which I appreciate: an oversized coat and fitted white shirt underneath, even though it’s much too hot for layers. A nice face too, with a defined jaw and nose and the kind of light freckles makeup artists like to deliberately draw on. It’s a shame I’m kind of desensitized to pretty people by this point.
There’s only one unfortunate exception, but I’ve been doing my best to forget about him since the wedding.
“Oliver Kang,” the boy introduces himself, then shoots me an appraising look. “Have we met somewhere before? You seem … kind of familiar.”
I freeze as a few of the other students stop to listen. My mouth dries. He’s probably referring to a campaign, or maybe he’s stumbled across one of my photos on social media. But for the first time in a while, I’m surrounded by people who know nothing about my history, and I want to keep it that way. I could be anybody here. Not the weird kid in class, or the girl who was expelled from her old school, or the model.
“Is that meant to be a pickup line?” I ask mildly, feigning ignorance.
To my relief, he laughs, his expression clearing. Crisis averted. For now anyway. “No, sorry. I do have a few great pickup lines though. Would you like to hear one?”
“Sure,” I say, unfazed by the flirting. It’s what most of the bolder guys do in the beginning. They tell me I’m beautiful, and then they ask to hang out so they can show me off to their friends, and then they grow bored and come to the inevitable conclusion that I’m far more fascinating when I’m an enigma. So much more desirable when kept at a distance. If they’re nice enough, I’ll go along with it, but I no longer fall for it.
“Sure?” Oliver repeats. “Hey, where’s the enthusiasm? I’m about to blow your mind. You should know that my pickup lines have a one-hundred-percent success rate.”
“Right,” I say.
“Okay, tough crowd, but I can work with it. Listen to this …”
But I’m not listening. Because in the same moment, someone behind me says: “Leah?”
I spin around, my chest seizing at the voice.
Cyrus is staring at me, a thick, blue-covered novel and boarding pass in his hand. He looks about as shocked as I feel, and after a few seconds of pure, incredulous silence, he rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, like maybe there’s a speck of dust caught in his lashes that precisely resembles my shape.
The one exception. Life would be infinitely easier if I were also desensitized to his solemn, dark gaze and the visible cut of his collarbone, but my pulse rate skyrockets. The magical quality of the airport lighting seems to favor him more than anybody else.
“ You’re going on this trip too?” I demand.
An odd expression ripples over his face before he folds his arms across his chest. “Well, yeah. I never would’ve thought you’d be coming—”
“Hang on.” Oliver steps in and looks between us, his pickup line abandoned. “Do you two know each other?”
“No,” I rush to say. “Not at all.”
“We know each other very well,” Cyrus answers just as quickly.
“If by very well you mean that I have dreamed of murdering you,” I mutter.
Cyrus’s gaze flits to my face. Lingers an extra beat. “So you’ve dreamed of me?”
“Ah, I get what’s going on here,” Oliver says, snapping his fingers. “You two hooked up once, didn’t you? Summer fling or something? Feeling kind of awkward because you’ve seen each other undressed and now have to travel around a country together? I get it.” He nods to himself. “I’ve been there. Well, not this specific trip, but like. You know. The other stuff.”
I fear I’m about to become the first human in history to spontaneously disintegrate. But before I can express my absolute disgust at this suggestion, I catch a glimpse of Cyrus’s expression. His cheeks are flushed, his lips parted in silent protest, and the sight of his embarrassment is all too satisfying.
And that’s when it hits me.
This is it. This is my chance to get Cyrus Sui back at last. He’s ruined the better part of my life, so what’s stopping me from ruining this trip for him? If I’m going to be stuck with him in another country either way, I might as well get something out of it. Take karma into my own hands.
He won’t even know what hit him.
“Fine, you’re right,” I tell Oliver. In my peripheral vision, Cyrus’s eyes widen a fraction, and I feel a rush of vindictive glee. Let him squirm. Let him suffer. “We did. He was so desperately, pathetically in love with me that I felt bad. It was only meant to be, like, a one-week thing, but then I broke his heart. I don’t think he’s gotten over me yet, sadly.” I pat Cyrus’s arm as if to comfort him, and feel his muscles bunch under my fingers.
