CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s a known natural phenomenon that whenever you’re traveling, the rain is going to come on the day you least welcome it.
My hair is already frizzing aggressively from the damp as we gather at the foot of the Yellow Mountain. I push it back from my face for the eleventh time, blinking cold water out of my eyes. The rain isn’t so heavy as to necessitate using an umbrella, but it’s still heavy enough that it’s wreathed the mountains in white fog and darkened the steep paths and sheer cliffs ahead of us. Even the pine trees are darker, their needle-thin leaves a shade of deep, clear green that probably predates human civilization, that might be one of the first colors to ever exist in the natural world. If it weren’t for our backpacks and phones and the little flag Wang Laoshi’s waving, I’d think that we had fallen through a fissure in time itself. There’s an ancient beauty to everything here, from the stones that jut out like strange silhouettes in the distance to the birds calling out to one another from high in the clouds.
“The first to reach the mountaintop will be rewarded with a Michelin-star five-course meal for lunch today. You’ll have your own private room and incredible views of the scenery,” Wang Laoshi tells us.
“What will the rest of us get for lunch?” Oliver calls out over the rain.
“Granola bars,” Wang Laoshi replies simply, which makes Oliver’s eyes widen with true terror. “Now, while I’m all for the spirit of the competition, please do be careful not to slip, and look out for any falling debris …”
Nobody is really listening to this last part. The prospect of getting a hot meal and a reprieve from the rain is enough to motivate everyone to start moving. Cyrus and I are the first to rush forward, our feet pounding over the rocks.
“I see you’ve switched to sneakers today,” Cyrus notes casually, climbing three steps at a time.
I fight a grimace as I hurry to match his strides, my calves burning from the effort. “Don’t look at them too long.”
“Why?”
“They’re my ugly shoes.”
He raises his brows. “You have designated ugly shoes?”
“I have a designated ugly everything,” I tell him. “You should see my designated ugly pajamas—and by that, I mean, if you ever actually saw me in them, I’d have to bury you.”
“Well, now I’m really curious. Though I doubt it’s possible for anything to look ugly on you,” he adds in the same offhand tone. He could be making a passing comment on the rain.
I stare at him. It feels like my body’s internal system is malfunctioning, the wires in my brain whirring and overanalyzing those few simple words. My plan really must be working if he’s handing out compliments now. But I’m still so unused to Cyrus being sweet to me that instead of responding, I stick to silence and climb onward, letting my attention drift to the dew glistening on the branches around me, the vaguely annoying pebble stuck in my shoe, anything but him.
Soon, we’re so far ahead of everyone else that it feels like we’re the only ones in the mountains, and by some kind of silent agreement, we both slow down, falling into step with each other.
“Can I ask you something?” Cyrus begins slowly, which ranks pretty high on the Ominous Ways to Start a Conversation List. It’s second only to the dreaded can you give me a call when you’re free .
“No,” I say.
“Okay.”
And he actually shuts up just like that. After a beat, I make a sound caught halfway between a snort and a sigh. “What is it?”
“Why didn’t you tell the others that you’re a model? Seems a lot easier than trying to pretend that you’re a cloud enthusiast.”
Even though I’d been more or less prepared for him to spring this question on me, my stomach judders. I do my best to focus on keeping my pace, keeping my breathing even as I reply, “How do you know I was pretending? Maybe I really am a cloud enthusiast.”
“You’re in luck, then,” he says dryly, glancing up at the overcast sky, the thick sweep of gray settling in over the dark shine of rocks. “There are plenty of them today.”
“I know. I’m thrilled.”
“Visibly,” he says, motioning to my face, which has probably reset itself into Ready to Kill You mode while I’ve been figuring out the quickest escape route from this conversation. When I don’t reply, he adds, “I’m a bit surprised, that’s all. If I were you, I’d be bragging about being a model any chance I got.”
The truth scratches my throat. I take a deep breath. “Well, I’m not one anymore.”
