Page 87 of You Had Me at Hello World
Everything aches. Even breathing hurts. I don’t want to move. All I want to do is curl up on the grass until I fossilize. Maybe MIT scientists could study me.Here, we have the world’s first specimen ofhomo heartbreakus…
But I don’t have time to mope. I have to track down Edvin Nilsen and agree to join his program.
I walk back to Kresge, where the Alpha Fellows and their families are fanned out on the lawn. Stella pops a small wave at me, which I return. Jenni-with-an-i is posing with the cartoonishly giant check while her parents snap photos. Haru is lingering nearby with this embarrassingly lovesick expression. The twins are playing some game that involves kicking the crap out of each other’s shins. Everyone seems drunk on sunshine.
Edvin is chatting with Obi and a Black woman who might be Obi’s mother, but when he sees me, he excuses himself. “Char! Have you given the offer more thought?”
My heart speeds up. This is it. If I agree, there’s no going back.
Goodbye, Khoi.
“Yes, I’ll join,” I say. “Thank you for giving me a chance.” He’s truly saving my life. “Quick question. Um, I don’t have Boston housing after tomorrow. Do you know if Nexus could help with that?”
He blinks, confused. “You don’t want to return to Oregon first? We weren’t planning to onboard you for another few weeks. We need to finalize the entire cohort, and then you’d all start in September.”
I’m not about to explain my family drama. “Maybe you could give me an advance payment on the stipend, and I can use it until the program starts?”
“Char. Don’t sweat it. If you need a place to stay tomorrow, we can put you up in a hotel for several days.”
There. Problem fixed in two seconds. I nod like this is no biggie, like his help isn’t the only thing standing between us and the five-star hotel known as a park bench.
Having money must be like playing life on easy mode.
Edvin wants to meet in the Marriott tomorrow to do paperwork before the press conference. Since I’m not yet eighteen, my mother will have to sign too. We discuss a few more details, and then he excuses himself to shake more hands.
I scan the lawn. Everyone is with their parents, their families. Shouldn’t the Astors be here? Surely Khoi’s aunt and uncle would pull up. They live so close. But Khoi is nowhere. He’s simply gone.
When I get to the dorm, Mom is back. She says that she spent the day walking into restaurants and asking for a job. She’s starting as a dishwasher at P.F. Chang’s on Monday.
“At the library, I made a Facebook account and reached out to friends from grad school, but none of them have responded yet. I can’t blame them. It’s been years since we’ve spoken. I’m sorry that I can’t do better,baobei.”
She doesn’t need to stress about our short-term logistics. “It’s okay. I figured it out.” I tell her about Edvin Nilsen and the Nexus incubator program.
“What about Khoi?” she asks. “Is he doing the program too?”
I shrug. “Nah. We broke up.”
“Are you okay?” She tries to hug me, but I duck away.
“It’s whatever. It was just a summer fling, and now the summer’s over.” I don’t want to get into this with Mom, so I change the topic. “But hey, don’t worry about housing. Edvin said he’s going to put us up in a hotel.”
I’m expecting her to be happy, but her eyes glitter with tears. “I feel like a failure. What sort of example did I set for my daughter? I’m forty years old. I don’t have a job to support you. I don’t even have a home for you to go back to.”
If I weren’t so wrecked, I would probably comfort her. Shrug, say it’s fine, I’ve got everything under control. But I’m already barely keeping it together. So all I do is nod.
Besides, maybe she’s right. She should’ve done better. I don’twant to be too mean about it, but like, she hasn’t been much of a mom recently.
Anyway, I should know not to rely on anybody else. I was straight-up delusional letting myself trust Khoi like that.
I spend most of the night staring at the ceiling, going through our last conversation like it’s an infinite loop. Why doesn’t he get why I had to go with Edvin? Is he really so stuck in his bubble of privilege that he can’t see how this deal might be life-changing for me? And why did he have to pickthatmoment to say he loved me? God.
And it was so freaking unfair how he expected me to say it back! Like, sorry, bro, I have bigger problems here. It’s like he thinks this is a fluffy romantic K-drama and I’m out here trying to surviveSquid Game.
I can’t even muster the energy for anger anymore. There’s only this emptiness, like somebody has excavated my insides with a fork.
I never fall asleep. Morning arrives silently, buttery sunshine spilling through the crack between the windowsill and the pull-down blind.
My meeting with Edvin is at nine in the conference of the Kendall Square Marriott. The hotel is wedged between a bunch of biotech startups and AI research labs. Mom and I post up in the lobby. She gives me a wide berth so I can look more independent, more adult.
