Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
T en minutes until whatever comes next.
Mei yells over my shoulder for me to take the next exit, so I change lanes and exit the highway toward Guo’s brother’s house. Seattle’s lights shimmer on the water, bouncing the light into the sky where it gets stuck in the fog and hangs there. Kind of like my hope that Guo’s brother will actually answer the door at 1 AM. We’ve been driving in rain, fog, and wind since we left the hut ten hours ago. Like nature is doing Dad’s dirty work.
Mei gives me more of the directions Guo wrote on the Post-it after I burst through the shop door and announced I was going to Seattle with Mei. Guo had somehow already known I’d go with her, but Mei was surprised. Not sure why; there was no other choice for me. Even if things are a little different now. A little more frantic, more uncertain. Soaking and cold and tense, like a pebble in the road could easily roll us. I lost control at the hut—emotionally and physically. Told her things I shouldn’t have. Did things I shouldn’t have. The bruises all over her neck reminded me that I’d promised I wouldn’t touch her and that she has wounds I can’t see. I have to be completely opposite of Nick in every way. I almost messed that up, and it’s not gonna happen again. It’s gonna kill me having her this close, all to myself, but I want her to know she’s safe from me and my hormones as well as Nick and deportation. We’re gonna start over. Make this our thing, our way. And I hope she’ll talk about what happened so we can leave that behind, too. I want to make sure she’s really okay. But I don’t know how to bring it up without bringing up the hard stuff that comes with it. Dad told me about how wrecked people are after stuff like this—how many years of therapy they go through. But I’m not a therapist, so I’ll just protect her from anything bad from now on.
I weave the bike through neighborhoods strung along the edge of the city, the houses settling down for the night. Warm light spills onto the glossy streets, slipping beneath our tires. I just wanna get to Guo’s brother’s house and shut the door against anything and everything that might have followed us from home. But I also don’t because I don’t know what to expect. Nothing has turned out the way it should have so far, and I’m too tired to hope it’ll be any different when we get there. And when we do, how long are we going to stay? A week? Two? A month? Forever? Will Stanford respond to the email I sent before we tossed our phones in a dumpster on our way out of San Francisco? Will they forgive me for turning down a full-ride scholarship and offer it again? I gotta get a new phone so I can check my email.
Mei rests her chin on my shoulder, calling out more directions. “Turn right at the next stop sign. Third house on the right.”
I want her to keep the contact between us, so I nod and accelerate, gripping the handlebars as I swerve around a speed bump. My hands are cramping after ten hours of driving. For the first few hours, I was on edge, but I’m pretty comfortable with the getaway vehicle now.
Mei points to a house on our right. “I think that’s it,” she yells.
A tiny dog sits on a porch swing. The front window curtains are wide open at 1 AM, like the house is watching for us. I pull into the driveway and cut the engine, putting my foot down, but we both just sit in the silence, our legs molded to the seat.
I stare at the house in front of us. We made it. Step one of together. No clue what step two is.
A garage door shudders open a few houses down and an electric car hums past us. I glance at the front door, flexing my toes in my soggy Adidas.
“I’m scared to knock.” Mei’s voice curls over my shoulder and into my ear and I hesitate, then nod. Fear’s the only thing I can expect right now—its claws have pretty much grown into me.
I shove the kickstand down with my heel and slip the key into my pocket. I’m gonna have to park the bike somewhere out of sight once we get our stuff inside.
Mei unwinds her arms, and I wait for her to slide off the seat before following.
“He might think it’s weird if we just hang out in his driveway.” I pull off my helmet.
Mei hangs it from the handlebars. “Marcus…are you?—”
“We’re finally here. Knocking on the door is the easy part.” I want to hold her in this in-between place—between what’s happened and what’s about to.
I shake my arms which are buzzing from the vibration of the road, and I rub the tension out of my neck. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I turn toward the door.
Mei grabs my hand, and it’s so comforting and familiar. My palm is extra sensitive against hers, my mind rewinding to our time in the hut as we walk past a fountain circled by dwarf trees pruned into globes, a couple bronze statues. A faded rubber duck floating in a pot filled with rainwater. Definitely the right house. That’s something Guo would do. I wish for the thousandth time she was here.
The gray door reflects our shadows, and they’re as smudged as I feel, but I raise my free hand and knock.
“And here…,” Jerry says, sweeping open the door to the red cottage huddled under the trees in his backyard, “is your new place. For however long you need it.” He grins at us and nods. “My sister said it needed to feel like home, so I hope you like lanterns and silk pillows because that’s what Wen picked out.”
I scan the room, my bag strap cutting into my tense shoulders. Home? No Ansel Adams on the wall or giant flat screen TV or Dad’s stack of books on the end tables. No Dad.
Perfect.
And far from San Francisco.
Even better.
Just me and Mei.
“Wow. This is perfect. Thank you.” I say to Jerry, who’s standing by the door in his robe and slippers, his beaming smile just like Guo’s. “And bunk beds!” I turn toward the built-ins in the corner—puffy, orange comforters piled with red, white, and blue silk pillows. Dad would hate them. Unless Kenna wanted them.
I flick the thought away and smile at Jerry. “I always wanted bunk beds but never had anyone to share a room with. Until now.” Now, when I actually want to share my bed, there are two and a bruised, battered, freaked out Mei. I gotta keep distance between us; otherwise, the moment she gets close, my hormones will threaten to break the promise I made myself to give her space
“The bathroom’s just in there.” Jerry points to a door I’ll have to walk through sideways unless I want to get stuck. “Small for some of us.” He snickers to himself, just like Guo does when she makes fun of me in her most loving way. “But it will be safe here. My sister was insistent, and I never want to make her mad.”
I laugh. Mei says thank you, her voice soft and breezy like she just floated back into the room from somewhere else. “We really appreciate this, and we’ll make it up to you any way we can.”
Jerry nods and steps toward the open door. “It’s been a long day for you, so I will leave you to settle in. We can talk about hours at the restaurant and warehouse after you’ve had some rest.”
Help at the restaurant. Warehouse. In exchange for rent. I’ve never had a job or rent. I’ve barely been out of California. How did I get here?
Jerry blinks at me, then Mei, and back again. I jerk my head in confirmation. “Yeah. Perfect. We’re so grateful. We’ll help any way we can.”
He smiles, and Mei shakes his hand before he slips out of the cottage. She shuts the door, locks it, and turns around, back against it. Smiling, she bites her lower lip. “This is much nicer than the hut of despair.”
I tense because she’s driving me crazy looking at me like that. My mind is swirling with the memory of all of her pressed up against me at the hut. Then how she tensed. She said it was because she was cold, but I know there’s more to it.
Her gaze moves down my body, then makes a U turn and moves back up, and I swallow my thoughts which land in my stomach with a thud. The jolt helps me remember what she went through right before we left.
I dig my toes into my shoes to stop my legs from stepping toward her, pulling her onto the bed to finish what we started in the hut. Instead, I turn to face the bunks, my whole body on fire. “I call top!”