The bike sheds at Woodvale Academy are a more reliable source of information than the school newsletter.
Instead of vague updates about the rowing regatta or the new netball court or the teacher who’s leaving for “unforeseen circumstances,” you can find the real news scribbled in bright markers over the walls. Breakups, betrayals, scandals; who’s popular this week and who’s dating someone new. It’s almost artistic in an avant- garde way, the blend of cute, curly fonts with sharp, angry letters and doodled hearts and struck- out names and half poems. By now there’s more writing than blank space on the gray bricks.
And we’re supposed to clean it all up.
I let the bucket and brush I’m carrying thunk to the ground.
For a moment, I can only stare with horror, processing the sheer scale of our job. This will take us hours at the very least if we’re quick— and judging from the way Julius is holding the hose like it’s a dead snake, we probably won’t be.
In fact, I doubt Julius has scrubbed a single thing in his life.
“This is ridiculous,” he says, shaking his head. “This is just the school’s excuse to make us do manual labor.”
“Well, we better get started.” I tug my hair free from its usual high bun, flipping it over my head and smoothing it with my fingers before retying it into a ponytail. I straighten in time to catch Julius staring at me, a strange, faintly confused look on his face. “What?”
“Nothing. I’ve just . . . never seen you with your hair down before.”
I feel myself bristle. “And?”
“What do you mean, and?” His mouth puckers. “It was only an observation.”
“With you, there’s always an and,” I tell him, fighting the sudden urge to touch my hair, to flatten it, to check it in a mirror. It’s true that I never wear my hair down at school, partly because the rules don’t allow you to if your hair’s any longer than shoulder- length— though the younger, nicer teachers don’t really care— and partly because it gets in the way when I’m jog-ging or taking notes. “Your entire existence is basically a run-on sentence.”
At this, his expression readjusts itself into a familiar sneer.
“And here I’d thought you’d already used up every possible insult in your emails.”
“Don’t worry, I can always think of more.” I pick up the brush again and step forward before he can respond. “Okay, for sim-plicity’s sake, let’s split this between us. You can hose down the walls, and I’ll scrub.”
“Why me?” he demands. “Why can’t you use the hose?”
I breathe in deeply through my nostrils. I can’t believe the principal thinks this plan will help us bridge our differences. If anything, my desire to throttle Julius has only tripled since this morning. “Because,” I say, keeping my tone as neutral as possible,
“to be honest with you, I don’t think you know how to scrub.”
The corner of his lip twists farther down. “Of course I know how.”
“Right,” I tell him, unconvinced.
“I’ll prove it to you.” As he speaks, he pulls out a pair of black gloves from his pockets and starts snapping them on.
“What is that?” I frown at him. “Why on earth are you wearing gloves? We’re not here to rob a building.”
“Protecting my skin. I have very nice hands— as you have already observed in the past. It would be a shame to ruin them.”
My face flushes despite myself.
“Here.” He throws the hose to me and takes the brush in his perfectly gloved fingers. “Watch.”
I do. I turn the hose on and spray a small patch of the wall and watch, incredulous, as he moves the brush around in a pathetic circular motion. The bricks are darker, the surface shining with water, but none of the marker comes off. Actually, I think he’s managed to smudge it further.
“Why are you massaging the wall?” I ask him.
He stops. Spins around with a scowl. “Forgive me for not attacking it like some animal—”
“You’re wasting time.” I tip my head up, scan the sky. The light has already started to fade from a brilliant cerulean to a heavy indigo, and most of the cars have pulled out of the parking lot across the oval. Panic pinches my stomach. My mom will be waiting for me to get home and make dinner. I still have to defrost the pork ribs and turn the rice cooker on and stew the soup—
“I can still do it better than you,” Julius insists, moving the brush over a pair of initials that reads aj + bh forever. It’s since been crossed out and replaced by the words aj + le forever.
My frustration boils fast inside me. “Oh my god, you’re so stubborn.”
“You’re so bossy,” he shoots back.
“Difficult,” I seethe.
“Demanding.”
“Arrogant.”
“Impatient.”
“Cynical,” I speak over him, my fists clenching around the hose as more water spews out. “ Snobby—”
“Overcritical,” he jeers at me.
“ Manipulative—”
“ Judgmental— hey, watch it.”
I jerk back and lower the hose, but it’s too late. The water’s sprayed everywhere, soaking through half his shirt and his hair.
By some stroke of luck or dark magic, the black strand hanging over his forehead remains unmoved. But everything else about him is disheveled. His sleeves are wrinkled from the damp, his tie unraveling from his collar. As he stands there, dripping wet, blinking fast against the water in his eyes, and wipes a gloved hand over his face, a bubble of laughter lurches to my throat.
