All throughout the next day, I feel like I’m walking around the school with a huge neon sign on my forehead: sadie wen is a bitch.
It doesn’t help that other people are acting like it too. When I spot Rosie before history class and catch up to her in the corridors, she whirls around with such a frosty look in her eyes that my insides shrivel.
“What do you want, Sadie?” she asks, her voice tight. I remember how she had smiled at me only three days ago, her straight white teeth gleaming. It’s hard to believe she’s the same person.
“I just—” I falter. I had come here prepared. I had a whole script memorized, starting with an elaborate, heartfelt apology and ending with a plea for forgiveness. But the words taste brittle on my tongue, and the longer the silence stretches, the more my courage buckles. “I only wanted— I know you’re still mad— I mean, I would be mad too—” Everything comes out scrambled, in the wrong order.
“Yeah, I’m really pissed at you,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
I hadn’t expected her to say it outright. “I’m sorry,” I try. “I really—”
She cuts me off. “Instead of apologizing, why don’t you figure out a way to fix all this, hm? Once everyone’s forgotten about the emails and stopped calling me a cheater, then we can talk.” She doesn’t wait for a response. She simply tidies her books, shoots me another glare that cuts all the way down to the pit of my stomach, and heads into the classroom without me.
Her words clang inside my head. Fix this.
It’s what I’ve always done, or tried to do. Fix the back door in the bakery. Fix the error in the math worksheet. Fix the seating arrangement for student council. Fix the gap in my family, the holes in my life, patch everything up, smooth everything over.
She’s right. I just need to fix this too, and it’ll all work out.
But how?
I’m so absorbed in my own thoughts that I’m almost late for history. I’m not the last one through the door, though— Danny Yao is.
My blood freezes as he brushes past me. The image of the bike shed presses against my mind. I imagine him cursing my name, scribbling the words over the wall, laughing about it with his friends. But then my attention goes to his face, and I stifle a gasp. His entire left eye is swollen shut, the skin around it a vivid purplish- blue. The bruise wasn’t there yesterday afternoon.
“What happened to him?” I whisper to Abigail when I sit down.
Everyone else is whispering as well, gazes sliding to and away from him.
“He’s been saying he got it from a motorcycle accident,”
Abigail murmurs, her voice thick with disbelief.
I frown. “A motorcycle accident?”
“Yeah. Last time I checked, he doesn’t even know how to ride a bicycle.”
I watch Danny make his way to the front of the classroom.
He usually sits right behind Julius, but today he hesitates, then pulls up a chair two rows away. As he dumps his stuff out onto the table, his hair falls over his injured eye, and his features twist into a pronounced wince.
It would be far too arrogant to believe this is some sort of karma, that the universe has kindly overlooked all my mistakes and taken pity on me and stepped in on my behalf. But the tim-ing also seems a little too perfect to be a pure coincidence . . .
“How’s the email thing going?” Abigail asks, breaking through my confused jumble of thoughts.
I scan the seats around us. Most people are too busy filling in yesterday’s worksheet— which I’ve already turned in— to be listening. Still, just to be safe, I tear out a fresh page from my notebook and scribble Everyone still hates my guts, if that’s what you mean.
But I’m planning on changing that. I just need to win them all over.
Abigail reads it over, then writes underneath my last sentence in pink gel pen: Win them over?
Yeah. I was thinking cupcakes, but that’s probably insufficient?
Don’t undersell yourself. You make some pretty incredible cupcakes, Abigail writes back.
I snort under my breath. Are they so incredible they’d make you forget someone writing six hundred words about all the ways you’d wronged them in the past?
Okay, fair point, she concedes. She pauses, tapping her pen against the paper the way she always does in tests when she’s stuck on a question. Then the pen stills in her fingers, and her eyes light up. What if you threw a party?
A party? I stare at the words in her fun, loopy cursive, then in my own sharp, tidy letters. I’ve never hosted a party before.
I’ve never even held a birthday party. My mom’s offered multiple times in the past, but it always felt too frivolous, too inconvenient.
