Page 19 of You Had Me at Hello World
Nothing from Olive or Michael, not that I expect or want them to contact me. I have several missed calls and texts from Mom, but I don’t open the messages or listen to the voicemails or dial her number.
I don’t know. I’m not ready to deal with her yet. Maybe I never will be.
Once I’m off the plane, I follow the signs for baggage claim. People from my flight are already crowded around carousel number four. I recognize some of the passengers, like the screaming baby from seat 17A and the snoring dude who reclined his seat directly onto my kneecaps.
The bags spew out of a metal mouth and settle onto the conveyor belt. People rush to grab their luggage, and the throng around me thins. I wait.
After I watch the carousel circle several more times, I have to admit the obvious. My luggage isn’t here.
There’s a customer support desk nearby, manned by a middle-aged woman with white skunk stripes in her otherwise dark hair. When I get closer, I see that she’s watching a steamy clip fromBridgerton. Actually, she’s watching it on loop. Not that I can blame her. Everyone inBridgertonis so pretty it should be illegal.
I clear my throat several times before she looks up.
“I’m looking for my suitcase,” I say. “It’s red.”
It was a present from my dad.For when you visit me in China,he had said, like the total liar that he is. I never had the chance to use it until now. And now it’s gone. Vanished into nothing, like cotton candy dissolving into a river.
It’s not that I’m emotionally attached to the suitcase. Honestly? It’s a reminder of my dad’s broken promises. But I need my clothes. My toiletries. My graphing calculator, just in case I have to compute parametric equations or something. It’s a hackathon. Who knows what kind of emergency math I’ll need to do.
“Did you just come in from Portland?” she asks. “Your suitcase might be delayed. Your flight was full, so some of the luggage was moved to a later one.”
“But what about my things?” I can’t hide the frustration in my voice. Suddenly I imagine myself exactly as she might see me—a skinny, five-foot-two unaccompanied minor wearing a Pikachu sweater, whining about her lost stuff. Like a brat, and not in the lime-green Charli XCX way.
“I wouldn’t worry too much. This happens all the time on every airline.” That doesn’t make me feel better. Mostly it makes me lose faith in the commercial aviation industry. “We’ll let you know if it turns up. In the meantime, fill out this insurance form and itemize everything that was in your luggage.”
I bite back a groan.
It’s nearly six thirty by the time I finish with customer service, and the next shuttle to MIT isn’t until eight p.m. But I don’t want to miss dinner. One of my goals in life is to maximizeopportunities for free food. So I hop onto the silver line.
When I step out of the subway station at Kendall Square, everybody’s in a hurry. Cars lunge. Joggers and their eager dogs whiz by. A cyclist nearly runs me over and doesn’t bother to say sorry.
It makes me giddy. This city is alive with kinetic energy. There’s something about it that makes me feel like I have lightning in my veins. Like I’m finally someplace bigger than myself.
Anyway, I’m happy for about two minutes until some jerk splashes his iced coffee all over the front of my sweater.
It takes me a second to process what just happened. A cold shock on my torso, and a shriek that my brain sluggishly registers as my own.
There’s an Asian boy about my age clutching a plastic cup half-filled with iced coffee. He’s apologizing very fast and dabbing at my general boob area with a napkin. Maybe this is his usual perv move that he pulls as an excuse to grope girls. Maybe I should tell him to stop touching me, but I’m too annoyed to care.
“Why did you do that?” The words surprise me with how pointy they sound. “That was my one top with long sleeves.” My other hoodies and sweaters are in my suitcase, which is currently floating somewhere over Cleveland.
There’s a pinch behind my eyes, and suddenly this sadness floods through me, like something has finally broken. It’s not really about the sweater. It’s about this entire day.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m Khoi, by the way.” Suddenly his hand is at my cheek, wiping away my tears, and somehow this scrap of kindness from a stranger only makes me cry harder. It’s mortifying. Like, I’m not even the weepy type. I barely teared up when Bambi’s mom died, so Lola thinks I might secretly be a robot.
“Myoclonic seizure.” His ears redden as he says it.
“Sorry?” I sniffle.
“You asked why I did that. I have epilepsy. Sometimes I get these spasms. They’re called myoclonic seizures. That’s why I spilled my coffee on you.” He says this all in one rush, like it’s a confession.
Now I feel bad for being rude. “It’s okay.”
“I’ll buy you another sweater.”
That’s too much. I shake my head no.
There’s something so casual in how he throws out the offer—I’ll buy you another sweater—that makes me think he’s not concerned about money. For the first time, I actually look at him, trying to figure out how wealthy he is.
