I’m starting to consider the horrible, nauseating possibility that Ares Yin has stood me up when I spot him outside theChagee store. He’s dressed in all black again. As I watch, two girls sipping their new cups of milk tea do a double-take on their way out, then break into giggles. One of them starts to approach him, holding her phone out, no doubt ready to ask him for his WeChat.
“Ares,” I call, marching forward.
The girl shrinks back, her face falling in disappointment.
Ares doesn’t seem to notice any of this, or doesn’t care. “How’s the ankle?” he asks, tilting his head. It sounds less like he’s concerned and more like he’s testing me.
“Healing, but it still hurts,” I say, making a point to slow my footsteps. “Thanks for coming.”
He fixes me with an appraising look. “Maybe you shouldn’t be shopping at all if your ankle hurts.”
Is he trying to get out of this shopping trip before it’s even started?I chew the inside of my cheek, trying to steady myself against the twist of panic in my stomach. If I’m being honest, I thought Ares would have softened up to me a little by now. According to my usual timeline, most guys would be professing their love to me and asking me to meet their parents.
And I don’t have that much time left. Prom season is in full swing already, and almost everyone I know has their date for the night secured. If I want to change the course of my fate, I need Ares to ask me out—but right now he doesn’t seem interested in asking for anything except the option to leave. “Well, you know what they say. Shopping is good therapy,” I tell him. “I’ll probably be healed by the end of today.”
“I think you’re confusing physical therapy with retail therapy.”
“Same thing. Plus, the nurse said I was fine to walk.”
He looks less like he’s convinced and more like he can’t be bothered arguing with me. “Well, then. Lead the way.”
He follows me from one end of the mall to the other, then from the first floor up to the sixth. Past the bakeries selling oolong cakes and matcha Swiss rolls and vanilla canelés “house-baked fresh daily!” Through the cosmetics aisles offering live demonstrations on how to make your face look smaller with their latest contour palette. And into all the luxury stores, Chanel and Gucci and Versace, where the overeager sales associates offer us sparkling water and fragrance samples while they bring out their selection of dresses.
“I’ll take all of these, thanks,” I tell the sales associate after I’ve tried on seven dresses.
“You found your dress?” Ares asks.
“What? No, don’t be ridiculous. Those are just for future parties or picnics,” I say. The sales associate trots back with all the dresses wrapped in shiny bags, which she hands straight over to Ares. She must have assumed he’s my boyfriend—a fact that pleases me more than I’d like to admit. “My prom dress has to be absolutelyperfect. Come on, let’s go check out another store.”
Ares makes no further comment, but he carries all my bags dutifully, his sleeves rolled up, keeping in step with me.
“Oh yeah, do you have a suit for prom yet?” I ask him as we pass a menswear store, the window displays guarded by mannequins in smart blazers and ties. “We can pick something out for you too.”
“No, thanks. I’m not going to prom,” Ares says.
I stop walking.“You’re not going to prom?”I repeat—too sharply, too panicked, my throat closing around my voice. He shoots me an odd look, and I try to school my horror into something more casual, like incredulity. He can’t find out that my multistep strategy to save my house hinges around him going to prom with me. “But... butwhy? Everyone goes to prom.”
“I don’t get what the big deal is,” he says with a shrug.
“It’s averybig deal,” I argue. “It’s basically the most important event throughout all of high school. People at Airington dream about prom the way girls dream about their weddings. It’s meant to be, like, this one perfect, grand, magical night you’ll reminisce about in a retirement home fifty years later. It’s your official coming of age. It’s beautiful.”
Ares considers this for a moment, then shakes his head. “I’m just not interested.”
I stare at him in disbelief. There’s something about the way he says it—completely unapologetic, direct, without catering to anybody else. I can’t imagine ever doing that. I’ve been raised to feign interest, to show up and smile and act like I care about everything all the time, no matter how I really feel inside. “But you’re literally nominated for prom king,” I point out as I recover my pace. “By tradition, unless they have a major scheduling conflict or near-fatal accident, the prom king candidatesalwaysattend.”
“By tradition, but not by law, right?” Ares says dryly.
“Okay, no, not technically, but—”
“And it’s not like I asked to be nominated for prom king,” he goes on in the same blunt, bored tone. “I didn’t even know that was happening.”
My blood heats. Ares’s clear disdain toward prom doesn’t just feel like a threat to my plans; it feels like an insult to everything I’ve built over the years. My networking, my scheming, my relentless, exhausting self-promotion, all so I could become prom royalty—a status that apparently means nothing to Ares. It’s like when I spent weeks making paper-mâché flowers over the Christmas holidays, hoping they would lift my mother’s mood. But when she’d spotted them sitting in a vase outside our spa room, she’d merely frowned and asked the ayi to toss them out. “Get me some real roses,”she’d said, “or bring out the Swarovski flowers.”Suddenly all my efforts had felt so stupid, so pointless.
But I can’t let my frustration show, and I can’t push Ares too hard about prom just yet. I’ll only come across as obsessive and controlling, or highly suspicious. So instead I sidestep the subject and point to one of the boutique stores up ahead. “Let’s go in there—it looks cute.”
I say this as if I’ve spotted the store by chance, but I’ve frequented it enough times for the store manager and all the workers to know who I am—which is exactly why I’m tugging Ares inside with me. If I can’t make himlikeme right away, at least I can try to impress him in a controlled environment. Remind him of how famous I am.
“Oh my god, Chanel Cao!” Just as I’d hoped, the store manager jumps up from the counter in the back section, where all the floral skirts have been mixed-and-matched with trendy lace tops and cropped pieces. She struts over, smiling wide. “Welcome, welcome. You came atsucha good time—theseason’s newest dresses just landed yesterday. All one-hundred-percent real silk. There’s this one dress that I know would look absolutelygorgeouson you....”
