Chapter Thirty-Six
Friday morning, Khoi’s all moody and quiet, and I know that he’s still upset over the girlfriend thing. Part of me wants to call him out for being unfair. That he doesn’t understand what it’s like to constantly be in survival mode.
But the smarter part of me knows when to shut up. We’re hours away from the finish line. I’m not about to mess up our chances at winning by getting into it with my teammate.
Sitting in Khoi’s room, we upload links to our GitHub repository and a video demo. An entire summer’s worth of work concluded with a silent button click. The final project submission deadline comes and goes.
I don’t know. I was sorta hoping for something more dramatic, something more eleventh-hour. Like somebody throttling the Wi-Fi network to sabotage the competition. Code getting leaked. A fistfight over server space. Some rogue drone crashing through the window.
But no. All I get is the spinning rainbow wheel of doom while we upload our submission.
Afterward, the rest of the camp heads to Chinatown to celebrate with karaoke, but Khoi bails, saying that he’s tired. I join everyone else in screaming our lungs out to “Mr. Brightside” and try not to think about what’s coming this weekend.
Saturday rolls around, and we’ve got a midmorning slot to present in front of the judging panel. When Khoi and I meet in his room to practice beforehand, he looks off. His face is hollow and pale, as if he hasn’t slept a wink.
“You good?” I ask as he fiddles with his monitor screens.
“Hmm?” His reaction time is sluggish too. “Yeah.”
Something occurs to me. “Did you end up refilling your medication?”
“Not yet,” he mumbles.
“Khoi.” I check my phone for the time. There’s still an hour before we have to meet the judges. “Is the pharmacy open on Saturdays? Do you want to do it now?”
“After our presentation.” He shakes his head.
“We have time to get your meds.”
“We should try to win,” he says. “I thought that was important to you? I thought that’s all you cared about?”
Okay, that’s enough. “Grow up,” I snap. “What are you expecting me to do? Right now this contest is my only chance at securing a better life for myself and my mom. And if you’re too immature to get that, then maybe we shouldn’t be together.”
He’s silent, and for a moment I think I’ve gone too far. I didn’t really mean that. I don’t want to break up.
God, of course I had to go and ruin things.
But then he crumples onto his desk and an unnatural spasm shudders through his body, like his muscles are at war with each other.
I rush over. “Khoi? Khoi!”
He doesn’t respond. I don’t even think he’s conscious. His face is stiff except for this horrible gurgling sound that oozes from his mouth. Even though I’ve never seen a seizure before, I’m deathly sure that’s what this is.
Fuck. Fuck. He never told me what to do in this situation. But I should’ve asked.
Should I turn him on his side to ensure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit?
Or is that only for drunk people? Do people even vomit during seizures?
I hate myself for not knowing. God, I need an actual adult right now.
My mom is down the hall, but let’s be real.
In a medical crisis, she’s not much better than Reddit.
With trembling hands, I dial 911.
By the time the EMTs arrive, Khoi’s stopped jerking, thank God, although he’s still out cold. As one of them checks his vitals with easy confidence, the other asks me how long he was seizing for.
“Um, maybe a few minutes?” It felt like forever to me. I feel like an idiot for not having a better answer. Why didn’t I think to time the seizure?
“If it was longer than five minutes, it’s considered to be status epilepticus, which can be life-threatening.”
The word life-threatening makes my stomach knot up, and I force myself to take several deep breaths. I have to keep my shit together. For Khoi.
They say he’ll probably be fine as long as he gets back on his meds—withdrawal seizures are a common side effect of missing multiple doses of Keppra—but they want to whisk him to urgent care just in case.
The paramedics let me ride in the ambulance and I hold his hand the entire time.
At least his breathing has steadied. He looks so small and pale on the cot, like a porcelain doll, and it makes me want to never let go.
Once we arrive, they disappear with him in the back and I collapse in the waiting room. My entire body is vibrating with anxiety.
The dude next to me, who’s definitely old enough to be my dad, shoots me a low-key flirty look. Yeah, no thanks. Maybe it’s an overreaction, but I bounce to the other side of the room. Not today, sir.
Ugh. I feel so useless. There’s nothing I can do for Khoi. I can’t even call his aunt and uncle to let them know about what happened because I don’t have their phone numbers. I think MIT Medical might be taking care of that.
No, wait. There is something I need to do.