Abigail smiles. There’s no quicker way to bond than over cheap beer and good music. I’ll make a playlist.
But who would even come?
It’s a party. People will want to come, no matter who’s hosting.
Trust me.
Our friendship has always been like that— her leading the way with the big ideas, and me following reluctantly, coaxed into buying that bold red lipstick or cutting my hair or going on a spontaneous road trip or dressing up as girl group members for Halloween. Trust me, I know what I’m doing, she’ll say every time, and she’s never been wrong before. I did get compliments on the red lipstick the few times I wore it, and our trip to the coast was the most fun I’ve had in years, picnicking on the sand with the salt breeze in my hair and the sun on my skin. I owe some of my best and brightest memories to her.
Still, I’m shocked to find myself actually considering the party.
It’s not impossible. My mom and brother are always invited to stay over at our aunt’s house every two weeks or so. Sometimes I tag along, but most of the time I stay behind to focus on my schoolwork. I could host it when they’re gone, clean up before they’re back.
Because beneath my apprehension is the stronger, deeply ingrained need to be liked. To be accepted. To be forgiven. To be recognized as good. I’ll do anything to redeem myself. The words on the bike shed flash through my mind again, and my chest contracts, like all the air has been sucked out of the room.
“Okay,” I say out loud, suppressing a grimace. “Let’s give it a shot.”
I don’t even have a chance to change my mind.
Abigail jumps into action straight away, spending the next several periods scrolling through all her contacts to pick out who we should invite. There’s some kind of unspoken rule here about who you need to tell first to spread the word, who will go only if this other person is going, who won’t go if this other person is going.
She tries to explain it to me as her nails click over the screen, tapping out the details, but it just makes my head fuzzy. I wonder if this is how she feels when I’m teaching her stoichiometry.
She’s already placing orders for alcoholic beverages when the lunch bell rings.
“I’ll handle this,” she says, sliding down from the desk and waving me off. “Go to your book club thing.”
“It’s the yearbook committee , ” I correct.
She looks at me blankly. “We still have one of those?”
“Who do you think assembled all the photos and wrote the articles and produced the physical yearbooks that everyone went around signing at the end of the year—” I stop myself. “Never mind. Just— just don’t organize anything too wild.”
Her lips purse. “Define too wild.”
“Abigail.”
“Fine, I’ll park the fireworks display for now. And the mini petting zoo.”
I’m worried she isn’t joking, but my thoughts are soon occupied by other concerns. The yearbook committee’s fortnightly meetings are always held in the English classroom during lunch-times, which means they’re run by Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson, who evidently hasn’t forgiven me for the email yet.
“Sadie.” She sniffs when I walk in. The committee is small enough that you could count all its members on two hands. Most of them are already inside, leaning over to correct a document on someone’s laptop, spreading out flyers over a desk, pulling the cling wrap from their sandwiches as they wait for the printer to load.
Julius is here too. He’s reclining back in one of the old plastic chairs like it’s a throne, his long legs stretched in front of him.
And he’s wearing his blazer. I’d folded it neatly inside an old shopping bag and dropped it off at his locker early this morning, to avoid the awkwardness of handing it directly to him. At the sound of my name, his black eyes flicker up to me.
My pulse skips.
Yesterday afternoon still feels too fresh, too raw, like an open flame between us. The memories smolder inside my head. Him with his damp hair falling into his eyes, the weight of his blazer around me, his slender hand around my wrist.
And it’s irrational, because I’ve seen him almost every day for the past ten years. I should be used to it by now— to him. He’s as permanent a fixture as the clock hanging on the walls, the view of the emerald school oval from the windows, the dull circular patterns in the carpet. But something feels different. Slightly askew.
“. . . listening to me, Sadie?”
“Huh?” I startle, and hastily turn my gaze back to Ms.
Johnson’s disapproving face. “I’m so sorry, could you . . . say that again?”
Before Emailgate, she would have smiled at me, or peered at me with concern. Now she just heaves an irritable sigh and beckons for Julius to come over. “Since I’m going to have to repeat myself, I might as well tell you both at once.”
