Chapter Ten
Khoi, of course, knows exactly how to get to the dorm.
Unfortunately, he also has this insanely frustrating habit of meandering.
He strolls like he thinks we’re an elderly couple on the beach.
Sometimes he even pauses to check out various posters papering the infinitely long corridor.
By the time he tears off a tab from some flyer looking for volunteers, I’m ready to ditch his ass.
At this rate, we’re going to be eligible for senior discounts by the time we get to Simmons.
We pass a tourist group posing for photos. For no reason, my brain goes, They look like me. But I push that thought away. They don’t look like me. They’re just Asian. So actually, maybe that makes me racist?
But I guess I’ve hardly ever seen so many Asians together in one place before.
As we finally reach the end of the hallway and pass through a sun-drenched lobby, I have a stroke of genius. Which is rare for me. “Wanna play a game?”
“I love games!”
I reach to push the door, but it glides open on its own. We step outside into the crisp evening. Majestic ivory columns tower above us, stark against the deepening sky. I recognize those columns. They’re on all the MIT marketing materials.
For a moment, I forget about whatever I was saying. I’m here. Actually here. Standing on the same steps where so many geniuses (genii?) have laughed and cried and dreamed. What even.
Khoi’s staring at me.
Right. The game. “Let’s race to the dorm.” I’m totally going to lose—he has longer legs than me and my lungs malfunction at speeds faster than five miles an hour—but at least this way we can hustle faster.
He gauges the distance, then gives me a once-over. “Loser owes the other a boba.”
I haven’t had boba in years. The Lucky Panda sells it, but it’s a cheap white-people imitation made from powder, and they call it “bubble tea.” And it’s chocolate-flavored.
“Fine. We’ll start after we cross this road.” We shake on it. His grasp is surprisingly firm. It’s nice when someone has a good handshake. I hate it when it feels like I’m grabbing a floppy, dead fish.
We descend the steps and wait in front of the intersection as cars soar past. The lights change, and the crowd surges onto the crosswalk.
He counts down. “Three… two…” Before he gets to one, I kick off and propel forward.
“Hey, that’s cheating!” he yells, but he doesn’t sound very mad.
I ignore him and weave around a pack of tourists wearing Harvard sweaters—yikes, hope they’re not too lost. I dodge a wayward drone, but behind me, Khoi yelps.
My legs are flying and blood roars in my ears.
There’s a stitch stabbing into my side. But soon he’s caught up to me anyway.
I hate tall people privilege. Actually, he’s not even that tall.
I’m just short. “Oolong, lychee jelly, one hundred and fifty percent sugar, no ice,” he calls over his shoulder as he passes by.
“What?” I huff. I can barely get the word out.
“My boba order.”
Which is just an unhinged amount of sugar. I may have unwittingly gotten mixed up with an actual sociopath. But I can’t think too hard about that when my lungs are on the verge of collapse.
Once we cut across to Vassar Street, the dorm finally comes into view. It looks like a sponge. A futuristic sponge. It’s a colossal silver block with thousands of tiny square windows.
When I finally reach Simmons, Khoi is leaning against the building, arms crossed, grinning.
I double over, hands on my knees, heart in overdrive. My mouth desperately seizes for air like I’m a goldfish.
“Stop doing that,” I force out between gasps.
“I’m not doing anything!”
Before I can answer that, I focus on not dying. Charise Tang is fully in her being-alive era.
Once my body feels more like it got hit with a grenade than a nuclear bomb, I straighten up. “Your face. It’s too smug.”
“That’s just my face!” He unlocks his phone camera and peers at himself. As if he needs to check that his face is still his face. “Wow, what a fine-looking young lad.”
I mean. I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.
At check-in, an Asian girl with square glasses and a HellomynameisBrenda name tag hands us tote bags and reads us the rules.
There’s curfew at eleven. No alcohol, no drugs.
No sex in the ball pit (apparently there’s a ball pit).
No torrenting, no hacking, no crypto scamming, no normal scamming, no threatening national security.
“Okay, but what if there’s like an Edward Snowden situation where it’s in the general public’s best interest—” Khoi yelps when I elbow him in the ribs.
As we wait for the elevator, Khoi riffles through his tote bag.
“Hey, they gave us info on our roommates.” He reads his paper slip out loud.
“ ‘Obi Udechukwu.’ Is that Nigerian? From Santa Clara, California. His fun fact is that he once won a jujitsu tournament against Mark Zuckerberg.” He whistles. “I’m gonna stay on Obi’s good side.”
I fish out my paper. “ ‘Aisha Chadha, Boston, Massachusetts.’ Oh, she’s local. Her fun fact is that she’s danced at the White House?”
“Oh, Aisha! I’ve known her forever.”
“How?”
“She goes to Phillips Andover, a boarding school about an hour from here. We do the same local STEM competitions. She’s also… We’re…” He seems to be on the verge of saying more, but then he shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Ugh. Of course all the smart kids know one another. I’m manifesting that I’ll find some decent friends. At least Khoi seems nice. Well. Maybe I should keep my guard up. He has that sociopathic boba order, after all.
When we get to our floor, Khoi follows me so he can say hi to Aisha. The door to my room is ajar.
“Just in case,” a woman is saying. “For emergencies.”
