I Am Not Jessica Chen(81)

“Okay,” I say.

His bushy brows lift. “That’s it? Where’s your usual attitude? Aren’t you going to protest?”

I shrug, hardly suppressing my joy. “I’m in a very agreeable mood today.” I feel like it’s the last day of school, the promise of summer flung out ahead of me. There is no greater or simpler joy than this: I can go anywhere I want—the glittering lakes, the singing cliffs by the sea, the wide, wind-rustled meadows—and I can always come back home. “Wait. Can you make wontons for dinner tonight?” I ask my mom, clinging to her arm. “Please?”

She laughs at me. “You’re craving them?”

“I’ve been craving them for ages,” I say honestly.

“All right.” She exchanges an amused glance with my dad. “I’ll defrost the ground meat.”

“I’ll help you mix it,” I promise, giddy at the very prospect of dinner, of being able to eat with my own parents, inside my own house. It’s bizarre, how everything that had once seemed so ordinary to me now feels uniquely, unbearably precious, and everything that had once seemed so vital now feels so trivial. “Can we also have egg-and-tomato soup another day?”

“Yes, yes,” she says, laughing harder. “Is that all, ni zhege xiao chihuo? Anything else that you’d like to have?”

I think about it for only a moment, then shake my head.

“Well, let’s feed you some breakfast first. Oh!” Mom snaps her fingers. “Before I forget, we should also tell Aaron. He’ll want to know Jenna’s home.”

The very sound of his name jolts my heart inside my chest. “Aaron?”

“Yes,” Mom says, frowning. “It was quite strange. He called the house first thing in the morning—that’s what woke us up. He sounded incredibly frantic. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him so worried before. I’m not sure what’s going on with that boy. He kept asking for you and saying he needed to see you right away. I’ll give him a call back—”

“There’s no need,” Dad interrupts, pointing to the driveway beyond the window. “It appears he’s already come here.”



I close the front door behind me and wait for my pulse to calm down. It doesn’t; it only hammers faster and faster as Aaron strides up to me. Grabs my wrist. Pauses mere inches away from me. His scent is so familiar—like gardenias and spring storms and the air rising through the mountains on a clear, moonlit night—that I find myself inhaling deeply. It feels like breathing for the first time.

“Jenna,” he says. I thought my mom might have been exaggerating, but his voice is every bit as distressed as she’d described. “Jenna. Thank god. You’re here.”

“Do you remember now?” I ask him, searching his face.

His eyes widen a fraction. “So it wasn’t a dream. You really were . . . you were gone. You were Jessica. All of that was real?”

I nod.

He releases a sharp, shuddering breath. He still hasn’t let go of my wrists yet. His skin is blissfully warm around mine, his fingers firm but tender. “I woke up and I wasn’t sure—I just heard your name. That was the only thing that mattered. I knew I had to find you.”

“And you found me,” I say simply.

“Yes,” he says, gazing down at me. He gives his head a little shake. “You’re really her?”

“Do you want to test me?”

“Are you being funny?”

“For once, no,” I say. “I’m serious. Test me. Any memory we have. Something only I would know.”

He deliberates on this for a moment. “The week before I left for Paris,” he says, and I can see the memory come alive in his expression. I can almost feel the rain on my skin again. “When it was raining, and we were standing beneath the trees . . .”

We’re standing beneath the trees now, the wisteria spreading its branches around us, the soft purple petals brushing the top of my head.

“What did you ask me, then?” He’s studying me as intently as I’m studying him.

“I asked you—” It’s hard to speak past the lump in my throat. “I asked you if you would ever hate me. And you said no. You said never.”

“You’re right,” he says, voice low, and it occurs to me that this is the first time the two of us have really been alone since before he left for Paris. Maybe the same realization has struck him as well, because he swallows, hard. Drops his hands. “Well,” he says. “Good. As long as you’re back now.”

There’s too much unsaid between us. Too much that’s passed already. Too much I want. His gaze flickers once to my lips, and all the blood in my body rushes through my veins with the speed of wind. I’m lightheaded, dizzy with anticipation, with longing, with relief. But he doesn’t move closer.

Instead, he rights himself. Casts one last, long look at me.

And turns to go.

No, I want to say, and in that split second, something else occurs to me: that life doesn’t have to go back exactly to what it was before.

“Wait,” I blurt out.

His footsteps stall, and that’s all I need. I rush toward him and wrap my arms around his torso from behind, just like I’ve always fantasized about, my body pressed so tightly to his I can hear his uneven breathing. I’m stunned by my own bravery, but I bury my face in his shirt, in the space between his shoulder blades.