Mind games.
My first week at school is over before I know it.
School is America is certainly a lot different than school in Korea. For one, it’s shorter. I’m used to going to school much longer each day. And two, the classes are much, much easier. I don’t think being first in this school will be a problem at all. In fact, the math class that I’m taking is covering stuff that I learned my first year of high school in Seoul. I would hardly call it an advanced class.
After school on Friday, Alfie informs me that we’re going to Elliot’s house. Apparently he’s having a party tonight, so we are all going to go hang out and have fun. I like Elliot’s mom, so I definitely don’t mind going over to the Sherwood home.
When we get there, Patricia Sherwood greets me with a hug.
“Gracie, you are just too cute,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling awkward for doing so.
“You kids can go on down to the basement. Elliot is already down there,” Patricia says. “Have fun.”
As I follow them out of the foyer and towards the basement, I feel a little confused.
“Elliot’s mom is okay with him having female guests over without her supervising?” I ask.
“She’s supervising,” Alfie says.
“Yeah, but in Korea we never would be without adults somewhere in mixed company,” I say.
“Elliot has a party almost every weekend,” Jace says. “His mom trusts him. And we all just do this to have fun.”
We go down the stairs towards the basement.
In Korea, we lived on the sixth floor in our apartment building, so we didn’t have a basement. As a kid, I remember living in a house that had a basement, but it was creepy. The floor was concrete, it always leaked, and one time I saw a mouse down there, so I was scared to go. But this basement isn’t at all creepy. In fact, it looks like just another story to the house.
There is carpet on the floor. It’s a light beige color that you would expect to be stained, but it’s not. I feel weird not taking off my shoes. I don’t know why people don’t take off their shoes in America when they enter a home. It’s strange, but I suppose I’ll get used to it.
The basement walls are sheetrock and they’re painted red. The ceilings are white, lightening it up a lot. The lights are bright too, and even though there aren’t windows, I don’t feel like I’m in a basement.
It also isn’t just one big room, like I expected. There is a big area, but there are lots of doors, and I wonder what all is down here.
Jace sees me looking. “Through there is a theater,” he says, pointing to one of the doors.
“A theater?” I ask, my mouth open.
“Yep,” he answers, the points to another door. “Through the two bowling lanes.” He points to another door. “And there is the bathroom. Elliot has a computer room down here too.”
“Wow,” I say.
“Elliot is an only child, so he’s spoiled,” he says.
“I resent that,” Elliot says, coming out of one of the doors. “Hey, guys. Glad you could make it.”
Elliot, Jace and Alfie start talking about things I don’t understand. While I’m standing there, with nothing to say, I pull out my phone and decide to check my social media or something. As I pull it out of my pocket, I feel it vibrate with a text.
Noah: What are you doing?
Me: At Elliot’s house with Jace and Alfie.
Noah: On my way.
I read the text again.
On my way.
What?
Why is he on his way?
Me: Why are you coming?
He doesn’t respond. But this can’t be good. Alfie hates Noah and this is definitely not going to end well for anybody.
Since I agreed to go with Noah to his dad’s wedding, we’ve been texting everyday. He’s actually pretty nice. He even apologized to Austin Yang. Only because I asked him to, but he did it. He’s not as bad as I thought he was.
I keep thinking about Jace and Alfie’s warning, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in Noah like that. We’re just friends, and I like being his friend. He’s the only friends I’ve made at Bayside Academy. None of the girls in school will talk to me. Maybe they just need to warm up to me.
Just a few minutes later, Noah walks into the basement.
“Hey, guys,” Noah says to Elliot, Jace and Alfie, then looks at me. “Hey, Gracie.”
“Sup, Noah,” Elliot says, doing some weird fist bump guy thing with Noah.
“Just thought I’d stop by. Dad’s got wedding rehearsal tonight and he strictly told me that I’m not allowed to come,” Noah says. “Not after what happened last time.”
To my surprise, they all laugh, even Alfie.
“What happened last time?” I ask.
“Long story,” Noah says. “So what are you guys up to tonight?”
“Lola and Erica are coming,” Elliot says. “So I figure they will bring a lot of people. It’ll be fun. We’ll just hang out or whatever.”
“Mind if I stay?” he asks.
“You’re always welcome,” Elliot says, then looks at Alfie. “Are you okay if Noah stays?”
