I Am Not Jessica Chen(64)

He loosens a huff of laughter. “When else? Don’t you want to change back right away?”

“Yeah,” I say, but my voice comes out less certain than I intended, wavering up at the end. “Yes,” I repeat, and this time, it manages to sound somewhat convincing. “I do. Of course I do.”

“So go ahead.” He gestures to the open space. “I’ll be here in case anything goes wrong.”

“Okay. I mean, I feel kind of ridiculous doing this, but . . . sure.” I clasp my hands together. Make the wish. I scramble to find the right words, to repeat them inside my head. I wish to be myself again. I wish for my cousin to come back. But it’s like I’m reading lines off a teleprompter. The wish doesn’t feel like mine, and the air doesn’t change, the universe doesn’t respond.

I squeeze my eyes shut so tight that when I finally blink and lift my head, the white lights of the living room streak across my vision.

“Did it work?” I ask Aaron, already knowing the answer. My feet are starting to ache. The heels, while gorgeous, are too narrow at the front, and too stiff at the back.

“No,” he says. He conceals his disappointment well; if I were anyone else, I wouldn’t even notice it. “But maybe it’s because there are other factors to consider. Maybe you need to make the wish at the exact same time as you did the first, or you need to replicate the exact conditions, or there’s an object involved—like when you make a wish as you blow out a birthday candle . . . or when there’s a shooting star. Remember?” he asks, with dawning recognition. “There was a shooting star, the night you disappeared. I was there. We all saw it in Jessica’s backyard. Maybe it also has something to do with that.”

“Oh yeah.” I swallow. “Good point.”

He pauses. The way he’s staring at me, as if he can see right through me, makes my stomach pinch. He doesn’t speak for a long time, too long, and then he says, quietly, “You don’t actually want to change back, do you?”

Blood roars through my skull. My lips form the shape of a protest, but my throat closes. I can’t deny it, because it’s true. It’s the secret I’ve buried in the deepest soil of my thoughts, the secret that I prayed he would never find out, that I couldn’t even admit to myself. Now he knows what I am: weak, twisted, selfish. “I can’t help it,” I whisper, afraid to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I do want my cousin back, I swear, but I don’t . . . I just don’t want to return to my life. If there were any other way to reverse the wish, even if it meant walking across the country on bare feet, I’d make myself go through with it. I really, really would, but I can’t wish for something I don’t want. I simply can’t force myself to believe with my whole heart that I’d like for everything to go back to how it used to be.”

Another horrible beat of silence.

He must hate me, I think. Maybe he already regrets confessing his feelings to me, or coming back from Paris early. Maybe he won’t even want to talk to me again.

The soft jingle of car keys jolts me back to life. “Let’s continue this conversation in the car,” he says. There’s no disgust or resentment in his voice. Only resolve. “If you’re not going to change back now, then we still have to get to the art exhibition.”

I swallow and nod quickly, following him all the way to the car. Dusk is falling, the sky a watercolor spread of deep blue, the horizon fringed with the faintest shade of yellow. Without another word, he pulls open the door to help me inside, before walking around and settling naturally into the driver’s seat. As he places his hand on the wheel and starts the ignition, I curl up around the seat belt, hugging my knees.

“I just don’t understand,” he says at last, steering the car onto the main road. “I know you’ve always compared yourself to Jessica, and I would get it if you just wanted to try out her life briefly, like when people talk about what celebrity they’d like to be for a day. But this . . .”

“Of course you don’t understand,” I tell him. “But you know, someone like Cathy Liu would. Can you believe that?” My laughter tastes bitter on my tongue. “I have so much in common with the girl who’s been blackmailing my own cousin.”

“You’re not like Cathy,” he says firmly. “You’re nothing like her.”

“I am. I’m just as jealous and insecure, though I wouldn’t even have the guts to threaten someone else. But you—you’re exactly like Jessica. You’re a genius. You’re so talented you don’t even have to try, while all I do is try.” I grit my teeth until they hurt, until I feel something inside me splinter. The greenery rushes past us, the light bleeding out of the sky. “I try again and again and nothing happens. Nothing comes of it. I’m never going to be first. I can’t even be second, like Cathy. Nobody would care if I came back—”

“Why does it matter—”

“Because.” I almost scoff out loud. There are no stupid questions, the teachers always like to remind us, but what a ridiculous, nonsensical question this is. That’s like asking why we need to breathe. Why we need water. Why the ocean exists. “That’s the one thing I’ve worked for my entire life—to be someone who matters. That’s why my parents moved to this country. That’s my purpose. If I can’t do it, then what’s the point of anything? What’s the point of me? What possible value could I provide?”