He whips toward me, almost misses his next step. “You’re not?”
“I quit,” I say. “About a month ago. Before the trip.” It’s more bearable this way, to get it out fast, get it over with. Whenever I was sick and my mom brewed me a cup of medicine, I would always choose to drink the bitter brown liquid in two large gulps as opposed to sipping it slowly, even if it made my eyes water.
“You quit? Why?”
I can’t tell him the real reason, of course. Even just remembering the god-awful photo shoot—the supposedly traditional robes they forced me into, the bright red ribbons tangled around my bare arms, the harsh glare of the light as I posed for the camera like their perfect exotic model—makes my stomach turn.
“Everything was going really well until I had to do this photo shoot with a watermelon,” I say mock seriously. “Bear in mind that I hate watermelon. It was fine at first, when they told me to pose by holding the watermelon above my head, even though the thing was, like, super heavy. Then they asked me to roll the watermelon like I was bowling, and they got pissed off when I said that it was impossible to hold it like a bowling ball, because there was nothing for me to grip, and then I got pissed off, so I decided that I was done, forever.”
I see the exact moment when his expression slips into skepticism and then drops straight into disbelief. “Why did you feel the need to say all that?”
“What, you wanted a big story, didn’t you?” I say, shrugging. “I don’t have one that’ll satisfy you, so I had to make something up.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “Do you even hate watermelon?”
“Okay, that part’s true.” But I refuse to tell him why. Refuse to mention that it was the only thing I let myself eat when I was starving.
“Then what’s the real reason?” he asks.
“I realized it was pointless,” I say.
“What, modeling? Or life? Because I would agree—I just didn’t think you were so nihilistic.” He’s studying me with the same intensity I’ve seen him wear when he’s reading, like he’s trying to decipher the meaning between the lines, like every word must count for something, hold some kind of weight. I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me this way before. With other people, no matter how close I’m standing next to them, it feels like they’re looking at me from a distance, and I’m only half there. But Cyrus’s gaze pierces right through me, rooting me here, in the cold, thin air of the mountains and the soft spray of rain on my skin and the crevices in the stones underfoot.
“Everything I did was pointless,” I say, shortening my strides as the mountain path cuts sharply up. “But it’s all behind me now, so it’s—”
“Leah, careful — ”
I don’t even have time to react when Cyrus pushes me to the side, the movement so sudden that my stomach swoops low, my back slamming against the trunk of a tree. It all happens in a disorienting flash of color and sound: the branches scraping my hair, the gray sky spinning above me, and Cyrus’s body curving around mine, his hands firm on my shoulders. Rocks clatter sharply onto the path like shrapnel where I had been seconds before—where Cyrus stands now, facing me, taking the brunt of the impact. Yet he doesn’t flinch once. Doesn’t move away. Not until all the rock shards have finished falling from above.
My heart is thudding so hard I can feel the vibrations in my throat, my mind scrambling to process the facts. A fact, however improbable: He pushed me to safety. He shielded me, even though he had only half a second to react.
Another fact: He’s injured. The edge of one of the rocks has scraped his wrist, leaving behind one long red line. Not quite deep enough to bleed, but enough to break skin.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his face bent toward me, his expression shrouded by shadows.
“Am I okay?” I echo, feeling as if part of me is stuck in another timeline, one that made infinitely more sense than this. “Yeah, I’m completely fine— But you—”
“Good,” he says, his relief audible. His hands are still braced around me like he’s scared I’ll slip out of reach, and he leans closer, burying his head against the crook of my neck. His scent is stronger than the pine leaves hanging around us, or maybe I’m just more sensitive to it; all I can breathe in is the fragrance of sage. “Leah, I really … I really …” One of his hands lifts from my shoulder and braces itself against the bark of the tree behind me, his fingers clenching, nails sinking in, like it’s the only thing holding him upright. His voice is hoarse. “I really …” He doesn’t say more than that. It’s as though he won’t allow himself to, as though he’s warring with himself on something, and to lose would cost him everything. He just repeats the words over and over, murmuring them until they’re almost incomprehensible, a half-feverish jumble.