“As long as he keeps his hands off my sister,” Alfie says, now looking at Noah.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Noah says quietly to me.
I laugh and everybody turns to me. Thankfully nobody else heard Noah’s comment.
“I am allowed to talk to her, right?” Noah asks Alfie.
Alfie frowns. “Dude, we used to be friends. I know how you are. I don’t want you playing your mind games with my sister.”
“No mind games,” Noah says. “We’re just friends.” He looks at me. “Right, Gracie.”
I nod my head once. “Friends. Only friends. And even that is pushing it.”
“See. She won’t fall for my charms,” he says.
“What charms?” I ask.
“Exactly,” Noah says.
Alfie walks over to me and puts a hand on each shoulder. “If he hits on you, makes you uncomfortable in any way or even breathes in your direction, tell me and I will take care of him for you.”
I smile at his protectiveness. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” he asks. “I talked to Mom while you were gone, you know. She said you were too busy studying to have a boyfriend, and that you were never interested in guys.”
I look behind Alfie to see Jace and Elliot both talking, but Noah is watching us. This is an embarrassing conversation to be had with an audience.
“Alfie, I was interested in guys,” I say. “I just wasn’t sure what I wanted in life. I figured I would come to college in America. I didn’t want to date a guy or get attached to anybody, you know? Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. I know taekwondo. I took lessons for three years.”
“Impressive,” Alfie says, then lowers his voice. “So you weren’t planning on living in Korea forever?”
I shake my head. “I wanted to go to college with you.”
He smiles at my comment and backs away. “We will go together. Somebody has to make sure you don’t date a loser.” He then pats Noah on the back. “Like Noah here. You’re way too good for him.”
“I’m not going to argue with that,” Noah says.
The basement door opens again, and about four kids from school walk down. Three girls and one guy. I recognize them, but I don’t know their names. They’re one of the ones that don’t talk to me. Alfie goes to talk to one of the girls, so I stand there awkwardly, just watching everybody else interact. It was easier in Korea, because I started high school with everybody else. We all made friends the first few weeks. But here, the relationships have already been formed and I’m an outsider. I don’t fit in. I’m just the weird girl that sometimes speaks Korean and bows to people.
“Have you met Gracie?” Noah asks a blonde girl that came up to him. She twists her hair around her finger as she looks at me.
“No, I haven’t,” she says.
“This is Lola,” Noah tells me. “Lola, this is Gracie. She is Alfie’s sister.”
She looks shocked at the use of the word sister, but she doesn’t ask questions like everybody else has.
“Gracie is awesome. She actually corrected our math teacher last week when he did a problem wrong,” Noah says. “It was epic. She’s pretty much the queen of math class now. Even our teacher is scared of her.”
I just shrug. “The advanced math class is a joke in our school. I did harder stuff than this my freshman year in Seoul.”
The girl’s mouth falls open. “Are you kidding? We go to one of the hardest schools in our state.”
“Like you’d know,” Noah says, rolling his eyes. “Her dad paid for the school to get a new gym so the teachers wouldn’t fail her.”
Lola just shrugs, not denying it. One of her friends calls to her, so she leaves Noah and me standing there. At least I’m not alone. The basement starts to fill with even more kids.
“What do you think of Bayside Academy so far?” Noah asks me, as I watch the crowd in front of us.
“Not a lot of people talk to me,” I say. “So I haven’t made any friends. People probably think I’m weird.”
“It’s the whole bowing thing,” he says. “And the chopsticks. But they’re all just jealous they can’t use chopsticks as good as you can.”
I laugh. “Well I’m jealous I can’t use a fork as good as them.”
Maybe not.
I hate standing out, but I think I hate forks even more than I hate standing out.
“I like you, Gracie James,” Noah says.
“Thanks. I think.”
“We still on for tomorrow?” he asks, in a quiet voice.
“Yeah,” I answer. “By the way, how formal is this wedding?”
“Um… well my dad is Charles Pennington,” he says.
I run the name through my head to see if I can recognize it. It takes a few minutes, but it comes to me.
Charles Pennington is a rock legend. I only know this because Alfie was obsessed with him when we were kids. He decided he was going to learn to play the guitar like him. He quit after three lessons, but it’s because of Alfie that I started playing the piano. My parents signed me up for lessons, but I loved it and wanted to keep going.
