Chapter Nine
When the plane tilts down, I press my face to the window, hungrily absorbing every detail.
Massachusetts rushes toward me. Lush fields edged by suburban rooftops.
In the afternoon sunlight, colorful cars in parking lots glisten like these fistfuls of hard candy.
The rolling green slowly melts into meandering asphalt roads, and oh, look, there’re skyscrapers now, yawning upward in glass and steel.
White sailboats float lazily in the blue harbor.
Freaking gorgeous. There are adventures strewn everywhere.
All I need to do is reach down and seize the right one.
The landing is rough—I don’t think planes are supposed to bounce like that. As soon as the cabin lights flicker on, people push into the aisle like they’re rushing for Taylor Swift concert tickets.
I turn off airplane mode and scroll the notifications I missed.
From Lola, a TikTok of a raccoon washing cotton candy and being confused when the cotton candy disappears into the water. Mood. I’m the clueless raccoon and my cotton candy is, like, my entire life. I reply with the crying-profusely emoji before I remember she also thinks that one is for boomers.
Nothing from Olive or Michael, not that I expect or want them to contact me. I have several missed calls and texts from Mom, but I don’t open the messages or listen to the voicemails or dial her number.
I don’t know. I’m not ready to deal with her yet. Maybe I never will be.
Once I’m off the plane, I follow the signs for baggage claim. People from my flight are already crowded around carousel number four. I recognize some of the passengers, like the screaming baby from seat 17A and the snoring dude who reclined his seat directly onto my kneecaps.
The bags spew out of a metal mouth and settle onto the conveyor belt. People rush to grab their luggage, and the throng around me thins. I wait.
After I watch the carousel circle several more times, I have to admit the obvious. My luggage isn’t here.
There’s a customer support desk nearby, manned by a middle-aged woman with white skunk stripes in her otherwise dark hair.
When I get closer, I see that she’s watching a steamy clip from Bridgerton.
Actually, she’s watching it on loop. Not that I can blame her.
Everyone in Bridgerton is so pretty it should be illegal.
I clear my throat several times before she looks up.
“I’m looking for my suitcase,” I say. “It’s red.”
It was a present from my dad. For when you visit me in China, he had said, like the total liar that he is. I never had the chance to use it until now. And now it’s gone. Vanished into nothing, like cotton candy dissolving into a river.
It’s not that I’m emotionally attached to the suitcase.
Honestly? It’s a reminder of my dad’s broken promises.
But I need my clothes. My toiletries. My graphing calculator, just in case I have to compute parametric equations or something.
It’s a hackathon. Who knows what kind of emergency math I’ll need to do.
“Did you just come in from Portland?” she asks. “Your suitcase might be delayed. Your flight was full, so some of the luggage was moved to a later one.”
“But what about my things?” I can’t hide the frustration in my voice. Suddenly I imagine myself exactly as she might see me—a skinny, five-foot-two unaccompanied minor wearing a Pikachu sweater, whining about her lost stuff. Like a brat, and not in the lime-green Charli XCX way.
“I wouldn’t worry too much. This happens all the time on every airline.
” That doesn’t make me feel better. Mostly it makes me lose faith in the commercial aviation industry.
“We’ll let you know if it turns up. In the meantime, fill out this insurance form and itemize everything that was in your luggage. ”
I bite back a groan.
It’s nearly six thirty by the time I finish with customer service, and the next shuttle to MIT isn’t until eight p.m. But I don’t want to miss dinner. One of my goals in life is to maximize opportunities for free food. So I hop onto the silver line.
When I step out of the subway station at Kendall Square, everybody’s in a hurry. Cars lunge. Joggers and their eager dogs whiz by. A cyclist nearly runs me over and doesn’t bother to say sorry.
It makes me giddy. This city is alive with kinetic energy. There’s something about it that makes me feel like I have lightning in my veins. Like I’m finally someplace bigger than myself.
Anyway, I’m happy for about two minutes until some jerk splashes his iced coffee all over the front of my sweater.
It takes me a second to process what just happened. A cold shock on my torso, and a shriek that my brain sluggishly registers as my own.
There’s an Asian boy about my age clutching a plastic cup half-filled with iced coffee.
He’s apologizing very fast and dabbing at my general boob area with a napkin.
Maybe this is his usual perv move that he pulls as an excuse to grope girls.
Maybe I should tell him to stop touching me, but I’m too annoyed to care.
“Why did you do that?” The words surprise me with how pointy they sound. “That was my one top with long sleeves.” My other hoodies and sweaters are in my suitcase, which is currently floating somewhere over Cleveland.