“What?” I whisper, my heart thudding faster, even though the danger is over. “Cyrus, what are you talking about?”
He steps back, and the phantom of whatever emotion had possessed him clears from his eyes. “I really—think you need to watch where you’re going,” he says, his voice almost normal again, save the tremor in his exhale. “Didn’t you see the signs earlier? There are loose rocks everywhere, and if either of us gets killed via massive falling rock before we reach the mountaintop, we won’t have a chance to win.”
Of course that’s what he cares about most. The rational side of my brain whirs back into action. Winning. Securing his letter of recommendation for a spot at his dream university. His brilliant future, which involves only himself. His concern just now had been more about the competition than me.
Still. Whatever his motivations, he did help me.
“Do you need something for that?” I ask, nodding at his arm. “I can head back and ask the teacher—”
“This?” He glances down to inspect the damage. “No, it’s barely a scratch. Let’s just keep climbing.”
“You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“Certain.”
He says it so easily, so firmly. As firm as he’d sounded when the teacher had asked him a very similar question, two years ago: Did someone hurt you? But back then, there were dozens of students gathered around us on the staircase at our old school, watching with uniform expressions of shock and horror and outrage as Cyrus replied: She did. Two words, and I was deemed guilty. No matter how much I had protested—no matter how many times I tried to tell them the truth.
Only I knew what had really happened. I don’t even remember what we were arguing about to begin with—something stupid and trivial, like all our arguments—but we were heading up the stairs from one class to another, and he was behind me, following me around as he always did to annoy me.
“Have you ever considered leaving me alone, Cyrus?” I had demanded, walking faster, taking two steps at a time in some attempt to put more distance between us. But his legs were just as long as mine, and he kept his pace without problem.
“No ,” he said. “It’s too much fun watching you glare at me.”
“When I glare at you, I’m imagining laser beams coming out of my eyes.”
“See?” His voice was near my ear. “That’s what makes it so fun.”
“You’re completely shameless,” I muttered, hugging my books to my chest.
“I know.”
I whipped around then, anger simmering in my throat. He looked so ridiculously pleased with himself, like infuriating me was a contest and he had just been crowned the ultimate victor. Then something fluttered out from the pages of my books. It was an ad of some kind for a lobster restaurant, printed on cheap pink paper. I only needed to take one glance at it to know who had put it there. “Are you serious? Now you’re putting trash in my things for fun? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“The word trash is really subjective,” he began, but I was sick of it already, sick of him. Everywhere I turned, he was there, ready to laugh at me, to pull another prank, to make my life unbearable. It was bad enough that none of the other kids really liked me, but at least they didn’t go out of their way to torment me the way he did.
“Oh my god, just go, Cyrus,” I snapped at him, stomping forward until we were face-to-face. He’d been unfairly blessed with another growth spurt over the summer, and he was one of the only boys in our class who was taller than me, even if it was just by an inch. “I hate you. I never want to see you again.”
I braced myself for him to laugh in my face, because he never took anything seriously anyway, but he just blinked, frozen to the spot, something sharp flashing across his eyes like the edge of shattered glass. Then the bell rang, and he seemed a little dazed as he started to walk up the stairs again—but his feet slipped on the next step, and he stumbled. Instinctively, my hands shot out to help him, but it was too late.
Someone screamed as he fell from the top of the stairs. Their scream was so piercing that I thought he was already dead, and in my head I saw a sped-up reel of terrible images, the red-and-blue sirens of the ambulance, the puddles of blood, his parents sobbing outside the school gates.
Later, they all agreed it was a miracle that he hadn’t broken any bones. He did have a concussion, but it took only two weeks for him to recover from the fall. It would take two years for me to fully recover from the fallout.
