I Am Not Jessica Chen(56)
I’m just as bad as everyone else, I admit to myself, shifting my gaze away, guilt squirming in my stomach. I’m worse, because I’m closer to her, whether by blood or by the years I’ve known her, and I still can’t control my jealousy. Whenever I think of her, I see three different images: there’s my cousin, who’d catch my eye across the dining table while our relatives gossiped loudly and make the long dinners more bearable; there’s my friend, who’d line up with me at the mall just to try out the newest ice-cream flavor and buy us both hot drinks afterward, when our teeth were chattering from the cold; and then there’s bierenjia de haizi, someone else’s perfect child. The only person who’d understand the pressure to succeed, and the last person I’d want to tell all of this to.
“We can narrow it down to the people sitting around you in world politics,” Aaron is saying. “That’s around fifteen people.”
“But I only have two days to figure out who it is,” I tell him, my throat tight.
“What about if you tried to match the handwriting?”
“I’ve considered that. The problem is that half the class takes notes by hand; everyone else just uses their laptops. And I’d need to have a sample of their handwriting for long enough to actually compare it.”
“A sample . . . ,” he repeats slowly. Then his eyes widen. “Wait. I think I’ve got it.”
The roar of blood in my ears.
“You do?” I say, not daring to hope but hoping anyway. “What?”
He hesitates. Unexpectedly, inexplicably, color rises to his cheeks. “Remember that birthday card you gave me when I turned fifteen? The one you asked everyone in our grade to write a message on?”
Of course I remember. I can’t believe that he does. I had started preparing it a month in advance, hand-painting the dozens of flowers on the front and chasing down every single classmate with a pen, even the people I wouldn’t normally dare approach. Nothing is too long or too earnest, I’d reminded them. Most of the girls had been all too glad for a chance to say something sweet about Aaron, and for once, I hadn’t minded it. I knew that the card wasn’t enough. That it couldn’t compare to having both parents around to blow the candles out. That on those particular days—his birthday, Mother’s Day, the Spring Festival—the grief would wrap around him like a damp scarf and the shadows would fall sharply on the empty spaces his mother had left. But I just wanted him to feel less alone.
“I’ve kept it by my bed—I mean, in my room,” Aaron says, rubbing his neck. “I can send a photo of it to you when I go home, and then you can compare the handwriting, side by side.”
“Oh my god.” I skid to a stop. “Oh my god, Aaron. That might actually work. You’re a genius.”
“I know,” he says. He stops too, standing directly beneath a faint trickle of sunlight through the trees, and turns back to glance at me, his grin quick and beautiful as a lightning strike.
And time fractures. Reverses in on itself. We’re both on the cusp of fifteen again, and it’s autumn, everything soft and ephemeral and molten gold, the leaves crinkling underfoot. We’re in the same mountains but deeper. The air is cold. We’ve been walking for hours already and Jessica’s run ahead as always, leaving just us here. Alone. Privately, I’m grateful, then feel so guilty, so foolish for my gratitude—what do I expect to happen?—that my tenderness splits into irritation.
“Are you tired?” he asks, noticing me falter.
“No,” I grumble, though my limbs are aching, and my breathing is shallow, labored. The sky is starting to darken, the pinkish light dying beyond the horizon. I watch it change through the gaps in the foliage. I’ve never known how to witness dusk without feeling a dull sense of grief: another day gone, another day lost where I’m still the same.
“We can rest for a while, if you want,” he offers.
I shake my head. “It’s too late. You know my mom will kill me if we don’t get home in time.”
“I’ll tell her you were with me. She trusts me.”
“A little too much, I think,” I mutter, forcing myself to walk on.
He waits until I’ve caught up before moving too, his paces even with mine. “What do you mean?’
“You know what my family thinks of you.”
“I don’t,” he says, sounding genuinely curious.
“Aaron, the golden child,” I mimic, unable to hide the envy in my tone. “Aaron, the good influence. Aaron, the future doctor. They adore you. They think you’re going to save the world and eradicate all misery and disease.”
He cocks his head to the side, considering. “If it bothers you so much, I could always be a bad influence.”
“Oh sure.” I snort.
“Really.”
“I doubt you’d even know how, to be honest.”
“I can. I could be terrible,” he says, voice suddenly low, suddenly too quiet, and leans in. My heart runs away from me, thudding so hard that it feels like punishment. “Jenna.”
“Y-yes?”
“Should we sneak into a bar tonight?”
I stare at him for a beat and burst out laughing. “God, I can’t stand you,” I complain, but I’m smiling wider than I’ve smiled in a long time, and he’s gazing down at me, his raven-black hair windswept, his eyes dark with amusement, and I think I might go mad from all the emotions boiling inside me. I’ve never wanted anyone so badly. I can’t imagine ever wanting anybody else like this again. My throat aches from it.