“Sadie.” He says my name like it’s in itself a curse, his features tight with shock and disdain. And maybe all the recent drama has messed with my brain, because rather than tripping over myself with apologies or fretting over lost time, I double over, cackling.
“I’m—sorry,” I squeeze out through my giggles. “I didn’ t— mean—”
His eyes narrow, but it’s hard to take him seriously when the front of his shirt is plastered to his skin. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you did that on purpose.”
“I swear— it wasn’ t—” I clutch my stomach, breathless with laughter, and it hits me out of nowhere that this is the first time I’ve really laughed in almost two days. It’s like my body is a rubber band, stretched too tight in every direction— and now it’s finally snapped, the tension released. I gulp down the cold, sweet air, filling my lungs with it.
Then he grabs the hose faster than I can react and turns it on me.
I yelp.
The violent blast of water is so cold it almost burns. It’s in my nose, my half- opened mouth, the inside of my shirt. I can feel it running down my spine, pooling into my shoes. And the only clear thing in my blurred vision is Julius’s face. He’s smiling now, evidently pleased with himself.
“I’ll kill you,” I decide on the spot. “I’m literally going to kill you.”
I lunge for the hose again, but he holds it up high over his head, out of reach. Taunting me.
“Give it,” I snap.
“No way.”
“I said, give it—” I jump and manage to wrap one hand around the end. He doesn’t let go, though, just pulls it back as if we’re playing tug-of-war, and next thing I know we’re wrestling with it, and the water’s still pumping out, drenching us both. I’m choking and shivering and yelling at him but somehow I’m laughing too, because of how ridiculous this is. Because I haven’t had the chance to do something so ridiculous in a while, to behave like a child.
It’s only when we’re both soaked from head to toe and breathing hard that he steps back. Takes one look at me. Then abruptly twists away.
“What?” I say, confused.
“Our school shirts are made from polyester,” comes his bizarre reply. He appears to be staring at the trimmed grass beneath his feet with extreme focus.
“Since when were you interested in textiles?”
He ignores my question. “And white polyester,” he says, his voice strained, “once wet, becomes transparent.”
I’m pretty sure some small part of me dies right there and then. Simply implodes. Disintegrates into ash. My skin is so hot I don’t even register the ice- cold water anymore. I wrap my arms around myself in a futile attempt to cover up and make a frantic dive for my schoolbag before remembering that, of course, my blazer isn’t there. I’d left it inside my locker, all the way on the other side of campus. Because that’s my life now, apparently.
Just when I’m contemplating whether I should dig myself a ditch, Julius says, “My bag. My blazer’s inside.”
I pause. On their own, the words make perfect sense. But strung together, and coming from him, they might as well be an alien language. There’s no way he’s making an offer—
Except he continues, with some impatience, “The front compartment. Just don’t rifle through any of my stuff.”
I don’t move. Surely, this is a trap.
He sighs. “If you won’t get it yourself, I’m going to have to turn around—”
“ No— don’t you dare,” I say hurriedly, even though his head remains bowed, his eyes fixed on the grass. “ I— I’ll grab it.”
My hair is still dripping water as I unzip his bag, leaving dark splotches in the fabric. His blazer is folded neatly at the top, ironed smooth. On him, it’s a perfect fit, practically tailored to his frame, the lines straight and sharp at the shoulders. But when I drape it over myself, it falls around me like a cape. I don’t mind it though. It’s warm and dry and it smells like him: like mint and cedar and the beginnings of something sweet, familiar, something that reminds me of summer when we were fourteen years old. Then I catch myself inhaling, hugging the soft fabric closer to my shivering body, and freeze.
There must be water lodged in my brain for me to be acting this way.
“Thanks,” I say, willing my voice to sound normal. “You can turn around now.”
He turns slowly. His gaze catches on the blazer where it ends just above the knee, covering up my skirt. A slight movement in his throat, like he’s swallowing something sharp. “You better not lose it,” he says at last. “All my badges are pinned on there, and many of them are limited editions. You couldn’t replace them if you tried.”
Whatever spark of gratitude I’d felt toward him flickers out.
“I’ll give it back to you tomorrow morning, all washed and dried. Happy?”
“You don’t have to wash it,” he says carelessly. Then, as if sensing my surprise, his eyes narrow. “I don’t trust you to. You’ll probably end up shrinking it anyway.”
I would come up with a retort, but it occurs to me that what he’d said about polyester applies to him too. Now that he’s fully facing me, I realize just how thin the school shirt is. The silvery white material clings to the narrow curve of his waist, the lean cords of muscle in his arms.
When I speak again, I speak to the wall. “Do you . . . need to change?”
“Oh, good point,” he says. “Let me just find the spare uniform I always keep on hand in the event that my co-captain attacks me with a hose.”