“What does one wear to the wedding of a rock star?” I ask.
“Washed up rock star,” Noah says, his voice a little bitter. “It’s his fifth wedding, so it’s not going to be super fancy. He’s marrying a model. It’s her second marriage, so neither of them are making a huge deal out of it.” He pauses. “Wear something you don’t mind being photographed in.”
“Photographed?” I ask.
“Paparazzi,” he says. “My dad needs to publicity. That pretty much why he’s marrying her. His band is doing some kind of reunion tour in a few months and he wants to get in the spotlight.”
My face is warm, so I touch a hand to it. “Photographed,” I repeat. “Paparazzi. Aish! I haven’t even told Alfie that I’m going. We were supposed to keep it quiet.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle Alfie,” he says.
“How will you handle him?” I ask.
He just smiles. “Alfie owes me.”
He doesn’t expand on his statement, but leaves me wondering.
Why do I feel like my world has completely imploded?
Oh, right. Because it has.
All of us get into a huge circle to play a game called Never Have I Ever. I’ve never played the game before, so Alfie is explaining the rules to me while everybody gets seated.
“This is a drinking game, but we don’t use alcohol,” Alfie says. “We just use soda, but it’s still fun. Basically, somebody says something they’ve never done. Like I would say never have I ever worn a dress. And anybody who has worn a dress would have to take a drink. It’s a good way for you to get to know everybody.”
An ice breaker game.
“Are you guys playing this just for me?” I ask.
Alfie nods. “It was Jace’s idea. But it’s a fun game.”
Once everybody is sitting down, with a bottle of soda in front of them, Elliot starts the game off.
“Never have I ever been to Korea,” Elliot says, grinning.
Both Alfie and I take a drink, but we’re the only ones. The person to the left of him goes next.
“Never have I ever broke my arm while trying to impress a girl,” the boy says.
“You just had to bring that up, didn’t you,” Jace says, then takes a drink.
“I want to hear the story behind this,” I tell him.
“Later,” he says, then winks at me.
The next girl goes. “Never have I ever flirted my way out of a speeding ticket.”
A couple of the girls giggle while taking a drink.
“Never have I ever shoplifted,” the girl next to her says.
I’m surprised by the amount of people, guys and girls, who take a drink. All of the kids in this room comes from families who are well off. They have no reason to steal or shoplift anything.
“Never have I ever fallen down because I was walking while texting,” Jace says.
“Dude, seriously,” Alfie says, but takes a drink.
I take a drink too, because that happened to me once. It was on a crowded sidewalk in Seoul. Everybody is constantly on their phones there and I ran face first into a guy who was texting. The guy never once even looked up from his phone and kept walking. Some older guy helped me up. It was humiliating. After that, I tried not to text and walk anymore.
Alfie goes next.
“Never have I ever cut my brothers hair while he was sleeping,” he says.
“I was four,” I say, then take a drink.
“It was so bad that I had to get a buzz cut,” he says.
My turn is next. I just say the first thing that comes in my head. “Never have I ever fallen in love at first sight.”
A few people take a drink, Noah, who is sitting right beside me, included.
“You’ve fallen in love at first sight?” I ask, feeling surprised.
“He always falls in love at first sight,” Elliot says.
“Falls out of love just as quickly,” Lola, the blonde girl from earlier, says.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s not talk about my love life,” Noah says. “Never have I ever been trapped in an elevator.”
I take a drink and am the only one.
“Seriously? You were trapped in an elevator?” Alfie asked. “When?”
“In Tokyo. I went there a few times. But this time I went with my school,” I say. “The teacher sent me and this boy, Kim Jun Yeong, to get some supplies. And there was an earthquake. It knocked out power and we were stuck in that elevator for, like, twelve hours. Since it wasn’t life threatening, they weren’t as worried about getting us out. It was actually my teacher and some of the other students that rescued us.”
“I’m jealous of that Kim-something kid,” Noah says.
“Why?” I ask.
“He was stuck on an elevator for twelve hours with a hot girl,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “Kim Jun Yeong and I didn’t get along. We were the top two students and we constantly fought. After that we stopped fighting. We talked on the elevator and found out that we had a lot in common. He was cool. We still didn’t talk at school, but we also didn’t try to bully each other anymore.”