Julius positions himself to my far right, leaving four wide feet of distance between us. It feels particularly pointed today, like he’s trying to prove something to me, or to himself.
“Principal Miller has asked me to assign a task to you two,”
Ms. Johnson says. “We have a four- page spread for the notable alumni section of the yearbook, but not enough content to go in there . . .”
“Why don’t you name another one of the curtains in the cafeteria after a notable alumnus and hold a grand naming cer-emony again?” Julius asks innocently.
I have to stifle a snort.
Ms. Johnson misses the sarcasm. “That’s a good idea, Julius, but as of now all our curtains are already named. We thought it would be a better idea for you to conduct an interview with one of our very own alumni. See what they’ve been up to since they left Woodvale. Celebrate their successes. What do you think?”
I open my mouth. “ I—”
“I’m glad we all agree,” Ms. Johnson says, and whips out a long list of names. “You can find the contact details here. I’d suggest you call them instead of email— you’re much more likely to get responses that way. The final draft for the interview is due the Friday after the next. Any questions?”
I try again. “Just one—”
“Great,” she says briskly, smiling at only Julius, then struts back to her desk.
A silence falls over us. We both stand there, rigid, listening to the low whirring of the printer in the background, the muted tapping of the keyboard. Neither of us wants to do this.
“Wow, she really doesn’t like you,” Julius says after a beat. He can’t even hide the surprise in his voice.
“I know,” I grumble. It’s the obvious truth, but my skin still stings from it. I grab the list to hide my burning face and flip through the pages. “Let’s aim to finish this before the end of lunch,” I tell him, making my way to the empty table at the back of the classroom. My fingers itch with the need to do something, to prove myself to Ms. Johnson, to get into her good graces again.
Maybe if we handle the interview well, she’ll like me again. Or at least stop hating me.
Julius takes the seat next to me. But again, he makes sure to leave a significant amount of space between us so there’s zero chance of him touching me by accident.
For some reason, I’m more irritated than glad.
“You’re not going to be able to see like that,” I point out.
“What?”
“The contact information.”
“I can see it just fine from here,” he insists.
“Really?” I hold the list up. “What does the first name say?”
He squints at it, which really goes to show how far away he is.
My irritation thickens. “Sarah . . . Newman?”
“It’s Clare Davis,” I say flatly as I punch her number into my phone. I’m praying she’ll pick up on the first ring, say she’s available for the interview, and then we’ll be done. “None of those letters were accurate. The number of letters wasn’t even accurate. Why are you all the way over there if you can’t see? Are you afraid I’ll bite you or something?”
He rolls his eyes with what feels like exaggerated disdain. “In what world am I afraid of you?”
“Then come closer.”
“Fine.” He drags his chair forward until he’s right next to me, his shoulder almost pressed to mine, the heat of his skin seeping through my shirt. Until I’m aware of nothing except him, his nearness, his physical presence. And suddenly I find myself regretting my own request. It’s hard to think straight like this.
I can’t even move without brushing against him. But asking him to go back would be admitting defeat— worse, it would be admitting he affects me. So I pretend to ignore him and focus on the call.
My phone heats up in my hand as the dial tone sounds through the speaker. Once, twice, three times . . .
On the fifth ring, Clare picks up. “Hello?” Her voice is curt, skeptical, like she’s 90 percent certain I’m a scammer about to sell her insurance for solar panels she doesn’t own.
I try not to fidget in my seat. I wish I wasn’t the kind of person who was always so sensitive to other people’s shifting moods and tones, who startles when someone raises their voice even a little, who cowers when someone else gets annoyed. “Hi,” I say, with as much warmth as I can project into the line. “This is Sadie Wen. I’m, um, calling on behalf of the yearbook committee at Woodvale—”
“Woodvale?” She lets out a snort so loud I almost drop the phone. “Nah, I graduated that flaming garbage dump ages ago—”
I quickly take her off loudspeaker and bring the phone up to my ear, but everybody’s already heard. Ms. Johnson is staring my way, her lips disappearing into a fine line. The students sitting at the other desk dissolve into giggles.
