For some reason when I make my way upstairs, I remember the time when Ma took me and Tina to the children’s carnival. Denny was just a baby then, not yet walking. I was supposed to keep an eye on Tina while Ma was changing Denny in the bathroom, but Tina ran away into the crowd, too fast for me to catch. I was torn between running after her or staying put, just like our mother had ordered us to do. I cried and cried while my mother frantically looked for Tina. She was eventually found in the lost children’s booth, eating a Popsicle.

Ma was furious with me, even though I told her that Tina had run away from me. She just said I had to be responsible. That was what a big sister was supposed to be.

I pause outside of Tina’s door. The light is still on in her room. I don’t know why that memory is suddenly so strong. I can taste the saltiness of my tears on my tongue, how swollen my eyes felt after crying. There was Tina, swinging her legs in the chair while the booth volunteer braided her hair. Maybe I should have been mad at Tina, but what remained was the sense of relief. The knowledge that she was safe.

I push the door open. Tina’s sitting at her desk, in front of her computer.

“Don’t you know how to knock?” She scowls when she notices me, slamming the lid of her laptop down. It would be an intimidating sight, except her hair is pulled back from her face with a pink bunny headband, one ear flopping down in front and the other sticking up.

I want to ask Are you okay? Instead, the words that come out are: “What happened to you today?”

Her lips purse. “I didn’t feel good, so I came home.” Even with the dim light in the room, I notice the shadows under her eyes. One leg is drawn up on her chair, while the other leg dangles off the seat.

I manage to swallow down the irritation and say gently: “Are you feeling better now?”

“I’m fine,” she says, curt. “What happened to you?”

A dissonant chord crashes into my mind, rendering me momentarily frozen.

“Ma was mad. You should have heard her,” she carries on without waiting for my answer. “Complaining about how we never listen to her anymore.”

“I ended up talking with Mrs. Nguyen for a bit after,” I tell her, the lie slipping out unintentionally. “I lost track of time.”

“You don’t have to lie to me.” She sneers. My eyes snap to meet hers. Does she know about the ghoul? That drooping face…That long, long tongue…The misshapen figure taking one unsteady step toward me in the alley…

“I won’t tell,” she goes on, smug. “We both have our secrets.” She’s smiling like she knows something I don’t. It grates at me, even though I’m fully aware she’s trying to get on my nerves.

“I’m not lying!” My voice goes up, high-pitched.

“Sure,” she drawls.

“Just because you have a secret doesn’t mean that everybody else around you is hiding something!” My patience, already hanging on by a thread, snaps.

Tina jumps to her feet, surprisingly quick. She’s in my face, staring me down. When did she get so tall? The light flickers overhead, probably from when she bumped against the table. I take a step back.

“Remember our deal,” she whispers. “You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.” There’s something menacing about her glare, one arm raised as if she’s about to hit me. Her lower lip trembles. The shadow passes, then she looks like she’s about to cry.

“You’re not going to be able to keep it up. Dance and school and all of this…” I say to her, feeling more concerned than threatened as I catch her wrist to stop her. “I told you before. It’s going to be too much.”

Tina snatches her arm out of my grasp and smiles at me, but it’s more like a baring of teeth. “Why so serious? I was joking. I’ll be fine.”

She raises her hands between us and shoves me out the door. I stumble, catching myself on the wall so that I don’t fall.

“I—” The door shuts in my face.

I stare at the sign that she hung on the door a few years ago. An art project we did together, her name done in pom-poms and Popsicle sticks. A trail of glitter dangles from the corner, peeling off. Back when we got along, she was eager for my attention, for me to help her position it so that she could hot-glue everything just the way she wanted it.

A lump rises in my throat. With Tina, I always have to be the peacekeeper when she butts heads with Ma. I have to make sure our mother stays calm, while reassuring Tina that half of those promised punishments are usually never doled out. Except now I think that Tina believes I am the enemy, conspiring with our parents against her.

Every day it feels like she’s changing, turning into a stranger. Someone I don’t recognize anymore.

In my bedroom, I undress, getting ready to jump in the shower after lying in the alley for god knows how long. A sharp pain runs up my elbow where the fabric brushes against it. I hold it up to my mirror to see where I scraped it against the road when I fell.

That feels real. Same with the ache in my jaw. Something happened to me tonight in the alley, but it may be closer to a hallucination than anything. I must have slipped on the staircase and fallen, bumping my head. Looked up through broken glasses and thought I saw something that didn’t exist.

