3

Would We Call This Being Hosed?

I WOKE UP and there was still nothing from Eric. I texted him one more time: We have to finalize the registration. Please send me your details ASAP.

I tried—and failed—to practice my meditative breathing as I dashed to my Saturday morning activity, Chinese class. One of the problems with a highly efficient schedule is that it doesn’t allow much time for unplanned challenges. It would be okay, though. I was used to balancing a lot of things at once, and I hadn’t dropped a plate.

Yet.

Unfortunately, the bad in my day got exponentially worse when Garrett Tsai entered the classroom. Garrett and I had grown up together and kind of hung out when we were little kids, before The Fall. We had both gone to Taiwanese culture camp in New Hampshire between our sophomore and junior years, when we were fifteen. But now I saw him only at Chinese class every week. Which was perfectly acceptable to me.

He strolled in as I was collecting homework packets from the younger kids. I had planned on sitting down before class and reviewing the past competition challenges, but our teacher, Anna Lǎoshī, had asked for my help and I would have felt bad about saying no.

Garrett had been growing his hair out since the summer, and it made him seem even more like a stranger. Today it was loose, brushing his neck and cheekbones. He strolled over as I was lining up all the little kids and asking them to put their homework in a basket.

“You know, there are teachers who can collect those,” he said.

“Nice job, Amy!” I said, ignoring him.

All the little kids were cute, but Amy, who was super shy, might be my special favorite. She also happened to be Garrett’s younger sister. How two people could be so opposite—one adorable and sunny and one off-the-charts prickly and cynical—was genetics at its most mysterious.

Fine, it was true that, when Garrett and I had gone to camp two summers ago, we had almost become . . . friends. But after he cut me off on the last day, I was forced to acknowledge that our time together had been this oasis away from reality. An outlier. Garrett and I were total opposites. And it was better to keep our interactions to a minimum.

Amy looked at the ground, her little pigtails swinging. I knelt down to give her a hug. “Is gymnastics going well?” I asked.

She nodded. I patted her head and sent her along with the other kids to the classroom next door. I understood her shyness. When I was younger, I had let Bella answer all my questions for me since she was almost eight years older and was everything I wanted to be: brave, brilliant, unstoppable. She had graduated from high school early, blazing a path so bright that her teachers still talked about her light, even today. She always spoke for Hattie and me and took care of us while our parents were at work. It wasn’t until our father died, and Bella left in a fury of slammed doors and shouting, that I had to learn to speak up. Mom was too busy keeping the company together and Hattie was too young. I was the last one left, so it had to be me.

Garrett swung into his usual seat, the one behind mine, and pulled out his tablet. No How is school going? Or Any news about college? You know, the questions other people might be polite enough to ask.

I whirled away from him and grabbed the papers from the basket. I tapped them on the desk, straightening the edges. Suddenly there was a worksheet in my face.

“Amy forgot a page,” Garrett said.

Oh, His Royal Crankiness deigned to speak to me. What an honor.

I plucked it from his hands, found her sheet, and stapled them together. “Thank you.” I would take the high road. Model good behavior.

He was still standing there, watching me collect the last of the worksheets. “You know, the kids can turn those in by themselves.”

“Some of us are helpful,” I said, in Taiwanese.

“Some of us don’t need to say yes to everything all the time,” he muttered, also in Taiwanese.

Taiwanese is an entirely different language than Mandarin Chinese. Since it’s not the official language of Taiwan, it’s like a secret language spoken at home, passed down from parent to child. Some of our friends understood it pretty well from listening to their parents, but only a few of us spoke it. Garrett and I both had grandparents who had lived with us when we were younger, so we were both fairly fluent. He also spoke Mandarin annoyingly well and only took these classes to learn how to read and write.

What he was saying somehow sounded even worse in Taiwanese. Did he call me a doormat? Unbelievable. Just because Garrett Tsai refused to worry about college and academics didn’t mean it wasn’t important to the rest of us. He was into digital art and graphic design and had been working on a webtoon on the side. Things like the Ivy League weren’t as vital to him as his digital art apps. His older brother, Patrick, was on track to achieve the mythical Harvard Hat Trick (undergraduate and joint law/business degree). Amy was also clearly an academic prodigy. So I guess the pressure was off Garrett. Must be nice. I allowed myself to think for a second about what it would be like to click any college application I wanted, to go anywhere I wanted. California, Washington, DC, maybe even London. What would it be like if I didn’t have to stay home and pull our family together?

I couldn’t even imagine; that wasn’t the world I lived in. Which is why I needed to pay attention, stat, since my Mandarin was spotty at best. Unlike Garrett. But all I could think about was the competition. Where was Eric?

I sneakily pulled out my phone and sent him a quick text: Hello, registration is tomorrow. Where are you? Nothing.

Anna Lǎoshī gave me the stink eye. I quickly shoved my phone under the desk.

“Zhuāxīn,” Anna Lǎoshī said. Pay attention.

I waited until she turned around and then pulled out my phone again. No new messages.

During break, I was texting Eric again when I was pulled aside by my friend Emily Yao.

She flashed a quick smile at Lewis Guo, a fellow junior like her, then yanked me into the hall. “Juliana.” She clutched my arm.

Emily and Lewis had been completely unaware they were perfect for each other. That is, until I had figuratively kicked Emily in the tush and convinced her to ask Lewis to a new restaurant in town. They were both major foodies and had separately mentioned how much they wanted to try it. What could be better than trying it together?

I mean, was it hard to be right all the time? Really, it was.

