He runs a hand along his face. “How do you do that? How do you make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal?”
“Because this is the price I pay for attending this school,” I retort, and he stares at me. “It’s a price I pay every day out in the streets. I don’t want you to look at me and see the bullied girl. Nothing happens when people who look like me speak up.” I shudder in a breath. “Believe me, I’ve tried before. I don’t have the power you do.”
His throat constricts. “I know. I’m aware of what I can do. How I look. And it’s because of that I should have done something.” He closes his eyes for a second. “Bà Ngo?i used to get a couple of comments when we were out. I used to go quiet because I’d look at her, see what she’d do. She was the adult. I was the kid. Sometimes shefought back; sometimes she didn’t. I slowly became more conscious of how society sees me.” He runs a hand over his hair. “I should have done something. That’s all. I shouldn’t have left the first time when Hayley said that horrible thing about your name.” He doesn’t meet my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
My mind finally registers he’s apologizing. That he apologized in the art studio. There’s raw sincerity in his voice, and my heart aches in a different way.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
He finally looks at me. “How are you feeling?”
I swallow hard. “Terrified,” I whisper. “I hate this.”
His expression twists with sympathy. “I hate this too.”
I nod, comforted by someone acknowledging my pain. “It’s just this year, and then hopefully I leave New York and all the horrible memories here.”
He blinks. “Where to?”
I smile instinctively. “San Francisco. Hoping to study at this really good arts college. Opus.”
Recognition lights up his eyes. “I’ve heard of it. A lot of artists who win awards graduated from there, right?”
I nod. “What about you? What are you doing after school?”
He smiles, but it’s somehow sad. His eyelashes are unfairly long, brushing his cheekbones. There’s a freckle right beside his right eye, and I think he would be perfect in an animation. All his emotions and feelings so openly written on his face.
“I want to go back to Wisconsin. Learn to run the farm with Bà Ngo?i.”
“And college?”
He shrugs. “Colleges are scams because of the tuition, but my parents want me to go to Yale or Harvard.”
I snort, and he straightens his back. “What?”
“Thatis the most privileged thing I’ve heard anyone say.”
His cheeks become pink. “Yale and Harvard?”
I shake my head. “Choices.” At his questioning look, I continue, “Tuition is definitely a scam because of how high it is, but a rich kid like you probably doesn’t have to worry about student debt. You don’t even have to go to college, because you’ll inherit an entire farm, which definitely is worth a lot of money, along with your parents’ company. But for the rest of us who don’t live like that, we don’t really have a choice. It’s college and student debt to get the job to pay off that debt. There’s just one path. A vicious circle.”
His eyes stare straight ahead, a seriousness in his expression. “You’re right. I didn’t even think of it like that.”
I shrug a shoulder. “If you want my opinion, I think youshouldgo to college and study something that helps the farm.”
His lips part, brown eyes shining. “Yes. Yes,exactly. Wisconsin has colleges.”
I blush at the way he’s looking at me. “It’s just an idea; you don’t have to humor me. Think about it. Maybe you want to do what your parents do.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“I have no idea what they do,” he says solemnly, and I burst out laughing. “No, really. I interned there for a summer, and I know less than when I first started. I can’t sit behind a desk in an office for the rest of my life. Can you see me in a suit, talking about shares and mergers?”
“Not really, no,” I say, amused.
He cracks his neck from side to side. “They won’t like it. Me going back to Wisconsin. I know they won’t have a cow, pun intended, but it’ll be a tense conversation. Among others.” He sighs. “They brought me here so I could be closer to them, but nothing’s changed, really. I rarely see them.”