There’s a pinch behind my eyes, and suddenly this sadness floods through me, like something has finally broken. It’s not really about the sweater. It’s about this entire day.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m Khoi, by the way.” Suddenly his hand is at my cheek, wiping away my tears, and somehow this scrap of kindness from a stranger only makes me cry harder.
It’s mortifying. Like, I’m not even the weepy type.
I barely teared up when Bambi’s mom died, so Lola thinks I might secretly be a robot.
“Myoclonic seizure.” His ears redden as he says it.
“Sorry?” I sniffle.
“You asked why I did that. I have epilepsy. Sometimes I get these spasms. They’re called myoclonic seizures. That’s why I spilled my coffee on you.” He says this all in one rush, like it’s a confession.
Now I feel bad for being rude. “It’s okay.”
“I’ll buy you another sweater.”
That’s too much. I shake my head no.
There’s something so casual in how he throws out the offer—I’ll buy you another sweater—that makes me think he’s not concerned about money. For the first time, I actually look at him, trying to figure out how wealthy he is.
He has limbs that seem a little too long for his body, like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
Lush eyelashes, a scattering of freckles across his cheeks.
He’s wearing an unzipped jacket, a shirt that reads THERE ARE 10 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD: THOSE WHO KNOW BINARY AND THOSE WHO DON’T, and lemon-yellow Crocs with fuzzy socks.
I don’t recognize the brand of his backpack.
So. Nothing obviously expensive, although that could mean he’s rich-rich.
In Chinook Shore, people do whatever they can to brag about their money, even money they don’t have.
Especially money they don’t have. The tourists drip out in counterfeit Louis Vuitton and Gucci.
My neighbors go into debt for new four-wheelers.
But I’ve learned teeth are the universal billboard for “my family is loaded.”
I can’t see Khoi’s teeth right now, but I have a feeling his smile is dazzling and pearly white and perfectly straight.
He unzips his backpack. “Here, I have a spare T-shirt.”
“It has to have long sleeves,” I say without thinking.
He cocks his head. “Why?”
Ugh. Why did I say that?
Well, Khoi isn’t holding a suitcase, so he’s not here for Alpha Fellows. I wouldn’t usually do this, but hey, I’m never going to see this kid again, so I wordlessly roll up my left sleeve and show him the bruises on my forearm, the angry purple apostrophes that Michael indented into my skin.
I don’t know. Maybe I just want sympathy from a kind, soft-eyed stranger. I want someone to acknowledge that my existence is a total dumpster fire.
He inhales sharply. “Who did this? Are you okay? Do we need to call the police?”
“I’m fine,” I say, ignoring his other questions.
“Seriously, what—”
I try a quip. “You should see the other guy.”
“Why?”
“Because I totally beat his ass…” I stop when his eyes widen with shock. He’s clearly not getting the joke. “Never mind.”
“If somebody is hurting you, there is help out there.” He rattles off the words like he memorized a health class pamphlet. He probably did memorize some health class pamphlet. Laminated, with cute illustrations of multicultural families holding hands.
This kid doesn’t seem to have any real-world experience with this kind of thing, so I don’t need his advice.
“Forget it.” I check my phone. It’s already seven thirty. “I need to go.”
“No, wait. You can have this.” He removes his jacket and hands it to me.
“Thanks.” I reach to peel off my sweater. I guess my shirt lifts up with it, because suddenly he starts coughing.
“Don’t you, um, want to get changed in the restroom?” he asks in a strangled voice.
Oops. I ignore him and yank down my shirt with one hand while tugging my sweater over my head with the other.
When I glance at his face, he’s blushing furiously, and I swallow a giggle at how scandalized he looks.
He’s probably sixteen or seventeen. Is this really the first time he’s ever caught a glimpse of a girl’s bra?
Back home, most people start hooking up before they learn the quadratic formula.
I mean, given our public education system, I’m not sure they ever actually learn the quadratic formula, so maybe that’s not saying much.
I wad up my sweater—poor Pikachu’s face is now mottled brown, like he has that skin condition, vitiligo—and shove it into my backpack. “Nah. I don’t have time to find a restroom. I’m already late for my thing.”
“What’s your thing?”
“Um, it’s in Simmons Hall? Do you know where that is?”
He looks too young to be a college student, but maybe he’s the son of a faculty member here. He seems like a sheltered kid who would have professor parents.
Well, Khoi isn’t holding a suitcase, so he’s not here for Alpha Fellows. I never thought somebody’s face could become the ^_^ emoji, but there’s no other way to describe Khoi’s expression. “No way, I’m going there too! For Alpha Fellows? Serendipity!”
“Serendipity,” I echo, even though I’m not one hundred percent sure what that word means.
It’s like somebody just slapped me across the face. How did I not see this coming?
Now I regret showing him the bruise.