He called her a name that made my skin go cold, but Shani just tossed her hair—now braidless, and ironed flat and smooth—and sniffed. Like what he’d said was mildly amusing but hardly worth the energy to acknowledge it.
The three of us climbed the next flight of stairs to Carly’s third-floor room. “It looks to me,” Carly said, “as if you two are over. And I have to say, I’m glad.”
I was still in shock. I couldn’t process what had just happened, much less talk about it, so I veered away from it altogether.
“What are you doing here?” I managed. Carly unlocked her room and took the hatbox from me, tossing it on the bed without looking at it.
“What do you think?”
I couldn’t think if I tried. I just shook my head, and the implacable queen softened into Carly Aragon, history buff and long-lost friend.
“I went to my dad’s while I waited for all of you to come to your senses. Ms. Curzon called me at noon to apologize and sent her personal driver to get me.”
“Can you do make-ups for what you missed today?”
She nodded. “They’re falling all over themselves to make sure my dad doesn’t call a lawyer. Like I would do that. But right now, I get pretty much anything I ask for.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Hm. I wonder if I can have
crème brulée
delivered to my room every day?”
I attempted a smile, but it wobbled into something close to tears again. This was crazy. I never cried. I had to get myself under control, even if my chest felt like it was about to explode.
“You guys, about what happened down there. How much did you hear?”
I found myself walking beside them, heading back downstairs again. I had no idea where they were going. I just needed to be with someone, so I stuck to them like Velcro.
“Enough.” Shani glanced at me. “We heard a big crash and went to see what was going on—you know how things echo in that entry hall—and there he was, pushing you around. Miserable son of a—”
“But, Carly, did you hear what he said about you?”
“Oh, the rumors? Yes, I heard.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know how you can ever forgive me.”
“I’m not sure, either, but we’ll have to work on it, okay?” Talk about bone-scraping honesty—how do you reply to that? Carly opened the door to Lissa’s and my room and I went in ahead of them.
Lissa looked up from her laptop and with one glance at my face, shoved it aside. “What happened?”
“Mr. Olympics was using Gillian to show off his manly strength,” Shani said with withering sarcasm. “You got bruises, girl?”
Something in her eyes told me I’d better check, or she’d be ripping clothes off me until she got an answer. I unbuttoned my uniform blouse and pulled it off. Carly gasped, and it wasn’t until I craned around to look at my back in the mirror that I saw why.
A big black bruise on my shoulder blade.
A row of them marching down my ribs.
And a couple of them on my chest, too, just below my collarbone, where his hard fingers had left their mark.
“You should call the cops.” Shani’s tone was as flat as her gaze. “Press assault charges.”
“I can’t do that!” I hung up my blouse and pulled on a T-shirt and my thick gray Columbia hoodie. After stripping off my plaid skirt and tights and climbing into my old reliable baggy jeans, I felt better. More myself. Less vulnerable.
“Why not?” Carly asked. “He’s shoving you around. Are you going to wait ’til he slugs you for real?”
“He’s not like that.” I couldn’t look at them, so I fiddled with the drawstrings on my hood. “He’s under a lot of pressure right now, you guys. I antagonized him when I should have been trying to help him.”
“He needs help, all right,” Shani said. “Can we say
anger management
?”
“Gillian, maybe this isn’t the best time to bring it up—” Lissa stopped.
“Oh, I think this is the perfect time,” Carly put in.
“Bring what up?” I looked from one to the other. “Did you get your Bio grade back or something?”
“For once, can you think about yourself instead of your grades or other people?” Lissa asked.
If they only knew. Thinking about myself was my whole problem. “Then what?”
“What’s happened to you that you let Lucas walk all over you, do sick stuff to you, and push you around like this?”
“It’s not like that.”
“He’s got you so brainwashed you don’t know reality when it—”
“—throws you into a soda machine.” Shani finished Lissa’s thought grimly.
“Listen to us,” Carly begged. “We’re your friends. We care about each other.”
