Wine comes in at the mouth, and love comes in at the eye; that’s all we know for truth, Before we grow old and die.
—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
BEFORE I HEAD off to school the next Monday, I examine Danny’s face. Even a week later, it’s still bruised from the fight. There’s a scab forming by his nose and mouth. Yellowish-blue shadows circle his eyes. I tell him I can cover it with makeup. He groans and squirms away from me.
I don’t blame him. He’s got a badge of courage.
As for myself, I’m feeling wounded too. At school, I walk with my head down. I focus on schoolwork. I start talking less, hanging around less. Kayla doesn’t have the same lunch period as me this semester and she’s not in any of my classes, plus we don’t have cheer practice anymore, so I don’t see her at all. I guess I could text her, but since she doesn’t text me, I don’t bother. I’m still mad at her brother for beating up mine. I can stand to give her the cold shoulder for a while.
Royce sends a few hello texts all week, but they read like lip service.
royceb: Hey, thinking of you. Everything OK?
I want to text back: “Everything is A-OK! I’m fine! Why wouldn’t I be fine? Danny still has bruises and we’re all being called FOBs, it’s just great. Hooray! Our deportation defense hearing is coming up soon. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t pressured my parents to get a hearing so fast. We might all be kicked out of the country we love. Everything is super awesome, Royce! Don’t worry about me! I don’t miss you! Not at all! You don’t want to tell me what’s going on with you, so why should I tell you what’s up with me?”
But I don’t say anything.
I just retreat further into myself.
I look at my shoes when I walk the hallways. I don’t say hi to anybody. Almost everyone at school knows about my situation now. I know what they’re thinking when they see me.
Ha! You thought you were so smart, and now look at you. You suck. You’re no one. You’re nobody. You’re dirt! You’re not from here! Go home! Go back to Asia or wherever you’re from!
Except when I do look up once in a while, the faces I see are smiling at me. Friends say hi and stop and talk.
But when I’m alone again, I keep hearing the voices, the negative self-talk telling me that I’m worthless. I keep seeing my brother’s wounded face, and Mason’s sneer.
I miss my friends, but it seems they don’t miss me.
* * *
It’s almost the end of January and Kayla’s still avoiding me at school. When I do see her and bring up what happened between our brothers, she changes the topic or finds some excuse to go somewhere else. So I continue with my routine of going through the motions. Cheer is done as basketball season is over now. There’s still the occasional pep rally, but the tension between Kayla and I makes things awkward for the whole team.
The only peace I find is in doing well with my schoolwork. I meet with Mrs. Garcia again, and she tells me what she discovered concerning financial aid for students like me. Most elite colleges make admissions decisions without considering the applicant’s need for financial aid. Need-blind admissions, it’s called. The only schools that guarantee full financial aid to “international” (noncitizen) applicants are MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Amherst. A few, like Columbia and Stanford, are “need aware” for noncitizens, which means they’ll make an exception and provide aid for international students that they really want at their school.
“Basically, if they accept you, they’ll make every effort to ensure you can enroll in the fall,” she says.
It’s a ray of hope, but it’s not something I can count on. I have to get in first, and who knows if schools like that will want a student like me, National Scholar or not. I just feel like a burden. I’m glad I’d applied to a few of those colleges though, including Stanford. I guess I’ll find out in April.
* * *
I’m walking down the hall from Calculus to English later that week when Lo stops me.
“Jas. I know you and your family are hurting, but you don’t have to completely shut down. You can respond when other people talk to you.”
I feel awful. “Am I that bad?”
Lo nods. “You’re that bad. My brother hasn’t caused any more problems, has he?”
“No,” I say. “He sort of follows my brother around now once he found out that so many cheerleaders came to Danny’s rescue. It’s actually kind of funny.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t stop talking about that,” Lo says. “You hear about Kayla?”
“No. We’re sort of not talking right now,” I say. “I think she’s embarrassed about what her brother did.”
“I thought you guys were tight.”
“I thought so too. Do I even want to know what’s up with her?” I shift my heavy English textbook onto my other hip.
“Yeah...she and Dylan broke up. It was pretty messy. Happened a few days after my party, right before the band left on tour again.”
