I Am Not Jessica Chen(60)

It usually takes twenty minutes to walk from my cousin’s house to Aaron’s.

But only ten minutes later, my phone chimes with the photo.

I zoom in on the birthday card, the two anonymous notes spread out on the bed next to me, my eyes flicking back and forth between them, trying to match them up. I go over every single birthday message, but none of them looks exactly like the handwriting I’m searching for.

Had we guessed wrong? Had I somehow missed a person in our year when I was organizing the card?

I slump back on the mattress and hold the notes up against the light, until the ripped paper turns almost translucent, the dark orange shadows of my fingertips visible through it, and the letters seem to float over the surface. Think. What am I missing here? The notes look like they were scribbled out in a rush, but maybe that was the point. Maybe they’d thought to change their handwriting so I wouldn’t recognize it.

Which means that it’s—

Impossible. The word forms in the sound of Aaron’s voice, in the shape of an old memory. Fourteen years old, the soft days of summer just behind us, the oak trees outside the library burning gold. We were studying, or he was—I had flipped my sketchbook open to a random page and was testing out my new fine-liners.

“Do you want to see something cool?” I asked, tugging lightly at his sleeve. Only the very edge of it, where he’d rolled up the fabric; I was scared to brush his skin, as if it were possible to transmit feeling through touch alone. A simple graze of the hand, and he’d know of the nights I’d stayed awake, delusional, dying beneath the weight of what I wanted. “See, there’s this cursive font. . . .” My brows scrunched up in concentration as I looped my letters together. “And then there’s this block font . . . and this formal font that should look good on school forms. . . . Which one do you think I should use this year?”

I’d hoped he would be impressed, but he’d just turned his head and laughed at me, the sun settling behind him, lighting the silk strands of his hair the same brilliant orange as the autumn trees. “I like them all.”

“You have to choose one, Aaron,” I’d insisted. “This is important. They’re completely different styles.”

“But they’re all still your handwriting. I’d be able to tell it’s yours even if you mixed it with a hundred other people’s.”

I frowned down at the paper. “That can’t be true.”

“It’s like how every artist has their own recognizable style, even when they’re painting a new piece,” he said, shrugging. “It’s impossible to really hide the person behind it, so long as you know where to look.”

My body bolts upright. I hadn’t wanted to agree with Aaron then, but now I can only pray he’s right. I squint at the handwriting again, except this time, like it’s another painting. Every artist has their own style, their way of holding the pen, of interpreting the world, capturing it in pieces. Even if they tried to mask their identity, they should still have left behind telltale signs. So whose style is it?

When I finally find the answer, shock ripples through me.

I double-check it again, just to be safe. But the signs are there. Subtle, but distinct. The same swoop of the Ys, the same dash instead of a dot above the Is, the same cut of the Ts, like they’re running out of time.

It’s her.

It has to be.





Fourteen




The waiting is always the worst part.

I do not absorb a single thing in our world politics class the following morning. It’s excruciating enough not to glance every second in the direction of the suspect, not to push my chair back and march up to her and demand answers. Looking at it now, it all seems so obvious. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner.

The clock moves so slowly above the whiteboard I have to wonder if it’s broken, the minute hand stuck. My stomach heaves and twists around nothing; I had skipped breakfast, unable to shove down even a morsel of bread through my chattering teeth. My legs cross and uncross themselves so many times that eventually Celine elbows me in the ribs.

“What’s up with you today?” she whispers while Ms. Lewis drones on and on at the front of the classroom. “You’ve been fidgeting all class.”

“Sorry,” I croak out. “Had too much coffee.”

The fifty-five minutes before my next move are almost as painful as the wait before the Harvard email.

My anxiety accumulates steadily over the course of the lesson. When the bell rings, I nearly jump out of my seat, my heartbeat ticking like a bomb. Still, I don’t look at her. Not yet. I glance back over my shoulder and lock eyes with Aaron instead, who gives me the faintest nod.

“I’ll see you two after the break,” I tell Celine and Leela as I fumble for my books. “I’m, um, meeting the physics teacher to go over a few questions.”

“Do you want us to buy you a snack?” Leela asks.

“No, no. All good.” My smile takes so much effort it hurts my cheeks. “I’m not really hungry.”

I hurry to the library alone, my footsteps echoing up the spiral staircase to where the bookshelves fan out into polished panels and private rooms. The walls here are thicker, soundproof, built for the language orals students take at the end of each year and all the practice sessions leading up to it. Whenever a door opens a sliver, you can hear fragments of French, German, Mandarin floating out from within.