Maybe I should stay out of Tina’s way like she’s been telling me all this time. Look after myself instead. Maybe Tina is actually the brave one, and I’m the coward for letting our parents dictate everything I do.

I dig my hand through my desk drawer, pulling out my spare pair of glasses from last year and put them on. My prescription hasn’t changed much, and that is when I notice something dark on my skin. I bend over and look at my bare legs. There’s a red mark around my ankle. Like something wrapped around it, tightened, and pulled. A rope. Or a tongue.

I sit down heavily on my bed.

It did happen. The woman that tried to eat me. The boy in the alley.

It was all real.

The next day, I’m at our breakfast table. After a night’s rest, my mind seems a little clearer. It’s hard to reconcile the nightmare of the ghoul with my brother splashing milk everywhere while trying to eat Frosted Flakes. All I know is this: The ghoul in the alley was different from my previous encounters. If you could even call them that, since the others all faded away to wherever they came from whenever someone actually living came too close. But the guy who shouted at her…he is proof that someone else saw that I saw. Except I didn’t get a good look at him. Without my glasses, he is only a blur in my memory.

Tina clears her throat, returning me to the table.

“Ma, Baba,” she says, addressing our parents in a way that is almost…demure. Not like her typical manner at all. Tina is rarely tentative about anything. “There is something I would like to ask.”

“Yes?” Baba sets down his tablet where he was scrolling through the news, while Ma turns to look at her, expectant.

“Melody, my math tutor, she runs a study group after school a few days a week. Could I join her?” Tina asks. Melody. The girl who is helping her keep up the lie that she is studying math instead of putting all her time and energy into dance.

“Melody?” Baba looks to Ma, who is nodding her head, already inclined to agree.

“That’s Mr. Lee’s daughter,” Ma explains. “She’s a sweet girl. So helpful. She came highly recommended as a tutor from one of the teachers. Really took Tina under her wing, I heard.”

“Ma! Stop talking about me with the other teachers!” Tina frowns, embarrassed—one of the unfortunate side effects of attending Westview with our mother as a teacher, even though she’s all the way over on the Early Years campus.

Ma continues to butter her toast, not bothering to acknowledge Tina’s protest.

“Oh, Mr. Lee! The one who gave Tina a ride home the other day!” Baba says with surprise.

“Who’s that?” I ask, drawn into the conversation despite myself. Everything related to school has always been under my mother’s purview. Baba usually keeps out of it, deferring to her education background. But to have someone stand out to the point that my father remembers him, there must be a reason.

“He’s involved in a lot of the business associations around the city,” Baba explains. “The owner of my firm knows him quite well. We were introduced before at an association dinner. Recognized me as Taiwanese.”

“A Taiwanese family!” Ma is delighted.

That makes sense. My parents believe that if someone is Taiwanese, they are more trustworthy and dependable. They spoke fondly of the Taiwanese Association when they came here for university, even though many of those people have moved to other parts of the country now. That connection, that reminder of home, will always remain.

A part of me longs for that connection even as a part of me resists it, because it can be so stifling to always be aware of how you match up against others my age. How we’re always scrutinized, compared, held up to impossible standards.

But for Tina, it means Melody is from a Good Family, so therefore she is trustworthy. Ma nods, giving her permission, and Tina runs upstairs to grab the rest of her things.

“She’s really settling into Westview,” Ma says before biting into her toast. “It was the right decision.” Baba mumbles something, already back to scrolling the news on his tablet.

Even though they tried to keep it from us, I still overheard their murmured conversations last year as they debated whether Ma should take this job at Westview and whether they should move us from school mid-year. Our opinions, of course, did not matter. I push my chair back and drop my plate into the sink, not wanting to hear Ma talk more about how well Tina is doing. How she’s fitting in, making new friends. Because it will lead, inevitably, to reminding me of what I should be doing as well.

“Ruby,” Ma calls out before I can escape up the stairs. “You should learn from your sister. Join a club. It’s good for admissions. Show you’re more well-rounded, not so antisocial all the time.”

Spend too much time studying, I’m too bookish. Spend too much time practicing piano, I’m neglecting my studies. Now I’m too antisocial. I feel like I’m breaking myself into pieces, again and again, none of the edges quite fitting right into the portrait of what they want me to be.

When I get upstairs, Tina’s door opens. She glares at me, her hair sleek and shiny, pulled back into a high ponytail. Just like all the dance girls. She brushes by me without saying a word. My stomach drops. I’m reminded of the question Tina asked, the one I’m too scared to answer. What if they ask me to give up piano someday? Would I be able to do it? Would it feel like chopping off my own hand?