“. . . I’m, like, so over high school,” Clare says. I hear honking on her end, the white rush of movement, then a muffled curse.
“Stop cutting in front of me, you asshat— I’m driving, by the way.”
“Oh,” I say. Then, as if I’ve been possessed by the spirit of a driving instructor, I add, “It’s not safe for you to be calling, then.
Eyes on the road.”
“You called me,” she says.
“Right. Sorry. Um—” I can feel myself growing flustered. It doesn’t help that Julius hasn’t lifted his eyes from me this whole time. “We were only wondering if you would be interested in doing an interview for—”
“Nope.”
I have no idea how to respond. “Um, that’s fine, then. Thanks for your time and—”
The line clicks.
“. . . bye,” I mutter to nobody, setting the phone back down.
“That’s it?” Julius says. He shifts forward, his left shoulder bumping against mine with the rising motion. “That was terrible. You weren’t even trying to be persuasive.”
I glare at him. “You heard her. She wasn’t interested.”
“All I heard was you telling her to drive safely, then apologizing for no good reason, as per usual,” he drawls. “She should have apologized; she was the one with an attitude.”
“You act as if you could produce better results.”
“I can.” He holds his hand out for the phone, but as I pass it over, my gaze falls on his knuckles. They’re split open and raw red. My first impression is that it must be from scrubbing the shed yesterday, but that can’t be right. He’d been wearing those ridiculous gloves for the very purpose of protecting his skin.
And this looks more unnatural, more deliberate, as if he’d slammed his fist into something hard . . .
Like Danny’s face.
He’s dialing the next number when he glances up. Catches me staring.
“Your hand,” I begin, because there’s no point hiding it.
“Did you—”
“Did I what?”
What I’d been meaning to say was, Did you hit Danny yesterday? Was that where you went after we cleaned the shed? But before the words can leave my tongue, I note the coldness in his eyes, the closed- off way he’s holding himself, and I realize how utterly ridiculous that question is. It must have been a strange coincidence, that’s all. Julius Gong is far more likely to high- five Danny than hit him.
“What happened?” I ask instead.
“None of your business.” His voice is aloof.
Okay, it definitely couldn’t have been him. I’m mortified I had even considered the idea. “I was just asking out of politeness—”
“Well, then, you don’t have to pretend to care.”
I bristle, certain I’m about to start breathing fire. Why does everything have to be so difficult when it comes to him? But it’s not just anger twisting its way around my stomach like a serpent. Embarrassingly enough, it’s hurt too. There had been the briefest moment yesterday afternoon, when he offered me his blazer, where I thought . . . I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t detest me. Maybe he had the capacity to be nice, like a normal human being. Another dumb, impossible idea.
“Yes?” A male voice floats up from the phone. “Who is this?”
“Hello, I’m Julius Gong. Is this Logan?” He’s firm but polite, each word clear and crisp but not too loud. He makes me want to kick something. “We have a great media opportunity here and as the most accomplished Woodvale alumnus, you were the very first person we thought of . . .”
“Liar,” I mouth at him.
He doesn’t even blink before continuing, “Your list of athletic accomplishments is truly impressive—”
But the man cuts him off midsentence. “Yeah, listen, I’m flattered, but this really isn’t a good time right now. I’m, um, with company.”
Just then, a girl chimes up in the background, “Lo– gan.” She stretches the name out into a long whine. “Aren’t you coming back?”
Julius stares down at the phone like it might grow teeth and bite him. For the first time, he looks wildly uncomfortable, a flush spreading up the smooth skin of his neck. “I can . . . call back,” he offers.
“I’m probably going to be, ah, preoccupied for the rest of today,” Logan says. “Sorry, man, I don’t think I’m the right person to ask. Better luck with someone else.”
Then he hangs up.
Julius appears to be frozen with shock. At last, he thaws enough to force out the words “Did he just hang up on me?”
Like it’s a supernatural phenomenon, a violation of the laws that govern our universe.