“Really?” I say, my heart sinking a little at the news. I feel bad they broke up and I can’t believe Kayla didn’t tell me. When she’s having boy problems, I’m always the first person she calls.
“Yeah, Dylan took it really hard. He even threatened to leave the band and skip the tour. Poor guy. Julian’s trying to sort of win his soul back.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why would they break up? She was so happy with him.”
“I heard she’s seeing somebody else,” Lo says. The passing period bell rings, sending all of the students scattering. “Hey, I gotta go. Please quit acting like a stranger. You’re not. You’re Jas, and you’re awesome,” she says, heading for a door at the end of the hallway.
If I’m so awesome, how come my best friend won’t confide in me and I can’t get my boyfriend to spend any time with me?
Like I said, I don’t believe these two things are related, but together, they definitely bum me out.
* * *
Valentine’s Day is coming up, and as I’m walking home from school on Friday, Royce pulls up next to me. I used to be proud when he would drive up in his Range Rover and lean out the window, beckoning me to hop inside. It was almost like being in a cheesy teen movie, and I loved it. But now I know romantic movies are stupid. They make you think stuff like that is real, that the rich popular boy will fall for the poor outcast. But we all know the reality.
And the reality is, I know what’s happening between us now. Royce has been doing the slow fade. Letting me down easy. Not ghosting completely, but letting go little by little so that I’ll get the picture.
I got the picture.
Except, I’m so mad at the part of myself that’s happy to see him, annoyed that he still makes my heart pound.
He rolls down the window. “Hey, good-lookin’,” he says. “Need a ride?”
His tone makes me furious. I turn around and glare at him. I’m too mad to even say anything, so I turn away and walk faster, cutting through the neighborhood park. It’s a shortcut anyway.
He stops the engine and gets out. I can’t decide whether I want him to follow me or not. He runs to catch up. I walk faster and try to keep myself from looking at him. If I do, I know I’ll break down. I won’t be able to be mad at him for long. I never can, not when he shows up like this.
“Jas, talk to me. I’m sorry, okay? I know I haven’t been around. But I’m here now, aren’t I?” he says, directly blocking my path.
I shift my backpack up. It’s heavy with textbooks. I glare at him. “So what? You want a medal or something? For showing up to your relationship? You forget I don’t give out participation trophies.”
I run away from him again, but he catches me, making me stop at the edge of the playground. There are young schoolchildren running around and yelling while their tired mothers chat with each other on the park benches.
“Please hear me out. Jas? Please? Come on,” he says. “Don’t be mad.”
But I am mad, and I hate when people tell me not to be mad when I’m mad. Ugh, I hate him. I hate that he can make me feel so crazy.
“Where’ve you been all week?” I demand. “All month? Since January?”
He grimaces. “I told you, I had to do stuff for my dad, and I’ve had family issues.”
“Really? That’s it? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we all have family issues. Me especially.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to take care of mine.” He moves closer, puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Which means avoiding me?”
One of the mothers looks up at us.
Royce doesn’t deny it. His mouth is a hard line. “I didn’t know what else to do. It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated? Everything is complicated, Royce,” I say, pulling away so he can’t touch me anymore. “What does that even mean?”
Royce winces. I can see I’ve hurt him by not letting him touch me. “I came to find you,” he says. “To say I’m sorry that I haven’t been around, that’s all.”
“It’s a little too late for that. You know what bugs me about you? You think driving up in your car, pretending like nothing’s wrong, is going to make all of our problems go away. But I have no idea what’s going on with you. You haven’t been honest with me for weeks.”
“So now what? You’re breaking up with me?”
Am I? I consider what to say next. Part of me wants to end all of this right now. Burn it to the ground. Tell him I never want to see him again. Part of me wants to continue just so I can find out what hideous secret he’s hiding. Part of me wants to cry. Most of me continues to be stubborn. I’m my daddy’s girl after all.
“I didn’t say that. You’re putting words in my mouth,” I say.
Royce crosses his arms. “Like you were doing to me earlier,” he says. “Look, I’m not perfect, all right? I’m sorry I’m not the perfect boyfriend you want me to be.”