“Suit yourself,” I grumble, reaching for the brush. “Neither of us is allowed to leave until the job is done.”
This time, he doesn’t protest. He turns the water back on without another word and hoses down the wall to my left. It’s probably less that he concedes I’ll do a better job and more that he’s concerned I’ll spray him again, but at least we’re being efficient. We work in silence, falling into a steady rhythm. He sprays one area, and I scrub it right after, scraping away secrets, names, curses, wishes.
My hair has started to stiffen, hanging in thick, heavy clumps over my shoulders, and my shoes squelch unpleasantly every time I shift position. But Julius makes no complaints, so I don’t either.
We’re close to finished when I notice the message scrawled on the corner of a brick.
It’s new, the black marker bold and fresh. Just five words, and my stomach drops out.
Sadie Wen is a bitch.
My ears ring. I blink at it, and the cold seems to congeal over my skin. My clothes are too itchy, my throat too tight; an awful, sick sensation builds inside me, swelling up to my chest, squeezing the breath out of me. I feel nauseous.
“What is it?” Julius asks, coming over.
Dread churns through me. He can’t see. I can’t bear the thought of him reading it, of him laughing at me or agreeing or rubbing it in. It’s too humiliating. I’ll die from it.
“Nothing,” I say. I block it with my hand, but his eyes fall on my face first, and he glimpses something there that changes his demeanor at once. His gaze sharpens. His shoulders tense.
“What is it, Sadie?” he asks again, but in a different way.
Lower, more serious. Urgent.
I just shake my head, my fingers splayed over the words. But even with them concealed, I can see them as if they’ve been etched into my own skin. Sadie Wen is a bitch. How long has the message been here? How many people have walked past it already? Did someone write it right after my emails were sent?
“Show me,” Julius says.
“ No—” My voice comes out small, shaky. “Don’ t—”
His long fingers wrap around my wrist, pulling it down, and then the words are there, exposed, starkly visible to the both of us. Shame stings my skin like acid, roils deep inside my gut.
For a long time, he doesn’t say anything.
The quiet is maddening. I’m too scared to glimpse his face, to see any signs of contempt or glee. “I guess you’re not the only one who hates me now,” I comment, just to fill the silence with something, to try and pass it off as a joke. He can’t know how much it hurts me. How easy it is to hurt me.
“That handwriting is hideous,” Julius says finally. His tone is indecipherable. “It must be Danny’s.”
“Who?”
“Danny Yao, from history.”
The name settles in the back of my mind like silt. Danny. I’d written him an angry email as well, even though it was three years ago. He had borrowed my protractor right before a big math test and lost it. He’d only thought to email me and let me know after the test was over, after I’d panicked and begged anyone I could find for a spare protractor. Funnily enough, it was Julius who’d handed one to me in the end— or, more like, he’d thrown it at me. It’s giving me a headache, watching you run up and down the school, he had drawled, barely even looking in my direction. And this way, you won’t be able to make any weak excuses about being unprepared when I beat you.
I wonder if he even remembers. I wonder if he keeps as clear a record of our every exchange as I do.
“Doesn’t matter who did it,” I mumble. “It’s what everyone’s thinking.”
I can sense him watching me. My eyes burn, and I stare up at the violet sky, forcing the tears to recede before they can spill.
I haven’t cried since I was seven, since the day my dad left and I found my mom weeping quietly into her hands, curled up on the couch in the empty living room. The air in the house was so heavy it threatened to crush me. I had sworn then that I wouldn’t cry, ever. I wouldn’t add to her sadness, wouldn’t drag her even further down. I would be the good daughter, the strong one, the one who kept everyone afloat.
“Well,” Julius says from behind me, “it’s a very uninspired choice of words. Such a basic pejorative denotes low intelligence.”
This, of all things, jolts a weak laugh out of me. But I can’t stop myself from glancing at the message again. It’s a masochistic thing to do, foolish, like stretching out a broken leg to test how bad the damage is. My breath lodges in my throat as a fresh wave of pain washes over me.
Sadie Wen is a bitch.
It looks so ugly. Like a bloodstain.
As I stare, my stomach sinking lower and lower, Julius moves closer and loosens the brush from my stiff fingers. Then he brings it down hard over the brick and begins scrubbing, using so much force the muscles in his shoulders flex beneath his damp shirt.
Unlike his previous attempt, he erases all the marker in one go.
“Done,” he says, letting his arm fall back to his side. “Simple as that.”
But nothing about this moment feels simple. I open my mouth, though I’m not sure what I plan to tell him. Thanks?
Please forget this ever happened? Do you think I’m a bitch too?
Before I can make up my mind, he’s walking away. Not with his usual slow leopard’s stride, as if it’s a gift to mankind to simply see him in motion, but with purpose, like there’s somewhere he needs to be. Someone he needs to find.