They also all agreed on this: I had pushed him.
Everyone there had witnessed it. Supposedly, we had been arguing, and in a blaze of rage, my arms had shot out to shove him down the flight of stairs. They spared no detail in describing the way my expression had twisted with fury, how I had hissed his name. Some claimed that I had insulted him outright by calling him trash .
It made sense to them, because of who I was.
You know that Leah girl? She was always a little weird, wasn’t she? they whispered to one another in the corridors. Didn’t have a lot of friends. Wasn’t really good at any of her subjects. Used to wear these hideous lumpy sweaters and invent dumb, childish games and go around nagging people to play them with her. An outcast. Nobody liked her much …
They spun their own stories about why it happened. I was lovesick, obsessed with him; I’d been annoying him for years now, forcing him to hang out with me, and finally he’d stopped tolerating it and rejected me outright, and that’s when I snapped.
The footage from the school’s cheap security cameras only cemented my guilt. From their angle, all you could see was me marching up to him and moving forward right as he fell back. There was no other logical explanation for why Cyrus Sui had stumbled on those steps. He was one of the best students in our gym class. He never faltered, never lost his balance to something as silly as gravity; he couldn’t have just tripped without some kind of trigger.
But none of that mattered as much as Cyrus himself accusing me of hurting him. Once the teachers heard his response, my fate was sealed.
My parents were the only ones who believed me. They defended me when the school claimed that I was violent, a threat to the other students. They comforted me when they found out that my expulsion would go straight into my records and raise the brows of any future admissions committees. My dad helped me throw out my old school uniform and began to search for a new school that would let me enroll in the middle of the year. My mom threatened to sue—the family legend goes that I will sue was the very first phrase she’d picked up after she immigrated to America—but even she had to admit the evidence was stacked against me, and by that point I just wanted to stop talking about it. Let my old life crumble off a cliff, let them whisper their lies behind my back. I knew I couldn’t go back to that place again, not ever. My name would forever be inextricably tied to the Incident, to Cyrus, to a crime I hadn’t committed. I promised myself I would never forgive him, even if he groveled at my feet.
I still refuse to forgive him, and yet—that was before the trip.
Before this.
I stare at Cyrus as we pick our way up the stone steps, the familiar edges of his profile, and I think about how time is such a funny thing, running through the years like water, washing away some memories, buoying others up to the surface. But time shouldn’t have the power to change someone completely, from the kind of person who would get me expelled on a false accusation to the kind of person who would protect me with their own body, bow their head the way he did, like the hurt lived inside him.
***
I might actually be turning into a cloud enthusiast.
The rain has settled at last by the time we reach the peak of the mountain, the sun streaming over the crags and boulders in dazzling beams of gold. A sea of clouds rolls out beneath our feet, whiter than smoke, thicker than mist, lapping against the mountain ranges. My cloud doodles couldn’t possibly do it justice; it looks like the world’s most gorgeous ink painting come to life, all those soft washes of blue and pale brushes of light.
There are always mountains beyond mountains, people above people , my mom would lament whenever she was in one of her philosophical moods, and I have to wonder if whoever invented the saying had been thinking of this specific place. When I squint out at the horizon, all I can see are the dark, grayish-green shapes of mountains, one outlined against the other, stretching on and on until I can’t tell where the sky ends. The view is beautiful enough to distract me from the fact that we came in second. But the distraction doesn’t last long.
“Damn, it feels like we’re in heaven. In a non-biblical sense,” Oliver remarks, standing much closer to the edge of the viewing platform than is advisable, the wind snatching at his shirt. Daisy, meanwhile, is shivering on the other side of the platform, her face white and eyes squeezed shut. “You should open your eyes, Daisy. You’re missing some great views—it’s not even that high up.”
“No, thanks,” Daisy squeaks out. “I think I prefer looking at the inside of my eyelids.”
