Ares shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
Zaizai busies himself applying a layer of Vaseline to the skin under Ares’s collarbone, and then sketches out the same tattoo I saw in the vision. “This is what you wanted, yes? Any adjustments you’d like me to make?”
“I can’t really see it myself from this angle,” Ares says.
“Here, I’ll take a photo for you.” I grab my phone and snap a few photos in rapid succession, holding it up for him to review. But when I’m done, I don’t delete them; instead, I save the photos to set as my lock screen wallpaper for later. Just another little detail to feed the dating rumors at school about me and Ares; proof that I’d been right beside him for a milestone as significant as his first tattoo.
“I don’t know,” Ares muses, turning to me. “What do you think?”
But I’m distracted by how the sunlight streams through the window and touches his jaw, the look of simple concentration on his face. For a second, he isn’t the boy who’ll set my future ablaze, but a boy I might’ve bumped into by chance on the lake banks. Just a boy with long hair and soft lips and quick, steady hands.
“Why are you asking me?” I say.
“Because,” he says, “I trust your opinion.”
“I’m not, like, a tattoo expert or anything.”
Before Ares can reply, Zaizai grins. “Of course your boyfriend’s going to care whether or not you think it looks good.”
Ares doesn’t say anything to confirm or deny it, but as Zaizaicleans the needles, he glances over at me, a private, amused look just between us, smiling with one corner of his mouth, almost shy.
“In that case, yeah. Yeah, it looks good,” I say, and think to myself,Wouldn’t it be niceif we weren’t destined to ruin each other?
Briefly, I let myself imagine it: a future that doesn’t end in flames.
A future where happiness isn’t just possible, but simple.
I show him my favorite Italian restaurant, the one in Chaoyang District, with the sunlit terrace and stunning views of the city and three-star Michelin rating. We order too much food for just us, eager to try everything, and he helps me brush my hair out of my face when I lean forward to eat. Pushes the door open for me on our way out. Holds my purse while I carefully reapply a layer of lip gloss. All of this, without me having to even ask for it.
When my mom’s away on another business trip, we spend the evening indoors, the sheets draped over our bodies, my cheek nestled against his chest. His laptop is propped up at the edge of the California King bed, and we pick out a drama from last year, the kind that’s so terrible it’s good. We take turns making fun of the characters’ wardrobe choices and the wildly outdated depictions of China. But I’m only half watching anyways, because I’m gazing at him, tracing out the black lines of the tattoo under his collarbone. A perfect crescent moon. In this future, a moon is just a moon. It doesn’t mean pain. So I love that tattoo, just like I love everything about him: the crisp American curl of his accent, the way his dark hair falls overhis eyes and he has to push it back when he’s in the middle of talking, the way he swears under his breath in seven different languages, the way he walks down the street like he owns it, the rotation of plain black and gray sweaters he wears, the pair of sunglasses he carries around everywhere with him, even when the sun isn’t out.
But then the tattoo needle whirs to life, forcing me back to the present, the reality of us. Because he isn’treallymy boyfriend, and I can’t let my guard down just yet—not when the blood moon is less than a week away.
21
Chanel
Once every couple of weeks, my mom will host one of her famous parties, and our house will becomethelocal attraction. But this is her first party since the news about the divorce broke, and she’s gone all out on the decorations, as if the sheer lavishness might distract guests from the fact that her cheating ex-husband is no longer in the picture. An actual ice sculpture of a swan has been set up by the grand piano, and the legs of each table have been wrapped with a gold-edged bow, the surface decorated with a clear glass vase containing a single lily stem or peach-blossom branch.
If my mom hadn’t put so much effort into hosting and absolutely insistedthat I stay, I wouldn’t be here tonight. With only a few more days before prom, before the fire, I should be spending every waking moment with Ares, trying to make him love me—not wandering around a room filled with C-drama actors and billionaire entrepreneurs and culture-shaping boy-group singers.
I pass by Stella Yao, who first became famous through aromance drama when she was in her early twenties, and then again through a surprisingly popular variety show featuring once-famous female celebrities over the age of thirty. Her raven hair is pinned up to show off her emerald earrings and ballerina’s neck, and she’s swirling her champagne around and around in its flute without drinking it while she chats with a younger, lesser-known actress.
“I think it’s good for me, at the end of the day,” she’s saying, in the overly authoritative voice of someone who’s trying to convince herself as much as everyone else. Has probably tested this line out loud in front of the mirror before coming here. “I haven’t been single since I was fifteen. And so I never figured out who I really was by myself. Now, I have all this freedom—I can do whatever I want, like... like—” She pauses, thinking hard, then triumphantly jerks her glass forward so fast that champagne sloshes out of it. “Likegardening.”
“Oh, yes, gardening,” the other actress says. “Gardening is great. Always wanted to get into it.”
“Same—and now I can. I have this list of flowers I’m going to start planting—I want roses and daffodils and magnolias. I could plant fruit too! Grow my own little patch of raspberries...”
“That’s wonderful, Stella,” the other actress says, playing her part. “I’m so happy for you. Raspberries! How exciting.”
“Yes, at the end of the day, this really is for the best,” Stella repeats, as if she’s arriving at a startling new conclusion, rather than circling back to an old one. “A blessing in disguise. Everything happens for a reason, as they say.”
The actress nods politely and sips more of her champagne until they’re joined by a young singer, who’s been riding a waveof success all throughout the winter and is clearly there in search of praise—which comes right away.
“Oh my god, Wenwen, I’ve been listening to your new album and let me tell you, Icried,” the actress gushes.
“I cried too. No, I sobbed. Your voice is so beautiful,” Stella says, the two of them in an open competition to see who can be more gracious and generous and prove themselves totally unbothered by this shiny newcomer.
