Page 53 of Rules for Rule Breaking
The UPenn campus didn’t look unlike the GW campus. There were students in pajamas and loose ponytails, with vats of iced coffee in their hands, laughing and smiling together in groups. Trees shaded the walkways that wound through the quads like ruddy rivers made of brick.
Winter lavished in the feeling of being alone again. Bobby was back in the hotel resting. He was no longer sick, but Winter had a sneaking suspicion he was trying to avoid telling her she’d been right about him overestimating the fortitude of his stomach. She still couldn’t believe that she fell asleep in Bobby’s room, in his bed. She remembered that they started to binge-watchJeopardy!They competed, answering the questions themselves, but after a six-episode tie, they got bored and switched toCosmos. Neil deGrasse Tyson started explaining the multiverse, and it was so much for their impaired minds to comprehend that they went into system failure. It wasn’t sleep; it was more like low-power mode.
She walked by the library, which had large windows like a cathedral. UPenn wasn’t one of her preferred schools, but it occurred to her as she watched kids studying despite school not being in session that she wasn’t guaranteed a spot at MIT. It was easy to feel smart in high school. Most people didn’t even wantto be there. In college she’d have far more competition than only Bobby Bae.
An uneasy feeling turned her stomach.
Making her way through the buildings she was able to sneak into, she felt small as she passed room after room filled with computers and books that had endured so many generations of hands that their original color was indiscernible. She exited a building and made her way to the football stadium.
Taking a seat in the center of the field, she looked up at the thousands of empty seats and imagined they were stars.
With warm grass tickling the backs of her legs and the coppery smell of dirt filling her nose, she thought of Nai Nai and Halmeoni unearthing petunias together. Then she thought about Emmy. Winter was completely ready to become a broccoli-headed ajumma with a visor, floral housecoat, and hands as hard as the dolsot she cooked in. She had always imagined Emmy would be there with her, her smiling eyes collecting lines like trophies awarded for each year they got to be friends.
It wasn’t easy to accept that Emmy was well on her way to having the life she deserved. A life that didn’t necessarily include Winter.
It was like everything that made WinterWinterwas being dismantled before her eyes, and there was nothing she could do. It started with Nai Nai, a woman she had known her entire life. Now it was Emmy planning her future in Europe. Next it would be her home, her parents, and Halmeoni when Winter eventually left for college. And did Boston even have good barbecue? Too much was changing all at once, and she wasn’t allowed to be sad about any of it. Nai Nai wasn’t exactly hers to mourn, and she was supposed to be happy for Emmy and herself for starting their lives. Excited, even.
Winter emptied her hands of the blades of grass she’d been ripping to shreds and shook her head at her own stupidity. She’d always liked space because it made everything seem small, but it seemed that she had shrunk her world so much that she left no room for anything or anyone else.
Bobby Bae
24. WE WILL STAY OUT OF EACH OTHER’S ROOMS
Bobby was lying in the bathtub, using a towel as a pillow. Everything hurt. Everything. His stomach, his throat, his legs, even his eyelids. That was the first bit of dairy he’d had in years, and it did not agree with him. However, he felt some food poisoning might have been at play as well. Of course Winter was impervious to greasy street meat. An iron stomach was another thing she could lord over him.
A bout of nausea came on, so he crawled up the side of the toilet, leaned over it, and threw up what he hoped was the last of the cheesesteak. He’d only eaten one, unlike Winter, who had wolfed down two without even taking a breath.
His body sweat profusely as he emptied his stomach, but then he shivered as soon as he was done. He wiped his mouth and crawled back into the bathtub. Winter had left him a cup of tea, but even drinking that in his current state had him praying to gods he didn’t believe in. It was a kind gesture, though. If he’d learned one thing on this trip, it was that Winter could be nice when she wanted to be. Actually, he’d always known it, but he’d never been on the receiving end. She told her parents she loved them every time they spoke, she picked up litter and threw it in the trash if she saw it, and she smiled at everyone. Sometimes it seemed like he was the only person not worthy of her kindness. All it took was being forced into a road trip together, taking her to a spaceresearch center and the beach, sharing some drugs, keeping her fed, and poisoning himself. No big deal.
He was thankful for a moment of rest. He thought that it might be over, but it still meant they’d missed their tour at Princeton, which he had scheduled months ago. Those were two schools in a row that he’d be missing. He didn’t mind that Winter went to visit UPenn alone, but Princeton was a distinct possibility for him.
With everything going on, Bobby had completely forgotten to stress over what Kai told him about Jacqueline coming into the bookstore. He couldn’t figure it out. Pathetic information-seeking visits were more on-brand for Bobby Bae than Jacqueline Charlotte Turner, the future political analyst and broadcast journalist, the leader of the debate team and listener of NPR. All her moves were calculated. Showing her hand like that was unlike her. She had to have known Kai would tell him. It was a trap he was willing to walk into.
Bobby had his phone in his hand and had dialed Jacqueline before he even knew what he was doing. She answered after three rings.
“Bae?” she asked, her voice low and uncertain.
“Why did you go to Kai’s bookstore? You could have just called me.”
Jacqueline didn’t answer immediately. He could hear her breathing on the other side of the line. “I was checking on you. I stopped by your house first, and your parents told me you were gone but didn’t tell me where,” she said in her martyr tone, as if he’d done something to her by not being available for her unannounced check-ins.
“I’m visiting colleges. You knew about this trip.”
“You told me you were going with your parents, not Winter Park. Isn’t that correct?”
“It’s none of your business, Jack. You broke up with me, remember?” he snapped. “And the worst part is that you never evenmeant to. You wanted it to fizzle out like we hadn’t been together for a year and a half. Do you know how long it takes for a fire that’s been burning for a year and a half to fizzle out?”
Jacqueline’s sigh crackled in his ear. “Nothing about your reaction suggested you even cared. You thanked me for letting you know like it was some kind of work memo.”
“You caught me off guard! I wasn’t going to beg you to be with me if that’s not what you wanted to do.”
“Maybe I wished you would,” Jacqueline replied, her voice uncharacteristically soft.
Bobby put the phone on speaker and rested it on his chest. “I’m not the bad guy here, Jack.”
“Don’t belabor the point,” she hissed. “I know you aren’t the bad guy. I just wish you would be sometimes. It’s always me. You make me feel ridiculous.”
Bobby turned his palms up as if to ask the universe what the hell she was talking about. “How?”