“Ammi, when am I going to need bear spray? The only wild animals here are the tech bros.”
Even though I haven’t even seen her, I already vibe with my roommate.
I push my way inside. There’s a South Asian girl, dressed head-to-toe in Lululemon, standing in front of an overflowing suitcase. She has a ballerina’s build, tall and lean, with lethal-looking shoulder blades. An older man and woman are hovering about. They must be her parents.
I open my mouth to greet them, but before I say anything, Khoi strides over and slings his arm around her shoulder. “Hey, babe.”
Babe?
They’re dating? Like. Khoi could’ve mentioned my roommate was his girlfriend.
She pecks him on the cheek. “Baaaabe.”
And I get the sense that their tongues are not going to remain inside their own mouths, so before things get gross, I start looking at anywhere else but them. Like suddenly these concrete walls are fascinating. So awesomely solid and gray. It’s giving prison minimalism.
I’m surprised, honestly. It’s not so much that I’m shocked that Aisha is his girlfriend.
I don’t even know her. It’s more that Khoi didn’t seem like the type who would have a girlfriend at all.
He exudes major hopeless dork aura. I’m not trying to be mean.
It’s cute. But I’m just saying, I clocked him for someone who would, like, bring a TI-84 calculator to prom instead of a date.
Anyway, to my eternal relief, they don’t start making out, maybe because Aisha’s parents are in the room.
Aisha’s father smiles. “Are your aunt and uncle here too?”
Khoi shakes his head. “Sharon and Graham meant to drive over here with me, but there was a performance at Symphony Hall tonight they really wanted to see, so I took public transit.”
“Ah, yes, the Shostakovich string quartet?”
Khoi snaps his fingers. “Yes! With that famous cellist Graham likes. Gosh, what’s her name…?”
The rest of this conversation becomes rather confusing and string-instrument-flavored.
While her boyfriend and dad are geeking out, Aisha looks at me. “Are you my roomie? The one who…” She fishes a paper slip out of her sports bra. “… memorized the lyrics to every single Olivia Rodrigo song? Cute! I love ‘driver’s license’.”
Even though she sounds sincere, I flush.
I guess it’s not dancing at the White House or beating the Zuck in jujitsu.
When I submitted the fun fact, I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a humblebrag.
“Charise Tang, but you can call me Char.” I cross the room to shake her hand, but she’s a total hugger. Her perfume is vanilla and cinnamon.
Her parents introduce themselves, then turn their attention to Khoi, whose arm is still around Aisha. “Have you decided where you’re going to apply early? Our daughter is doing Harvard.”
“Sounds like Harvard for me, then.” He grins. “So we can stay together.”
They’re adorable and it’s almost nauseating.
“There goes our daughter’s chance of getting in.” Mr. Chadha says it in a light tone, but I don’t think he’s one hundred percent joking.
“Are you kidding? Aisha is way smarter than me. I’m scared of her!”
Mr. Chadha doesn’t respond to that, just turns to me. “And what about you?”
Damn, I wasn’t expecting to get interrogated too. “I haven’t… I haven’t thought about it.”
“We can help you brainstorm,” Mrs. Chadha says. “I volunteer as a college coach. I got Aisha’s older brother into Princeton.”
Aisha groans. “Ammi, Char doesn’t want—”
“What did you get on the SAT? That’ll give you an idea on what caliber of universities you should target.”
“Uh, I haven’t taken the SAT yet.” Chinook Shore only administers it once a year, in October. If you want to take it some other time, you better haul ass to the next county. And that’s, like, way too much effort.
Mr. Chadha gasps as if I just fessed up to murdering puppies.
“You can sit for the SAT this summer,” Mrs. Chadha says. “It’s too late to register for the June exam, but there’s one in August. Plenty of places in Boston you can take it.”
I do this half laugh, half shrug, noncommittal thing. I’m kind of scared she’s going to actually have an aneurysm if I say anything else.
“Ammi,” Aisha repeats in this annoyed way. She gives me a sheepish look.
Khoi excuses himself to drop his backpack off in his room—he mentions his aunt and uncle are coming by later with the rest of his things. I duck outside to use the restroom.
When I come back, I’m about to push the door open when Mrs. Chadha’s voice makes me halt.
“Ladli, we like Khoi, but he shouldn’t apply to Harvard on your account. It’s a big decision.”
Aisha now. “Maybe he just wants to go to Harvard anyway. I’ve heard it’s a decent school.”
“No need for sarcasm, young lady.”
“Sorry,” Aisha says, not sounding sorry at all.
Mr. Chadha: “He’s a lovely boy, but you can’t get too serious. You know you can’t marry him.”
Aisha’s voice is full of derision. “Yeah, yeah, because he’s not brown.”
“Don’t act that way,” Ms. Chadha says in a tone that tells me Aisha’s spot-on.
“I’m not going to marry Khoi. We’re seventeen. It’s not going to get serious. ’Kay? So you don’t have to worry.”
Oof. Does Khoi realize he’s just another extracurricular to Aisha? Should I warn him? Nope, not my place to get involved. I hardly know either of them. I’ve already heard too much. I sort of wish I could unhear it.
I nudge the door open.
As soon as she sees me, Aisha’s expression shifts from annoyance to relief.
“Char!” She grins. “Let’s go down for dinner?”