Page 68 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
“You hit me with your paddle—”
“The paddle went right over your head—”
“Only because I ducked,” he argues.
I roll my eyes, but I mirror his motion from earlier and offer him my hand. He shifts into sitting position, then drops my hand quickly, like it burns him. Stares out instead at where my canoe is still overturned, bobbing over the lake surface like a dead body, my paddle floating farther and farther away from us. The water laps against the side of the boat, casting intricate silver patterns over the cedar.
“This wouldn’t have happened if we were on the same team,” I say. I mean for it to sound like an angry jibe, an accusation, but my voice decides to be a traitor and wavers violently.
His gaze swivels to me. He studies my face for a long time. Too long. “You’ve never wanted to be on my team before.”
I wring the water from my hair, twist it a few more times than necessary, just for something to preoccupy my body with. “I would have liked the option.”
Silence swells between us like a solid thing. The shouts from the shore have died down too. I can hear only the rippling lake, the drops of water splashing onto the wood, the birds chirping from far away. My own volatile breathing.
“Why are you doing that?” The sudden sharpness to his tone startles me.
“I’m not,” I say, confused. “I’m not doing anything—”
“You’re acting nice all of a sudden,” he continues forcefully. “Smiling at me on the bus. Acting like you would rather be onmyside for this ridiculous race than your own best friend’s. Defending me last night—” He shakes his head. Stares down at his own hands.
My heart is beating painfully fast, my breath snagging in my throat. He’s found out. He must have detected it. He knows I like him and he’s appalled, furious, disgusted—
“You don’t have to pity me,” he says in a low voice, and my brain goes blank. “This is why I didn’t want you to meet my brother, and you shouldn’t have been listening to our conversation to begin with. You shouldn’t take any of the stuff he says seriously, especially the stuff about you. I really—” His fingers form closed fists. “There’s nothing—nothingI resent more than when people feel sorry for me. Because I don’t need it. I’m fine. I’m perfect.”
“Oh my god,” I say. In my shock, I forget that I’ve just been in the lake, and rub my eyes with my wet palms. Now I’ll probably walk away from this cursed conversation with both a headache and an eye infection. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” he tells me without looking up. “I would much rather you go back to insulting me than tiptoeing around me—”
“You want me to insult you?” I actually laugh. I laugh so loud the geese circling us overhead squawk with alarm and fly higher. “Oh, well, that’s easy. You’re so self-absorbed,Julius Gong. You really think you know everything— You act like you’ve got me all figured out—”
“Don’t I?” he says, and he sounds perfectly confident in himself, his skewed judgment. “You’re so fixated on being nice, aren’t you? The obedient girl who needs everyone to love her.” Mockery drips from his every word like acid rain. “The perfect student who never says no to anything, who goes out of her way to cater to everyone’s needs, who would dance on flames just to keep everybody entertained. You just have to be seen as undeniablygood; you have to do the right thing all the time, or at least appear to. That’s your whole personality—I get it. All I’m asking is for you to spare me.”
It feels like I’ve fallen headfirst into the water again. I’m choking, suffocating, the cold flooding through my blood, freezing my bones until they’re so brittle they could break with one touch.
Neither of us is even attempting to steer the canoe. It’s drifting on its own over the lake, directionless, the water and sky stretching out wide around us. I’ve never felt so small.
“Take it back,” I tell him quietly, amazed by my self-control. What I really want is to shove him out of the boat, to throttle him with my bare hands. “I’m going to give you one chance to take everything you said back.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything.
“God, Julius—” I cut myself off, bitterness creeping over my tongue. There’s something so presumptuous, so condescending about it, that he would twist my sincerity into some sort ofcharity. That while I’ve been trying to see the best in him, he’s been assuming the worst of me. “You know what? I hate you,” I breathe, because it’s easier to sayI hate youthanyou hurt me. Because both options might shatter my heart, but at least one of them leaves my pride intact. And maybe because I simply crave the sharp, perverse pleasure of hurting him back.
His gaze snaps up to me. Something flashes across his face, and he leans in abruptly, his eyes fierce and dangerous and on fire. I can feel the heat of his breath against my lips when he says, “I hate you more.”
“That’s impossible.”
His smile is a sneer. “I promise it isn’t.”
I’m shaking, I realize dimly. My teeth clenched with the effort of restraint, of holding back from him, of refusing to shrink away. His eyes could cut me open as they drift down lower, linger on my parted mouth. They darken, turn wholly black, until I can’t tell the pupils from the irises.
For a shameful second, I think he’s going to grab my face and kiss me, the kind of kiss you feel down to your toes, all heat and hunger and wild intentions. And for a split second, I need him to, I’mdyingto, if only for a chance to sink my nails into his skin, to find a spot of vulnerability somewhere in his body.
But he stays still. The light reflected off the lake bleaches his skin and sharpens the cruel lines of his face, and right now, in this very moment, I can’t believe I ever imagined him capable of softness. Julius is who he’s always been, who he will always be: selfish, ruthless, conceited. To expect anything else of him is like expecting flowers to bloom from a blade. Like walking into a snake’s embrace.
“You’re the worst,” I tell him, my lips bare inches from his, neither of us retreating. It’s torture, blistering agony. It feels like I’m being burned alive. “You make me sick. You make me so violentlyangrysometimes, I could—” I want to continue, but the burning sensation spreads to my eyes, my nose.I won’t cry. I won’t be weak in front of him.My fingers curl hard into the collar of his shirt, to make the sentiment clear where words fail me, and I see him swallow, the rising bump in his throat.Go on, I urge myself.You have the upper hand now.But all I can get out is, “You’re so mean to me.”
It’s laughable. Pathetic. It’s an exchange between children on the playground. It’s not what I meant to say, not at all, but something about it unravels me. My anger abandons me, my last remaining weapon against him dropped, and I press my lips together to stop them from trembling. Blink rapidly to stop the tears from falling.