“Okay, how did you manage to get here before us?” I demand. “We never even saw you on the way up.”
Oliver grins over his shoulder at me. “We took the cable car.”
“You—” My mouth drops open as I exchange an incredulous look with Cyrus. “You did what?”
“Yeah, Wang Laoshi never said we had to get up here by foot , did he?” Oliver says, his smile sly. “You can’t blame me for using the resources at my disposal. And you can’t even accuse us of not challenging ourselves—you see these marks?” He rolls down his sleeve with a dramatic sigh, revealing four red, nail-sized crescents on the underside of his wrist. “Courtesy of Daisy. For a second back there, I thought she was secretly a werewolf.”
“I’m sorry!” Daisy says in a small voice, her eyes still closed, though her complexion is more red than ashen now. “But you wouldn’t stop moving around on the cable car—”
“She means I was breathing,” Oliver tells us, deadpan. “I inhaled, and she told me to stay still because it was making her nervous. See? It was a huge challenge getting here.” He pulls a puppy-dog face at me that’s so ridiculous and aware of its own ridiculousness that it kind of works. “You’re not going to report us to the teacher for being a bit creative, are you?”
“I guess not,” I say. “I’m more annoyed we didn’t think of it first.”
“We should report you,” Cyrus adds, his voice dead serious, yet I can tell he’s not actually considering it. It’s odd, because I’m used to people who are fake nice—or at least pretending to be nicer than they really are—in order to win you over. I don’t trust most of Cate’s friends for exactly that reason.
Yet Cyrus is fake mean, almost as if he wants to lower your expectations of him, to make sure you stay away.
More footsteps thud onto the platform behind us. The other teams drag themselves up one at a time; some are panting, rubbing the sweat from their foreheads despite the chilly air. Others clearly accepted defeat ages ago, and stopped for snacks on their way up. Sean is sharing a packet of prawn crackers with his teammate, both of them munching noisily and wiping their greasy fingers on their jackets.
While we wait for everyone to arrive, I spot a small, weathered fountain nestled just behind the pine trees. Fresh water trickles out from two stone statues of dragons, flowing through their open mouths and gathering in a clear pool underneath. The bottom is filled with shiny bronze and silver coins. As I watch, a young woman around my cousin’s age pulls her boyfriend over to the fountain, smiling wide. He fishes a coin out from his pocket, clearly prepared for this very moment, and she clasps her fingers around it, eyes closed and head bent the way you do in prayer, then flings it into the water, where it lands with a faint splash.
“You think that’s the same sacred fountain my cousin visited to bless her marriage?” I ask Cyrus.
He scans the area. “Well, it doesn’t look like there’s a second sacred fountain up here.”
“Okay, give me a second.” I pat my pockets for spare change. I only have one coin, but it’s enough. Once the couple has left, I take their place by the edge of the fountain, feeling the smooth, cool surface of the coin against my palm. I’ve never really been the kind of person to visit temples or even to meditate, and as I force my eyes to close, mimicking the girl from earlier, I feel a spasm of self-consciousness, certain that I’m doing it wrong, that I look stupid, that I’m about to be made fun of. Sometimes it feels like there’s an invisible comment section floating around in my brain, and with every mistake I make, every wrong thing I say, these imaginary spectators who vaguely resemble my classmates from my old schools flock forward to pass judgment …
Who does she think she is?
Why is she holding the coin like that? She’s so weird.
She’s closing her eyes? Who closes their eyes, except to sleep? I’m just embarrassed for her at this point.
Does she actually believe that praying to a fountain will do anything for her cousin’s marriage?
Oh my god, look at her—she’s so out of place. She literally has no idea what she’s doing …
But then the seconds pass, and the rising wind drowns out the voices, and a strange sense of peace envelops me. It’s like I’m suddenly aware of everything that exists outside my face and body: There’s the air moving soft around me, pressing the silk of my shirt closer to my skin, and the steady trickle of water, and the patter of claws on stone, an animal slinking into the wilderness, the damp touch of dew, and when I breathe in it feels like I’m breathing for the first time in years.