“Who said anything about perfect?” I say.
He shrugs. “You always have such high expectations. It’s hard to meet them sometimes.”
“What? Are you saying I set too high a bar for you?”
“Sometimes,” he admits.
“Sorry, but I guess expecting someone to be around for me when they say they care about me is too high an expectation for you,” I snap.
I look over at the park bench, where both mothers jerk their heads back down, realizing I’ve caught them watching us. Great. Now the neighborhood mommy circle will be gossiping about our fight all afternoon.
I decide to play hardball. “So why are you here? Are you back in town from D.C.? Or were you in Malibu? Don’t tell me, you went to New York for the week,” I curl my lip. “You’re always somewhere, but I never know where. But that’s okay, because you don’t have that problem, do you? You know where I am, where I’ll be. I’m just right here. Right where you can find me. That is, until they kick me out.”
Royce looks down at sneakers. Adidas Sambas that I picked out for him. Seeing them twists a knife in my belly.
“Jas, I haven’t been out of town. Like I told you already, I’ve just been under a lot of family pressure,” he says. “And hanging out with Mason and stuff.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah, I have family too, you know. You’re not the only one with family,” he says unhappily.
“Don’t talk to me about family!”
He holds up his hands, frustrated, like he can’t do anything right with me at the moment, and he’s correct. He can’t.
“So that’s it? That’s your big excuse?” I say.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. I just wish you’d tell me what’s really going on.” Then I realize—he did tell me, but I have to read between the lines. He’s been spending time with Mason. Mason doesn’t like me, and when he hangs out with Mason, he can’t hang out with me.
Royce runs his fingers through his dark hair and pulls at the roots. “I’m trying. I hate this. I hate what’s happening to us.”
“Then stop it,” I plead. “Just please, tell me the truth. Mason doesn’t like me. That’s it, isn’t it? He wants you to break up with me. He doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”
“I told you, I don’t care what Mason thinks!” Royce says hotly. But he doesn’t deny it either.
“But it’s not just him, is it? It’s your parents too. They don’t think you should date me. You keep saying you’re under a lot of family pressure. Family pressure to let me go, isn’t that it?”
“No. No, that’s not it. No!” Royce says, a little desperately.
“Oh, come on, Royce, just admit your parents don’t think I’m good enough for you! You’re too embarrassed to take me to your dad’s events, and your mom thinks I’m practically the maid!”
“Whoa, what?” Now it’s his turn to be furious. “You’re crazy. Just the other day I overheard my mom telling Maria how much she likes you. And you know I hate those things my dad drags me to—why would I inflict the torture on you?”
“Your mom told Maria she likes me?” I blink.
“Yeah. She said she thinks you’re really smart, and that you work so hard.”
I go over what he said about how he hates being part of his father’s political social life, and I have to grudgingly admit he might be telling the truth about that too.
“Yeah,” he says, then gets angry again. “Wait, you really think that’s what my family is like? That they would think those things about you? God, you must think so little of us if you do. So little of me.”
If I’d started to feel a little mollified before, the rage comes roaring back. He does not get to win this one. He’s the one in the wrong. “Oh, come on, it’s not like you think much of my family either. Just a bunch of amusing ethnic people you don’t take seriously,” I say, practically spitting out the words. “You must feel so proud of yourself for being so liberal and open-minded.” I’m a cyclone of fury and will stop at nothing until he is utterly destroyed.
He’s just staring at me, but I’m not done.
“And what about me, huh? I’m just some booty call you can pick up with when it suits you! I’m your last priority, but what does it matter, right? I’m just some illegal! Isn’t that what you called me?”
He’s gray and quiet now, and everything is awful. I can feel it. It’s ruined. Something beautiful is ruined between us.
He’s tired—I can see that now—so tired, and I’m exhausted too.
“If you really think I’m that kind of person, then maybe we should break up,” he says finally, without any emotion at all.
My eyes are clear and so are his. Neither of us is crying. There’s nothing to cry about here. It’s just the end, and I’ve been waiting for it since we started anyway.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I tell him. “Maybe we should.”