“Damn.” Oliver whistles. “That’s commitment.”
Cyrus appears to have been rendered quite speechless.
This is only the start of it , I promise inside my head. By the end, you’ll regret everything you’ve ever done to me.
“Don’t worry, bro,” Oliver says, punching Cyrus’s other arm. “There are other girls here. We’ll have you forgetting about—Leah, right?” He looks to me for confirmation.
I beam. “Yeah.”
“We’ll have you moving on from her in no time ,” he says with a wink.
“Who said I wanted to?” Cyrus says flatly.
“Oh.” Oliver blinks. “Uh, I mean, feel free to mope around to your heart’s content if that’s what you prefer …”
“I will, thanks,” Cyrus says in the same flat, hostile tone designed to end any conversation. And it works. Oliver turns away from us, and Cyrus steps closer into the space, his voice too quiet for anybody else to overhear. “What exactly was that?”
I already have my answer prepared. “It doesn’t feel great to have someone lie about something that didn’t happen, does it?”
It takes only a split second for him to understand what I’m referring to. The color in his cheeks spreads down to his neck. His jaw flexes. “About that. I …”
“Okay, is everybody here?” the man holding the flag calls out. He retrieves a wrinkled sheet from one of the dozens of tiny pockets in his jacket and flattens it roughly. Holds it up at arm’s length to read over it. “I’m Wang Laoshi, your guide and main supervisor for this trip. Shout out when you hear your name. Otherwise, no more talking, please.”
Cyrus presses his lips together as the rustle of activity around us subsides and Wang Laoshi goes down the list, name by name.
“Lydia … There you are. Yes, I see you—thank you for raising your hand so high. You can put it down now. Oliver … Okay. Sean … Good—but please don’t lie on the floor. If you want to sleep, there’ll be plenty of opportunities to do so on the plane. Daisy … Daisy?” He squints at the students. “Is Daisy not here? Daisy? Chinese name—Daiyu? Speak up if you’re here.”
I glance around too, then spot her. The soft-faced girl from earlier looks like she actively wishes to sink into the limestone floor. She opens her mouth—not for the first time, judging from how red her face is—but her response is lost beneath the blare of the next flight announcement.
“Daisy’s here,” I say. My voice is loud enough that Wang Laoshi hears me right away.
Daisy shoots me a look of equal parts embarrassment and gratitude.
By the time the teacher has reached the end of his list, I have all the names and faces memorized, and the perfect plan for revenge devised. The best and fastest way to get under anyone’s skin is to grab hold of their heart. So I’ll make Cyrus lower his guard, make him think I’ve forgiven him at last, and when he finally wants me— wants , not loves, because there’s a chasm between those two things, one that I’ve never been able to cross with any boy—I’ll yank the rug out from under his feet.
I can see it play out in my head like a movie scene. We’ll be walking down an alley together and he’ll turn and gaze over at me, stars in his eyes, and confess that he likes me. I want a public confession , I’ll say, smiling coyly. Give me something dramatic, with chocolates and balloons and streamers, and then I’ll consider it. It’ll be exactly the kind of grand gesture he hates, based on his remarks at the wedding. But he’ll oblige, because he’s obsessed with me already, and make his declaration that same evening with everyone from our group watching, his features hopeful and earnest, arms filled with heart-shaped gift boxes. Then I’ll burst out laughing, long and loud, right in his face.
Why would I ever like you, Cyrus? You ruined my life, remember? And I’ll cite his long list of crimes, starting from when we were children, while the spectators shrink back from him in horror. He’ll finally come close to understanding how I felt on the staircase, except he’ll actually be guilty. He’ll deserve all the humiliation hurtling his way.
I almost want to laugh just picturing his expression when I ruthlessly reject him. Proud, composed Cyrus, his cheeks burning with color, his jaw dropping in confusion.
“You know what? Maybe it’s fate that we’re on this trip together,” I tell him as Wang Laoshi starts leading us deeper into the terminal, the blue flag still brandished high in the air as if we’re marching off to a great battle. I actually don’t think it’s fate—I think it’s just incredibly bad luck that I’m trying to twist in my favor. But it doesn’t matter what I really think. What matters is planting the first seed of this idea that it’s meant to be, that this could be the beginning of some great love story, that maybe I’m the girl Cyrus has been looking for the whole time—
“Yeah, I don’t really believe in that,” Cyrus says.