The clock’s ticking. We’ve got, like, ten minutes before we’re supposed to present. I should tell the judges that we had a medical emergency and can’t make it anymore. Beg for a do-over slot later. So I call HellomynameisCourtney.
“Hello?” Her voice is crisp, efficient. Like metal scraping against metal.
“This is Charise Tang, I’m in Alpha Fellows, my team is supposed to be presenting, like, right now, but we’re going to miss our time slot, my teammate Khoi Astor, he suddenly had a seizure…” The words tumble out all piled up.
“Charise. Charise. Take a deep breath.”
I oblige, but it doesn’t calm me down much.
“Great. Now, is he okay?” she asks sharply.
“I don’t know.” I haven’t even had time to doomscroll WebMD. “He hasn’t been taking his medication.”
A horrible thought hits me. What if the last thing he ever hears is me saying that we shouldn’t be together?
No, I’m spiraling. The paramedics said he’d be fine.
And people don’t just die from seizures.
I think. But what if they do? I don’t know anything about this.
I should’ve asked him more about his condition.
Why did I never ask? It’s such a huge part of his life.
He didn’t seem to want to talk about it…
but maybe I’m just making excuses for my awfulness.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” she says. “Health takes priority, of course.”
“But the presentation?” I feel shitty for even asking, but I have to know.
“Well, you’re perfectly fine, right?”
The implication is obvious, but I want Khoi there too. I don’t want him to miss out on this, especially when he poured so much of his soul into Hello World.
Plus… I don’t know if I can do it by myself. Without him.
“They might let him out soon,” I say. “They’re just, uh, observing him?” Like he’s a goldfish in a fish tank. “What if we presented later?”
“Unfortunately our schedule is tight and we won’t be able to allocate a different time slot to your team,” she says. “You have to present by yourself or not at all.”
“Please—”
“Charise, it’s eight minutes to ten,” she says. “If you don’t want all your hard work this summer to go to waste, I suggest you go right now. If not for yourself, then for your teammate.”
Then she hangs up and I free-fall into panic.
I hurtle through the hallway, trying to figure out where the hell the actual judging room is.
I’ve been through this set of doors before. I’ve passed by this bathroom like three times already. But the mythical final boss room? Nowhere to be seen.
I wave at a random nearby college student. “Hi hi! Do you know where this is?” I show her the room number from the Alpha Fellows portal.
“Oh, that’s on the other side of the building,” she says. “So, the way Stata is designed, there are multiple towers, and you can’t cross to one from another on this floor. You should take the elevator down to the first floor and then try the west side.”
It’s giving The princess is in another castle!
She sees my disappointment and shoots me a sympathetic smile. “It’s confusing, but kinda fun?”
We have very different definitions of fun.
I thank her and rush toward the elevator, which is just about to close as I dive inside.
Inside is a dude and his metal dog that growls at me when my calf brushes against its snout.
Lovely. Now even the robots hate me. When the AI uprising happens, I’ll be at the top of the kill list. Me and anyone who’s ever kicked a Roomba.
As the elevator zips toward the ground floor, I check the time on my phone. Already two minutes past ten.
Three minutes later, I breathlessly trip into the room. The three judges, all men, are seated at the front. One of them—a guy rocking a mullet and Birkenstocks combo—gives me a look like I just showed up late to my own funeral.
Edvin Nilsen is chilling in the corner. He grins at me. I smile back, relieved to see at least one friendly face.
“Glad you could make it,” another judge says. “Your app is Hello World, right? Courtney informed us of your teammate’s medical emergency. I hope he’s all right.” His words come out rapid-fire, like he’s mainlined a triple shot of espresso.
“Yep, that’s us.” I get my laptop and link it to the HDMI cable at the podium. Our slides pop up on the screen in full color, and suddenly it all feels so much more real. This is it. The home stretch.
I wish Khoi were next to me. It’d be less intimidating to face down this room of all dudes. He’d be rizzing up the judges, joking about their favorite Elon Musk tweets or fanboying over the latest gadget in TechCrunch or whatever.
But more importantly, he put in the work. Tweaked CSS pixel by pixel, wrestled with API calls, crawled through Stack Overflow rabbit holes. He should be standing up here, too.
But I don’t have time to dwell. The judges are staring expectantly. I clear my throat. “Hi—hello. I’m Charise Tang. I’m from Chinook Shore.”
The Birkenstocks dude frowns. “Where is Shinoo Shore?” He says the name like it’s gibberish. It’s especially annoying because Chinook is an Indigenous word.