Page 82 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
The window cleaner’s still here, so I yank the curtains closed—but not before I catch a glimpse of the sprawling apartment complex below. For a place called Bluelake, there’s very little that’s actuallyblueabout the neat rows of buildings or curated gardens, but there is plenty of green: in the man-made lake at the heart of the compound and its adjoining lotus ponds, the spacious mini golf course and tennis courts by the parking lot, the lush grass lining the pebbled paths and maidenhair trees. When we first moved in, the whole area had reminded me of a fancy resort, which seems fitting. After all, it’s not like we’ll be staying here longer than a year.
While I wriggle into my uniform, Zoe snaps her fingers and says, “Wait, you’re not getting out of this—tell me again why you’re writing about a nonexistent boyfriend for your essay?”
“Not writing.Written,” I correct, pulling my shirt over my head. “I’ve already turned it in. And it’s not like Iwantedto make up a story about my love life, but I didn’t know what else to write …” I pause to free a strand of my long, inky hair from one of the shirt buttons. “This thing is due tonight, and it counts as part of our coursework, so … you know. I had to get a little creative.”
Zoe snorts again, so loud this time her microphone crackles. “You realize personal essays shouldn’t be made up, right?”
“No,” I say, deadpan. “Personal essays should be personal? Totally news to me. Shocking. My life is a lie.”
The truth is, I chose to turn my serious nonfiction assignment into what’s essentially a four-thousand-word romancebecauseof how personal it’s meant to be. The topic itself is bad enough, inspired by this sappy book we studied in the first week of school:InWhen the Nightingales Sang Back,Lucy and Taylor are described to have their own “secret language” that no one else knows. Who do you share a secret language with? How did it develop? What does that person mean to you?
Even so, I might’ve held my nose and gone along with it, written an only lightly exaggerated piece about either one of my parents or my little sister or Zoe … except we have to post our finished essay on the Westbridge school blog. As in, a very public platform that anyone—any of my classmates who know me only as “the new kid” or “the one who recently moved from the States”—could see and comment on.
There’sno wayI’m sharing actual details about my closest personal relationships. Even thefakedetails are embarrassing enough: like how I’d traced the lines of this pretend boyfriend’s palm, whispered secrets to him in the dark, told him he meant the world to me, that he felt like home.
“… not even remotely concerned that people at your school might, I don’t know, read it and be curious about this boyfriend of yours?” Zoe’s saying.
“I’ve got it covered,” I reassure her as I tug the curtains back open. Light floods in at once, illuminating the tiny specks of dust floating before my now-empty window. “I didn’t include a name, so no one can try and stalk him. Plus, I wrote that I met this fictional dude three months ago while I was apartment hunting with my family, which is a pretty plausible meet-cute without revealing what school he might go to.And, since our relationship is still pretty new and everything’s kind of delicate, we like to keep things private. See?” I step in front of the camera and make a grand gesture toward the air, as if the entirety of my essay is written right there in glowing letters. “Foolproof.”
“Wow.” An intake of breath. “Wow. I mean, all this effort,” Zoe says, sounding exasperated and impressed at the same time, “just so you don’t have to write something real?”
“That’s the plan.”
There’s a brief silence, broken only by the slurp of noodles on Zoe’s end and the thud of footsteps outside my room. Then Zoe sighs and asks, in a tone far too concerned for my liking, “Are you doing okay at your new school, girl? Like, are you … settling in?”
“What?” I feel myself stiffen immediately, my muscles tensing as though anticipating a blow. “Why—why would you say that?”
“I don’t know.” Zoe jerks a shoulder, her ponytail bouncing with the motion. “Just … vibes.”
I’m saved from having to answer when Ma calls down the hall at a volume one would usually reserve for search-and-rescue missions. “Ai-Ai! The driver’s here!”
Ai-Ai is my Chinese nickname, which translates directly tolove. Fictional relationship aside, I can’t quite say I’ve lived up to it.
“I’m coming!” I yell back, then turn to the screen. “I assume you heard that?”
Zoe grins, and I relax slightly, relieved whatever heart-to-heart conversation she was trying to have is over. “Yeah, I think the whole planet heard it. Tell your mom I said hi,” she adds.
“Will do.” Before I shut my laptop, I make a cheesy heart sign with my fingers; something I wouldn’t be caught dead doing around anyone else. “I miss you.”
Zoe blows a dramatic kiss at me in response, and I laugh. “I miss you too.”
The hard knot in my stomach loosens a little at the familiar words. Ever since I left LA two years ago, we’ve ended every single call like this, no matter how busy and tired we are, or how short the conversation is, or how long it’ll be until we can talk again.
I miss you.
It’s not as good as the sleepovers we used to have at her place, where we’d sprawl on the couch in our pajamas, some Netflix show playing on her laptop, a plate of her mom’s homemade rice balls balanced between us. And it’s nowhere near as good as our weekend trips down by the beach, the California sun warming our skin, the breeze tugging at our salt-tangled hair. Of course it isn’t.
But for now, this small, simple ritual feels enough.
Because it’s ours.
•••
Our driver has parked his car just outside the apartment complex, under the dappled shade of a willow tree.
Technically, Li Shushu isn’t so much our driver asMa’s driver—one of the many perks of being an executive at a super-prestigious global consulting company, and part of the sorry-for-asking-you-to-uproot-your life-almost-every-year! package— which is why he rushes out to greet her first.
“Yu Nüshi,” he says, opening the door for her with a little bow.Madame Yu.
