There’s a hot prickling sensation in the back of my eyes, and I’m blinking fast to make it go away when Vanessa Liu stops me in the hall.
We’re the kind of friendly where we beam and wave at each other and stop to compliment each other’s hair or complainabout our classes, but we would never actually hang out together on weekends.
She’s staring at me now, sympathy swimming all over her face as she clasps my hand. “Howareyou holding up?” she asks.
I remind my lips how to smile. “Oh, I’m fine,” I tell her.
“No,really.It must besohard.” She keeps this up for a while, with her spoken-poetry-style emphasis on random words, as if everything suddenly becomes profound when your parents’ divorce is splashed all over the news. “Are youall right? Do youneedanything? Because if youdo, I’mherefor you—you can talk to me atanytime.”
“Thanks, girl, that’s super sweet of you. But I am fine.Really,” I add in the same tone she used.
“I just can’t believe it,” she says, apparently still not done with this conversation. “I’m shocked. I’m so shocked—were you shocked? I mean, did youknow?”
I’m trying to figure out a quick escape when someone taps my shoulder. I twist around, braced for another half friend to pry into my life under the guise of concern, but instead I find myself staring up at Ares.
He holds my gaze for a beat, his lips slightly parted, his head cocked as if to assess something.
And all at once, everything from last night rushes back to me. The confessions I’d made in the darkness of the car, the way I’d nuzzled against him. He had been so patient and gentle with me, and I’d been so grateful for it that I had let my guard fall. But now, in broad daylight, regret burns sour in my throat like a nasty hangover. Couldhehave been the one to leak the story?
“Can you help me with something?” Ares asks.
Vanessa’s brows shoot up with a new sort of curiosity. I don’t think Ares has asked anyone at school for help before.
On any other day, I would be thrilled by this, the fact thathe’sthe one seekingmeout. Proof of progress, a rare sign that he’s interested in me. But I hesitate and eye him warily, my mind still combing through all the information I’d slipped to him yesterday, trying to connect it with the article, to calculate the chances that he’s the culprit. “Okay,” I say at last.
He leads me away from the countless pairs of eyes, down the corridor and into an empty Chinese classroom. The door clicks shut behind him, and he stops under the display of crimson paper fans we’d folded for the spring festival.
I drop into the teacher’s chair and cross my ankles to keep myself from fidgeting. I can’t believe it’s still morning. It feels like a decade has passed since I woke up.
“Chanel,” Ares starts to say. “Are you—”
“Did you leak the story?” I blurt out.
He had been walking toward me, but he comes to an abrupt halt, his eyes widening with confusion, then surprise, before hardening. I realize at once that I’ve asked the wrong question, made a fatal mistake.
“Why would I do that?” he asks, visibly affronted.
“I—I don’t know.” I swallow the lump in my throat. Even though the windows have been left ajar, the classroom feels too hot, too stuffy. “To embarrass me? To ruin my reputation? To make money off the story? Because you don’t like me?”
With every word that comes out of my mouth, the musclein his jaw winds tighter and tighter, until he takes a step back, shaking his head. “Jesus, Chanel,” he says. “I wasn’t aware you had such a low opinion of me.”
“It’s not you, personally,” I hurry to say, to somehow explain it’s less that I don’t trust him, and more that I don’t trustanyone,but I can tell the damage has already been done.
“I was just going to check to see if you were okay,” he says slowly. “But if you don’t want to tell me anything, that’s fine.”
“Wait,” I say, reaching for him, as if I can reach through time and reverse this whole conversation, but when I grab his arm, he flinches like my very touch burns him, his jaw clenched. I pull back, humiliated, blinking fast, trying not to let my hurt show.
Without another word, he turns to go, as if he can’t stand being in this room with me for even one more second.
Come back,I’m tempted to call after him.I didn’t mean it.But my pride is already lying in pieces at my feet.
The door slams shut after him, and in the following silence, I draw my knees up to my chest, feeling sick. I’m almost impressed with how badly I’ve fucked everything up. My classmates all pity me, my chances of winning prom queen are lower than ever, and I’ve just single-handedly shattered whatever goodwill I’ve built with Ares over the last week.
Being at school is awful, and being at home is worse.
I barely have the energy to drop my schoolbag down on the doorstep before falling onto the couch, my head angled to avoid smudging my makeup on the cushions.
I could blame the news, all the things netizens are saying about me and my family, but there’s this feeling that’s been festeringinside me for a while now. Maybe from the day I found out about my father, or maybe even earlier than that, but it used to be easier to ignore. It’s duller than despair, but heavier. Less the specific, cutting pain of an open wound, and more the vague discomfort you feel when you’re running a fever, your head woozy, everything too bright and too loud and disproportionately draining.