I would be laughing if we weren’t tied down to the same task.
Still, I can’t help getting a jibe in while I can. “That was— what was the word you used? Oh, yes. Terrible.”
He scoffs, but I can tell he’s affronted. “That was an exception.”
As it quickly becomes apparent though, Clare and Logan aren’t the exception, but the norm. While the other students munch on their toasted sandwiches and relax by the sunlit windows, we run through the rest of the list, crossing off one name after another with increasing frustration. My fingers become stiff from dialing. Some of the phone numbers are no longer active. Some are switched off. Many people simply don’t pick up. The few who do are busy, or foresee that they will soon be very busy, or just can’t be bothered to make any commitments. One person would be available, except they’re about to embark on a thirty- day trek through a jungle and won’t have any signal. One woman cusses me out for bothering her, and I’m so horrified that Julius has to pull the phone from me and end the call.
But before he does, he says pleasantly into the speaker, “Have a horrible rest of your day. Oh, and also . . .” Then he gestures for me to say something.
“I don’t know what to say,” I hiss, panicking.
He lifts a dark brow. “You didn’t have any trouble finding the words when you were insulting me. Go on. You’re not going to let her curse at you for nothing, are you?”
It could be a trick, or a trap. But I have to admit: I’m tempted.
And I’m tired of being called names, of absorbing other people’s anger. So I lean closer and clear my throat. “I hope, um, you miss the train home and . . .”
Julius looks at me, expectant. It’s a look that says Is that the best you can do?
I can’t help rising to the challenge. “I hope you find that you have no clean plates left for dinner,” I continue, my voice strengthening with every word, even as my heartbeat accelerates.
“And your neighbors start partying at ten p.m. but their music taste is solely advertising background tracks, and the shower runs out of hot water right after you’ve applied shampoo.”
“I think it’s fairly safe to say we won’t be interviewing her,”
Julius remarks as he sets the phone down.
I laugh, which seems to please him, which in turn makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong. Missed something important. And yet— it had been satisfying, speaking aloud the things I would normally reserve for my drafts.
The downside is that we now only have one name left.
“We’ve gone through everything,” Julius says, flipping the paper around. “Maybe we should just interview me instead. I’ll join the list of notable alumni shortly after graduating— might as well do it in advance.”
My brows furrow. “Hang on. There was still one—”
“I don’t think so,” he says. His fingers splay over the list, the movement subtle but deliberate.
“Why are you acting so weird?”
“I’m not.” His chin juts out.
I glance at the clock over Ms. Johnson’s desk. Three minutes left of lunch. Around us, the other committee members are already starting to unplug their chargers, snap their lunch boxes shut, throw away scrap paper and grease- stained wrappers. I have no idea what’s going on with Julius, but I don’t have the time to sit around and argue over nothing. “Whatever,” I say.
“I’ve got the name and number memorized. It’s James Luo.”
The line of his shoulders tightens, and for a split second, faster than I can blink, some dark emotion clouds his features. “How did you . . .”
“You’re not the only one with a good memory,” I remind him as I stab in the numbers. I’m bragging a little, but I’m not exaggerating. I’ve never had much trouble recalling dates, facts, names, the places on a map. But sometimes my own memory backfires on me. Because besides cold, hard statistics, I remember every single time I’ve lost to Julius in a test, every time someone’s yelled at me, every embarrassment and failure and disappointment.
Everything leaves an indelible mark on me, buries a permanent blade under my skin.
When the line connects, the voice that speaks up sounds oddly familiar. Something about the tone, the inflection of the words, the faint rasp at the edges. “Hello? This is James speaking.”
“Hi,” I say, my mind spinning, struggling to place it. “I’m Sadie Wen, calling from Woodvale—”
To my surprise, he laughs. “Oh, I know you. You’re the other captain, right? My little brother talks about you all the time.”
I falter. Beside me, Julius has gone very still, his complexion pale. “Your . . . little brother?”
“Yeah,” James says breezily. “My brother, Julius Gong.”