“What?”
“Fate,” he says with a shrug that somehow manages to convey a whole world of indifference and disdain. “I only believe in coincidences.”
Okay, so maybe it’s going to take more effort for Cyrus to warm up to me than I thought. That’s … reasonable. It’s been two years, and I haven’t exactly been super friendly toward him. It’s also occurring to me that even though I endured him every day at school starting from when I was five years old all the way to fifteen, I still don’t know enough about Cyrus—not this new version of him anyway, who glares more than he smiles and seems morally opposed to anything that could spark joy in his cursed existence.
“Well, I believe in fate,” Oliver says, who’s apparently been eavesdropping on our conversation. He picks up his pace to walk right next to me, forcing Cyrus to fall behind us. “It’s fate that we met today, Leah, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” I reply in good humor, but I’m not concentrating on what I’m saying—I’m too busy glancing back at Cyrus over my shoulder. His features are set into hard lines, his lips puckered as if he’s just taken a bite out of a raw lemon.
“What’s his problem?” Oliver asks me, following my gaze.
I shake my head. Resist the urge to say, Everything. “No idea.”
***
Whether it’s fate or pure coincidence, it seems that I can’t get rid of Cyrus even if I wanted to.
I stare down at the number on my boarding pass, then at the seat in front of me, then at Cyrus, who’s currently helping the old lady behind us shove her luggage into the overhead compartment. I’m not the only person on the plane who’s staring. As he stretches his torso to give the bag one final push, a girl from our group nudges her new friend, and the two of them dissolve into furious, excited whispers right there in the middle of the aisle.
“You’re such a good kid,” the old woman gushes to Cyrus. “Thank you so much.”
Cyrus merely gives her a faint nod in return, as if this is part of his everyday routine: helping the elderly and adopting kittens and planting trees or whatever. It’s an act, of course—it has to be.
Then he turns his attention to me.
“What?” he says.
“This one is yours, right?” I gesture to the seat next to mine. The one he slides into as more passengers shuffle down the aisle, grumbling and squeezing their way around the line and pausing in awkward positions to let others move first.
“Evidently,” Cyrus says. He’s already put his own carry-on away, but he’s holding a small leather bag.
“Well, I’m sitting here,” I say.
“Again. Evidently,” he repeats, brows raised, like it’s no big deal that I’m stuck between him and a middle-aged man who’s somehow already asleep, his head lolling back against the window. For some reason, this is more offensive than if he’d shrunk back in disgust or demanded to speak to the flight attendant about switching seats with someone else. It’s like he couldn’t care less that we’ll be sitting side by side in a tiny metal cabin for fourteen hours straight. Like my presence is of zero consequence to him.
“Okay, then.” I force a tight smile. “Great. I guess we’re seat partners.”
He doesn’t even grace me with a response right away. Instead, he unzips his bag and starts pulling out alcohol wipes and tissues. The sharp, chemical scent bleeds into the stale air around us. I can’t tell if it’s an upgrade or downgrade from the smell of new plastic and recycled blankets and airplane food. “If you want another seat partner, I suppose you could bring it up with Wang Laoshi,” Cyrus says calmly as he begins wiping down the armrests with practiced precision. “But he might think you’re difficult.”
I recoil from the term. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, the deeply ingrained fear of being labeled as difficult to work with . I’ve always tried my hardest to make sure that I’m not. To be cooperative and flexible and agreeable, to do my job without question, without complaint . It’s why I went through with the photo shoot, even though I’ve spent every second since wishing I hadn’t.
“Who said I wanted to change?” I ask as I lower myself into the narrow seat that’s definitely just one proper-sized seat split into two. Every time I fly, I’m reminded yet again of how terribly uncomfortable flying is. My legs barely fit into the allotted space, and I can’t lean to either side without bumping against the stranger or Cyrus.
We haven’t even left the tarmac, and I’m exhausted.