“Huh,” Noah says. “Well, he’s an idiot.”
The girl next to Noah, Lola, goes next. “Never have I ever sung karaoke in front of a crowd.”
I take a drink, along with a few other people.
“You sing karaoke?” Noah asks me.
I nod. “Not American songs. But Korean ones. Me and my friends did it all the time when we lived in Seoul. When we didn’t have school on Saturday, that is what we would do. It was so fun.”
“You have school on Saturday?” Lola asks, looking horrified.
“Just every other Saturday,” I answer.
“That’s awful,” another girl says. “When did you have time to go out on dates?”
“We didn’t. I mean, when you’re in high school, you don’t exactly date,” I say. “I suppose some kids too, but we’re all worried about college. It’s hard to get good grades if you’re dating while everybody else is studying.”
“Are you saying you’ve never been on a date?” Elliot asks.
“Never,” I answer.
“Does that mean you’ve never been kissed?” Noah asks, now looking happy.
“Once. On a dare. Actually, it was the elevator boy. This was before the incident happened. We hated each other, but we had to follow through,” I say. “At the time I hated it, but I guess a first kiss could’ve been a lot worse.”
The girl beside Lola goes next. “Never have I ever had a crush on my girlfriend’s parent.”
Alfie takes a drink.
I turn to him and gasp. “Seriously?”
“I was fourteen. And her mom is seriously good looking,” Alfie says. “Give me a break.”
I turn to the girl. “So you dated my brother?”
“For, like, three weeks when we were fourteen. He broke up with me so he could date this other girl,” she says, in a teasing tone.
“That was a long time ago. I’ve matured a lot since then,” Alfie says.
My heart sinks as I realize I have missed out on so much of my brother’s life. Why did we both have to chose to live with different parents? We should have stuck together no matter what.
“Never have I ever thrown up on a roller coaster,” the guy next to her, Hunter West, says next.
Elliot takes a drink, and everybody starts laughing.
“Why do I feel like there is a story behind this?” I ask.
“All of us guys were there. West, Jace, Alfie, Noah and me,” Elliot says. “Jace and Alfie dared me to eat fifty chicken nuggets. Me, being the rebellious fifteen year old I was, didn’t turn down the challenge. I somehow managed to eat all the nuggets. I was stuffed, but I felt fine. We went on this crazy fast coaster afterwards, and I ended up puking about half way through one of the loops. The puke landed on the guy behind me who was infuriated. We had to run from the guy and hide. It was crazy.”
“The moral of the stories is never eat fifty chicken nuggets before going on a roller coaster,” Jace says.
We all laugh.
The guy next to West, the last guy in the circle, goes next. “Next have I ever gone viral.”
Noah is the only one to take a drink.
“You’ve gone viral?” I ask him.
Once again, everybody starts laughing.
Noah just shakes his head, letting me know he’s not going to say a word.
“Let’s just say that Noah on morphine is hilarious,” Alfie says.
“Morphine?” I ask.
“I broke my leg. Which is another very long story. But they gave me morphine and the hospital and I said some pretty hilarious stuff,” Noah says. “But you can never watch the video, because it would ruin the good impression you have of me.”
“What good impression?” I ask.
“Nobody tell her where to find it,” Noah says. “I have enough dirt on every single one of you that you should all be scared.”
Nobody says a word.
“Aw,” I say, pouting.
“She’s even cute when she pouts,” Noah says.
If I were in Korea, I would use egyo so I could watch the video, but I’m not sure that egyo works in America.
“Oppppppa,” I say, pouting more.
“Don’t use the on him,” Alfie says, bumping me with his elbow. “My mom used to always do that to our dad when she wanted something and he would agree every time. It’s called egyo, right?”
I nod.
“What’s egyo?” Noah asks.
“It’s when a girl acts cute to get her way,” Alfie answers. “I know for a fact that Gracie is really good at it. She could always convince me to give her anything when we were kids.”
I smile at the memory.
“It doesn’t really work well on American guys,” Alfie tells me. “If any other girl besides you did it, I would call her whiney.”
“That’s because they’re not Korean,” I say.
“Well, either way, you’re not seeing the video,” Noah says. His voice is stern. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Fine,” I say.
But eventually, I will see it.