“Almost,” I hedge. “You’d probably need to let go of me first, though.”
His hands fall away from my wrists, but he doesn’t step back. This is the closest we’ve ever been, I realize unhelpfully. Maybe the closest anyone has dared to stand near him in a while. At school, everyone steers clear of him by at least a few feet, as if there’s an invisible barrier erected around his body.
Up close, his eyes are such a deep, bottomless black that instead of reflecting the light from the park’s lamps, all the light seems to die in them. A single freckle is dotted on the sweep of his cheekbone like an isolated star. Proximity is meant to breed warmth, if not familiarity, but his face remains cold and hard.
“In the future, I’d recommend a different jogging route,” he says, barely looking at me now. He keeps glancing up at the moon like it’s a clock. “This one can get... crowded.”
An obvious lie, as outrageous as mine. I grit my teeth. Even though I’d been lying too, there’s nothing that enrages me more than the lies of men. “It’s a public park,” I point out, cutting straight through his bullshit. “I can jog anywhere I want.”
“And yet you chose this specific spot,” he says. “Interesting.”
“If you think coincidences are interesting, sure.”
The clouds part overhead, revealing a moon as perfectly round as the Sanya-imported pearls dangling from my ears. A stream of silver light falls over the lake, in the same directionAres was facing before, and something ripples across the surface right as the moon reaches the highest point in the sky.
Ares whirls back toward the lake as if someone’s just called his name, and I follow his gaze, frowning. It should just be a trick of the moonlight, but the dark shapes in the water seem to bend and shift, like ink swirled by a brush....
And then I notice it. Only a hazy impression in the beginning, but it grows clearer by the second, like a Polaroid picture developing, the details solidifying, and my blood roars in my ears as the impossible unfolds, every rational thought I’ve ever had fleeing my body, leaving behind only:What the actual fuck is happening?
Because I can see myself in the lake.
Not my reflection, not a memory, either, but some other version of me, playing like a film reel over the water—
I’m at school, about to leave the math classroom, when Ms. Hoang beckons me over to her desk. She’s pointing to a test paper and saying something, but I can’t make out the words, can only watch her mouth opening and closing, her expression grave. From the doorway, my friend Rainie shoots me a concerned glance, but I just smile like I’m not fussed and motion for her to leave without me. Then Ms. Hoang waves Ares forward, which he does, reluctantly, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, his gaze pinned on me....
The scene changes. The classroom fades away, and everything darkens. It’s nighttime, I’m standing in an alley I don’t recognize, have never set foot in before, and my face is pale, my hair falling wild and messy over my cheeks. Fresh purplishbruises cover my wrists, stark as ink, and there’s something dark splashed across my dress—blood,I realize with a sickening lurch. And in the strange reflection of the water, Ares is yelling at me, his eyes pitch-black, blazing with such fury that my breath constricts. The version of me in the lake flinches back, and he seizes my arm, danger rippling through his movements—
Then a house, burning down.
My stomach heaves. I recognizethat house.
I recognize the apricot tree in the front yard moments before it catches flame; it’s the one my father bought as a replacement after he accidentally killed our old one by feeding it an alarming amount of fertilizer, the one that bore so much fruit every summer we always ended up collecting them in baskets and sharing them with my father’s clients. I recognize the traditional low table set out on the porch, where my parents would drink Tieguanyin tea and read through contracts and crack open sunflower seeds between their teeth; the table I know was made from the wood of old shipwrecks, an overpriced metaphor about how anything can be salvaged from the ruins. I recognize the swing set we painted over because it wasn’t blue enough, then repainted because it wastooblue, and my followers would recognize it as well, after it featured in one of my most liked posts. And I recognize those French country curtains, which my mom thought wereclassyand my father thought made the house look older than it was, but didn’t care enough about interior design to argue over it.
I had left that house only a few hours ago, when Haili called me in distress. I’m meant to return to that house tonight. It’s my childhood home.
And in the lake, it’s on fire.
Everything in the vision is engulfed in flames, and there’s someone trapped in the house. A woman. Through the smoke, I can only see the slim silhouette, the sharp profile, the pointed chin, but that’s enough for me to recognize who it is. It’s like watching a horror film unfold—I can’t do anything but stare, helpless, as my own mother bangs on the doors, screaming for help, while a window shatters to her right, revealing the crimson glow of a blood moon.
Ares is there too, outside my house, watching everything burn down. His features are half blurred, but it’s most certainly him; he’s even wearing the Airington school uniform, his hair long and dark and rumpled, his sleeves rolled back and collar unbuttoned in his usual fashion. A lighter in his hand.
My heart is pounding so fast that I feel lightheaded from it. I think I might double over and vomit into the water.
“Do you see something too?” Ares asks, the sharpness in his voice startling me. I tear my gaze from the lake back to him, and my blood runs cold. His expression isn’t filled with the terror beating through my veins. He looks...hopeful. Not like he’s watching my greatest nightmare unfold, but like he’s just been granted a miracle, a dream about his ideal future. There’s a glint in his eyes, the lines of his face blazing with intensity.
I lurch back from him. “What the actual fuck?” is all I can choke out. “What did you just do?”
“So you see it too,” Ares says on a drawn breath. He sounds almost awed. “It’s not just me. It’s never been that clear before—”
“Before?”I repeat, my knees trembling.Wake up,I commandmyself.Wake up from whatever simulation this is.“What do you mean,before? This... this has happened more than once?” I jab a finger at the lake, but the vision is gone. There’s only water now, the reflection of the willows and my own face, drawn tight with horror, rippling across the surface.
“You won’t be able to see it anymore,” Ares tells me. “The moon is starting to go down—you have to wait until it’s at its highest point every night, and the moonlight has to actually be visible over the water. That’s as much as I’ve figured out by myself, anyway—”
“No. Stop. No, this isn’t... this isn’t possible,” I say, shaking my head fast. “That was—”
“What did you see in the future?” Ares presses. “Was there also a fire in your vision?”
I feel like I’ve run headfirst into an invisible wall, my skull reverberating from the impact. “What are you talking about? It can’t be the future.”