“You could pretend I’m not here.” Cyrus scrubs the armrest between us as he speaks, forcing me to fold my hands across my lap. “I recall that you were good at your make-believe games when we were kids.”
My face heats. “They weren’t make-believe games .” At least, they weren’t games for me. I would imagine myself as anything and everything: a poet, writing to their one true love; a princess, standing up to retrieve her crown at long last; an artist, grieving over their lost muse. Back when the future felt endless, expansive, and all the options delighted rather than terrified me. Back when I still wore my heart on my sleeve, instead of carefully concealed in ten layers of Bubble Wrap.
“You were so invested in it,” he goes on with the slightest smile. “You ran around the school trying to find someone to play your prince.”
I suppress a wince, but the decade-old humiliation blazes its way through me again. All the boys I’d asked had either laughed in my face or simply stared at me, like I was some wild thing in the woods they hoped would go away on its own if they didn’t make any sudden noises or movements. Of course they weren’t interested; I wasn’t pretty back then.
Cyrus was the only one who agreed to join in on my game, just to ruin it for me. He had made me a ring of thorns, a castle of clay, and stolen the school’s infamous cat, Evil Whiskers, to be our royal pet. The cat had scratched me even more than the ring, and I’d ended up crying in a corner.
It’s just one of the many unpleasant memories Cyrus has contributed to.
“There’s really no need to revisit that,” I say.
“Why not? Your games were super creative. I remember there was another one where we’d see who could find their way around with their eyes closed—”
“Well, I don’t remember anymore. That was ages ago.” I speak over him, desperate to change the subject. “Are you almost done with the cleaning?”
“Almost. Though I wouldn’t call anything here clean .” He picks up his blanket with only his thumb and forefinger, like he thinks it might grow teeth and bite him. I really wish it would. “Do you know how often they wash these?”
“No. But I like to trust that they do,” I say.
“I wouldn’t trust strangers at all.”
“I hate to break it to you, but you’ll have to trust the pilot not to get us killed en route to Shanghai,” I inform him.
It might just be my imagination, but his face seems to pale. Or maybe it’s because he’s still holding the blanket he’s so disgusted by.
“If you’re not planning to use it, give it to me,” I tell him, rubbing my bare arms. Time and temperature seem to become irrelevant the second you get on a plane: It could be a perfect summer morning outside, but they’ll turn off the lights at random and turn the air-conditioning up to full blast until it feels closer to winter. “It’s way too cold in here.”
I expect him to refuse, just to annoy me, or to chuck the blanket at my face. But he rolls his eyes and drapes it over my legs.
“Have fun covering yourself with bacteria,” he says, already slathering his fingers with copious amounts of hand sanitizer.
“Have fun freezing,” I return under my breath, just quiet enough for him to miss it.
The plane soon jerks into motion—slowly at first, then building speed, the engines humming, the strange flaps on the wings opening up. All the trays and windows go up, the seats adjusted. A baby starts giggling at the jolting movement, at the same time that another baby in the first row starts bawling.
I try and fail to get comfortable, tugging the blanket higher up my legs, only to become acutely, annoyingly aware of the cheap fabric against my skin. How unwashed it feels, as though I can sense the presence of all the passengers who’ve come before me and wrapped this very same blanket around their bodies.
Covered in bacteria , Cyrus’s voice says in the back of my mind, even though the real Cyrus has stopped talking. He’s staring straight ahead, both hands gripping the thoroughly sanitized armrests.
Shut up , I command the voice. Get out of my head.
Never , Cyrus’s voice replies, with the same mocking laugh I remember so well from my childhood. Now anytime I do anything remotely embarrassing, that’s the only thing I hear, the only thing I can think about. I hate it.
Him.
I inhale as the plane takes off, my stomach swooping at the sudden loss of gravity, my muscles fighting for stability that isn’t there. Maybe, if I were my nine-year-old self, I could really pretend all this away. Pretend the plane is a ship, and the abrupt dips and tremors are just rushing currents, buoying us up, and the boy beside me is already gone.
Or I could play the other game. The one about closing my eyes for as long as possible and praying that, when I open them, I’ll magically end up in the right place.