Page 81 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
Thank you, forever and always, to my readers, for being so kind and generous and wonderful. Getting to share these stories and characters with you is truly one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
Endless thanks to my friends both in and outside the publishing industry, for your warmth and wisdom, and for making everything better.
Thank you, of course, to my sister, Alyssa. Thank you for always being my earliest reader and biggest cheerleader, and for not getting too annoyed when I ask for your opinion on very small, specific things, or when I ask you questions like “What should I write about for your part in the acknowledgments?” I’m extremely grateful for your company and reassurance and humor—so grateful that I almost don’t even mind you being the taller sibling.
To my parents: Thank you for supporting me in more ways than I can count. Thank you for encouraging me to read and write when I was a child, and for not freaking out when I decided I wanted to read and write for a living.
Photo by Alyssa Liang
Ann Liang is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and author of the critically acclaimed YA novelsThis Time It’s RealandIf You Could See the Sun. Born in Beijing, she grew up traveling back and forth between China and Australia, but somehow ended up with an American accent. When she isn’t writing, she can be found making overambitious to-do lists, binge-watching dramas, and having profound conversations with her pet labradoodle about who’s a good dog. You can find her online at annliang.com.
If You Could See the Sun
This Time It’s Real
Want more from Ann Liang? Turn the page for a peek atThis Time It’s Real!
I’m about to change into my school uniform when I notice the man floating outside my bedroom window.
No,floatingisn’t the right word,I realize as I step closer, my plaid skirt still crumpled in one hand, my pulse racing in my ears. He’sdangling.His whole body is suspended by two metal wires that look dangerously thin, considering how we’re on the twenty-eighth floor and the summer wind’s been blowing extra hard since noon, kicking up dust and leaves like a mini tornado.
I shake my head, bewildered as to why anyone would put themselves in such a position. What is this—some kind of new extreme sport? A gang initiation?
A midlife crisis?
The man catches me staring and gives me a cheerful little wave, as if he isn’t one faulty wire or loose knot or particularly aggressive bird away from plummeting down the side of the building. Then, still ever-so-casual, he pulls out a wet cloth from his pocket and starts scrubbing the glass between us, leaving trails of white foam everywhere.
Right. Of course.
My cheeks heat. I’ve been away from China for so long that I completely forgot this is how apartment windows are cleaned—the same way I forgot how the subway lines work, or how you’re not supposed to flush toilet paper, or how you can only bargain at certain types of stores without coming across as broke or stingy. Then there are all the things that have changed in the twelve years that my family and I were overseas, the things I never had the chance to learn in the first place. Like how people here apparently justdon’t use cash anymore.
I’m not kidding. When I tried to hand a waitress an old one hundred yuan note the other week, she’d gaped at me as though I’d time-traveled straight from the seventeenth century.
“Uh, hello? Eliza? Are you still there?”
I almost trip over my bed corner in my haste to get to my laptop, which has been propped up on two cardboard boxes labeledELIZA’S NOT VERY IMPORTANT STUFF—boxes I haven’t gotten around to unpacking yet, unlike myVERY IMPORTANT STUFFbox. Ma thinks I could afford to be a bit more specific with my labels, but you can’t say I don’t have my own system.
“Eli-za?” Zoe’s voice—achingly familiar even through the screen—grows louder.
“I’m here, I’m here,” I call back.
“Oh, good, because literally all I can see is a bare wall. Speaking of which … girl, are youevergoing to decorate your room? You’ve been there for, like, three months and it looks like a hotel. I mean, anicehotel, sure, but—”
“It’s a deliberate artistic choice, okay? You know, minimalism and all that.”
She snorts. I’m a good bullshitter, but Zoe happens to have a great bullshit detector. “Is it,though? Is it really?”
“Maybe,” I lie, turning the laptop toward me. One side of the screen has been taken up by a personal essay for my English class and about a billion tabs on “how to write a kiss scene” for research purposes; on the other side is my best friend’s beautiful, grinning face.
Zoe Sato-Meyer’s sitting in her kitchen, her favorite tweed jacket draped around her narrow frame, her dark waves smoothed back into a high ponytail and haloed by the overhead lights like a very stylish seventeen-year-old angel. The pitch-black windows behind her—and the bowl of steaming instant noodles on the counter (her idea of a bedtime snack)—are the only clue it’s some ungodly hour of the night in LA right now.
“Oh my god.” Her eyes cut to my worn polka-dot sweatshirt as I adjust my laptop camera. “I can’t believe you still have that shirt. Didn’t you wear it in eighth grade or something?”
“What? It’s comfortable,” I say, which is technically true. But I guess it’s also true that this ugly, fraying shirt is one of the only things that’s remained consistent throughout six different countries and twelve different schools.
“Okay, okay.” Zoe holds up both hands in mock surrender. “You do you. But, like, still, shouldn’t you be changing? Unless you plan to wear that to your parent-teacher conferences …”
My attention snaps back to the skirt in my grip, to the foreign-lookingWESTBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BEIJINGlogo embroidered over the stiff, plasticky fabric. A knot forms in my stomach. “Yeah, no,” I mutter. “I should definitely be changing.”