“What’s up?” I glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes left in break, and there was still so much to do: finish researching the other competitors, make a list of what I thought the challenge might be this year. Hunt down Eric Lin and roast his ghosting little entrails in the middle of the school parking lot.

I needed to get to work, but I loved Emily dearly and hated to let her down. I just hoped her question was quick.

Emily thrust her phone at me. On the screen was an emoji from Lewis—a brown heart.

“This is from Lewis? The Lewis who we saw two seconds ago?” I said.

“It’s brown!” she wailed. “I thought he liked me.”

“It’s still a heart. Besides, you guys already did the kissy face last night, did you not?”

Emily’s parents had forbidden her to date until college, but such a small technicality had never stopped her. Her parents thought she had joined every extracurricular under the sun. There was actually only one: Club Romance.

She shoved me. “Brown. With no other text. What does it mean?”

“Brown hearts are sometimes used in the social justice context? Were you talking about that?”

“No,” she said. “He only said, ‘see you soon.’ Then brown heart.”

“Does he like the color, maybe?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh! Maybe he was using it as a substitute for something brown? Like how people say, ‘I orange heart’ to mean they love oranges?”

“Okay, okay. What’s brown?” She grabbed my arm. “Porcupines? Is he saying I’m prickly? Or poop? Poop is also brown. Is he sending me a poop heart? Is he trying to break up with me?”

I peeked into the classroom. Lewis immediately looked over, then seemed disappointed it was only me. I ducked back into the hall. “Nope, he’s still totally into you.”

“THEN WHY THE POOP HEART, JULIANA?” Emily said.

A brown heart in this context was admittedly a little . . . unusual. I mean, yellow: friendship. Red: true love, obviously. Pink: cute, puppy love. This was a bit of a mystery, but there was only one way to find out what was going on.

I dragged Emily past Garrett, who was watching us, arms crossed. Whatever. He had never believed in love and romance, not like I did. Garrett had done his seventh-grade English project on death in eighteenth-century literature, was currently drawing a webtoon about betrayal and the end of the world, and had told me once, unironically, that “love is for fools and divorce attorneys.” For him, the glass wasn’t half empty. It was half empty and contained carcinogens that would directly cause a prolonged and painful death.

He was super fun at parties, Garrett.

I brought Emily toward Lewis. I swear, the guy turned into a walking heart-eye emoji at the sight of her.

“Lewis,” I said.

“Hi, Juliana. Emily.” Lewis blushed, which was adorable. (Clearly Emily thought so, too, because she beamed.)

I had to get this train back on track because I had a competition to research and break was almost over.

“So, I have a quick favor to ask,” I said to Lewis. “I am doing a word association project and I need your help.”

“Okay?”

“Let’s go.” I glanced at the clock. Seven minutes left. “Shoe.”

“Sneaker.”

“Ice cream.”

“Butter pecan.”

“Oh, my favorite!” Emily said. They smiled at each other.

Was this too much, even for me? Maybe.

“Brown,” I said.

“Chocolate.”

Emily made a noise. “Chocolate? Not . . . I mean . . . not . . .”

Lewis finally looked at her. “I sent you a— Maybe you didn’t have a chance to see it yet? Remember we were talking about our favorite chocolate places? Last night?”

I practically saw Emily start to glow. “Chocolate,” she said. “I do remember.”

I discreetly nudged her in his direction and then dashed to an empty corner. Love preserved, yes! Time for research. But then Garrett came up to me.

“Another match successfully saved?” He made it seem like a crime.

“You’re just jealous I can promote real human connections. Unlike you.”

“Sure, they seem happy now,” he said. “They’ll probably have a few good weeks until their scarring breakup and months of recovery.”

“What. Is. Wrong. With. You.” I didn’t understand how he could possibly be so negative all the time. Especially about love. My dad had always believed in it—the alchemy between people. Even after he died, whenever I saw people in love, it was like a reminder of him. He had that magic with my mom and had never wanted us to forget it. Don’t settle for less, girls.

Garrett said, “You’re just setting people up for inevitable pain. It’s best to not even start.” Someone else might say this as a joke. Had we been at camp, years ago, Garrett might have said it lightly, teasingly. But now he wasn’t kidding.

My phone beeped. Finally! I turned away from Garrett without responding and checked my messages.

Eric: We need to talk.

We need to talk? Sometimes people said that before good news, right? Like, we need to talk—you won the lottery! We need to talk—you got into Yale!

Or not.

I checked the clock. Two minutes left before break ended. I rushed into the hall and called him.

I didn’t want to hear it. I knew what he was going to say. But when the words actually came out, it was like a stab.

“I don’t think we’re going to work out.” Eric didn’t bother with the small talk, and I didn’t want it. “We should find different partners.”

“Are you kidding me right now? Are you, what—doing the competition with Albert?”

“I wish you the best of luck.” He had the nerve to sound genuinely regretful.

“Are you ditching me for Albert?” I shouted.

There was a long pause. “Listen, my mom—”

“Don’t try to blame this on your mother.”

“My mom’s not the problem.” There was no cruelty in his voice, though there could have been. “It’s yours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“My mom thinks . . .” He didn’t have to say it. We were a bad influence. Her son shouldn’t get close to me, due to our Fall. I was not a good enough partner to vault her precious Eric to victory.

I was hot with the peeling feeling of shame. It was like we were toxins and Mrs. Lin wanted to make sure we were as far away from Eric as possible.

He said, “Goodbye, Juliana.” To his credit, he did sound regretful. But it was way outweighed by the fact that he still did a shitty thing.

I shoved my phone into my purse, then stood alone in the hall, stunned.

I was royally, epically screwed.