I Am Not Jessica Chen(55)
He raises his brows. “Would you like to test me?”
“Eighth grade,” I say. “The last day of school. What did I say to you in the parking lot, before we left—”
“That Old Keller was being too harsh with his marking,” he says easily, not even pausing to think. “That you felt like he singled you out in class all the time, and you actually were listening, you just don’t enjoy staring at the teachers when they’re lecturing because you find the eye contact awkward.”
I stare. “I—yeah. I mean, exactly. How did you . . . I can’t believe you actually remember that.”
He clears his throat. For the first time, he looks flustered. “You ought to give me more credit.”
“Xianzai de nianqingren tili buxing ya,” my dad calls, spinning around. The youths are so weak these days. “You two need to get your heart rate up. Move your limbs. Where’s your energy?”
In another life, I’m sure he would’ve been a sports coach.
“So how are you feeling about college, Jessica?” my dad asks when we draw closer. “Harvard. Harvard. Your parents raised you so well.”
Cue the instant protests and humble-but-not-humble smiles from my aunt and uncle.
“Don’t be modest,” he says. “This is a very big deal, yes? Tai you chuxi le. You will be set for the rest of your life, you understand that? With a great education, you won’t have to worry about money or job security or buying a house ever again. You can be anything. Whatever you want to be. We never had that kind of freedom when we were younger, did we?”
My uncle nods, his forehead shining with sweat. He’s evidently having difficulty keeping up with my dad. “No,” he says. “When we were . . . their age . . . we had two choices: pass the college entrance exams, or—”
“Stay in our town forever,” my dad finishes. “To be honest with you all, I’ve always been proud of us: we were one of the only families where both sons made it out. I like to think we’re successful, in that regard. But Jessica’s success—that’s beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Did you imagine this?” he asks my uncle, waving a hand at me.
“No, no, not at all,” my uncle says.
My dad beams at me. “See? She’s the pride of our whole family.”
This, I think to myself, breathing in the crisp air like someone smelling a fresh bouquet of azaleas, letting the sweetness fill my lungs. For a few moments, I feel whole, the sense of solidity spreading down to my tingling fingers, my toes, as if I’m a sketch colored in at last. This is why I crave success, why Jessica’s life will always be better than mine. Success is such a beautiful thing. It’s so intimate, so heartachingly personal, I can feel it in my very blood. It’s the closest you’ll ever fly to the sun. The closest you’ll ever get to immortality. Who cares about a bit of pain and sacrifice when you could—if only for a few fleeting days in your already short life—know what it’s like to be a god?
“But Aaron has enjoyed plenty of success too, hasn’t he?” My dad claps Aaron on the back. “He’s going to be one of the best doctors in the world. If anything happens to me in the future, I’ll go straight to you.”
Aaron absorbs this with the perfect amount of confidence and humility. “Well, you’re very young and healthy, shushu. You’d be welcome to ask me for anything, but I doubt you’ll need me.”
“Oh, please. You flatter me.”
“Just telling the truth, shushu.”
My dad sighs. “Ah, you’re such a good kid. If your mother were still here, she would be so happy. . . .”
I immediately tense and glance over at Aaron. His expression hasn’t changed—he’s too good at hiding his emotions for that, too used to carrying these kinds of conversations with well-meaning adults who don’t understand him. But I notice how his fingers shift, curling around air.
“That reminds me,” I say loudly, stepping in between them. “There’s a question I wanted to ask our brilliant future doctor.”
Aaron blinks, and his hands relax. “Yes?”
I deliberately slow down on the path, waiting until my dad and the other parents have tuned out of our conversation and started complaining among themselves about inflation before continuing. “It’s about Jessica. There’s someone who’s been sending her these strange messages. . . .”
“What kind of messages?” he asks, frowning.
I recount everything I know, all my flimsy guesses and incomplete clues.
Surprise washes over his face, but it quickly settles into contemplation. “You can’t find the sender’s address?”
“I thought to check,” I say, “but the first email seems to have been sent from an untraceable email provider or something. It’s too hard to track them down.”
“What about the handwritten notes?” he prompts. “You said you found them folded between your test and your notes, right? And that was in—”
“Our world politics class,” I finish for him, following along. “That’s why I thought it was Celine before, since she seemed kind of . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Jealous?” Aaron raises his eyebrows. “You’re probably just sensitive to the fact because you’re experiencing it firsthand, but I definitely wouldn’t count it as suspicious. Almost everyone’s a little jealous of Jessica, including her best friends.”