Please, bless my cousin’s marriage again , I pray, the Mandarin words coming slowly to me. Undo whatever bad luck I might’ve accidentally cursed her with at the wedding.
I’m still not wholeheartedly convinced that the fountain could help me with anything, or that the Mandarin words I chose were exactly the right ones, but I feel lighter as I let my coin sink into the water.
When I open my eyes, Cyrus is waiting behind me.
“I want to make a wish too,” he explains, holding up a coin of his own.
“What are you wishing for? A glowing letter of recommendation from my aunt?”
He scoffs. “I don’t need to wish for that. I’m going to make it happen.”
“What’s your wish, then?” I ask, more curious than taunting. What could Cyrus Sui possibly want in life? But he doesn’t answer me, and I don’t have a chance to pester him for more details. By the time he finishes with his wish, everyone’s already gathered around on the platform.
“We’re doing a team-building activity,” Wang Laoshi announces, passing pens and paper around the group. “It’s a tradition on this trip. You write an anonymous compliment to every person—”
“I’ve done this before,” Lydia says excitedly.
I’ve done something like this before too at school, and I’ve never known how to react to the results. I’m sure the teachers mean to boost our self-esteem, but I could never stop myself from feeling along the edges of each compliment, like how you’d feel a dress to test for fake silk or frayed threads. And for every compliment I received, I could think of a way to discredit it.
You’re so pretty —except they’d rescind it in seconds if they had any idea what I looked like before. Except so much of my beauty is an illusion produced by the right outfit and makeup. Except I’m never as pretty in motion.
You’re so mysterious— except there’s nothing really mysterious about me. It’s just that I’m not very loud and open about the things I love, or I can’t be sure of what I love in the first place.
But complimenting others is another story. It’s so much easier to see their strengths, to speak about them sincerely, to say the things I’d be too shy to tell them out loud.
To Daisy, I write: I know you don’t consider yourself very brave, but I think you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met—even if you’re scared of something, you never let it stop you from doing it. I also just think you’re really sweet and pretty and funny without trying, and I’m so glad the universe (or the admin team at Jiu Yin He) paired the two of us together for this trip. There’s nobody else I’d rather share a fancy hotel bathroom with.
To Oliver: Your ego probably doesn’t need this, but I have to admit that you’re a lot of fun to be around, and that you’re very sweet in surprising ways.
When I get to Cyrus, I pause, my pen hovering over the paper. It seems unnecessary to write something snarky, though the temptation is there, a devil hovering over my shoulder as I chew the inside of my cheek. I ultimately settle for a casual note, neither sentimental nor taunting, simply: Thanks for making sure I didn’t get crushed by rocks back there. Out of habit, I add a tiny heart after the sentence.
When everyone’s straightened from using one another’s backs as makeshift tables, we send our folded notes around and collect them in turn. I retreat to the shade to unfurl them, one by one. I’m expecting more of the same comments about how I look, because what else is there for other people to say? But the notes take me by surprise:
Your voice is so soothing—like, this is going to sound super weird, but I’d listen to an audiobook narrated by you.
I love how you always smile at everyone when you see them in the morning.
Okay, so tbh, when I first saw you I kind of expected you to be really bitchy and stuck-up … but you’re actually incredibly thoughtful and humble and fun to be around? I’m REALLY, really sorry for ever assuming otherwise, and I hope we can be good friends!!
How are you so composed and elegant all the time?!
Then my breath catches on the next note. The ink is pressed thick in places, like the person had spent a few minutes too long deliberating over every word.
Leah. You remind me of the greatest sculptors, who can turn marble into the impression of billowing silk, the coldest stone into something soft. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that everything you touch turns beautiful. The world becomes beautiful, as long as there’s you.