“Fine. Yes.” I sank onto my bed and pulled the quilt up around me like a shawl. “But I think you’re overreacting.” I glanced at Carly. “I’d rather talk about what we’re going to do about you and your situation.”
“I don’t have a situation. Not now,” Carly said. “But you do.”
“Here’s how we see it,” Lissa said. “One.” Oh, great. Another one of Lissa’s lists. “You go to that technology show or whatever it was, which makes you ditch your family. Much offense ensues.”
“And when you’re there, he gets angora up his nose,” Carly added.
“That wasn’t his fault,” I protested.
“What
was
his fault was you showing up here in nothing but a tank top,” Lissa pointed out.
“He gave me his jacket . . .” My voice faded as I remembered that disaster of a date. “But he didn’t give it to me until we were in the car.”
“So, what, you walked how many blocks to the parking lot? In a tank top? In February? At night?” Shani ticked off her fingers one by one.
“Two,” Lissa said, “he stands you up. The flowers the next day were a nice touch, but still.”
“They were white,” I said.
“For purity. Or penitence,” Carly said.
“Or death.” They looked shocked, so I explained about what white flowers mean to someone from my background.
“Ew,” was Carly’s opinion. “Now, that
is
sick.”
“Three.” Lissa wasn’t finished. “He sends you home alone on the train when you’ve just been to Emergency, thanks to him.”
“He did it again tonight,” I said, instant replay getting a real workout in my memory. “He does this thing—” I demonstrated with my hands. “And both times, I stepped back to get out of the way and hurt myself instead.”
“Not hurt
yourself
, girl,” Shani corrected me. “Indirectly, maybe, but
he
hurt you.”
“And then the weirdest thing,” Carly said. “Number four. Angel Island.”
“What was weird about that?” My voice trembled, and I swallowed. “It was my first kiss. It was perfect. Don’t take that away from me.”
They exchanged a glance among themselves. Then Lissa said gently, “I’m glad you had that moment, Gillian. At least that part was good.”
“Lots of it was good.”
Was. When, in the last fifteen minutes, had I started thinking of Lucas in the past tense? And lots of it
had
been good. Stifling our laughter in the library over some stupid joke. Eating oatmeal together, happy that the first thing we’d seen that morning had been each other. Comparing grades. Thinking about the future. At least, I had been.
As of tonight, I had no idea what he’d been thinking.
“Of course it was,” Carly said in a soothing tone. “But why Angel Island? Why not the Presidio or John Muir Park or Point Reyes?”
“Um, so we could ride Segways?”
My attempt at flippancy fell flat.
“That was my idea,” Lissa told me. “Whose idea was Angel Island? And whose idea was it to go to that creepy detention station so we could all learn about Chinese people getting locked up in what was practically a concentration camp?”
I couldn’t say a thing.
But at the same time, there had been something haunting and poignant about that place . . . about those words carved into the wall. Something that had touched me. Something that I might want to go back and experience again because it made me feel thankful. Connected. Part of a bigger community than just the one I’d grown up with and taken for granted my whole life.
But Lucas hadn’t given me that. It had been that lonely poet who had filled long, cold hours carving those words to fight off his despair.
“Do you see?” Shani said gently. “He’s been messing with your head from the beginning.”
From where she sat on her bed, Lissa leaned closer. “I’ve seen you go from a girl who could own a room to this—this
accessory
who doesn’t have an opinion of her own. Who has to check with Lucas first every time she wants to do something.”
“I was just being considerate,” I said feebly. “He said I was selfish. Sucking up attention.”
“That’s a bunch of garbage,” Carly said with a snort.
“He just wants all the attention for himself,” Shani said. “He’s probably loving this whole Olympiad thing, with everybody in the Science Club treating him like he’s God and all the teachers patting him on the back and wishing him luck every time he walks by.”
“Too bad we can’t do anything about that,” Lissa said. “If he wins this thing and goes to the finals, it’ll just be so wrong.”
“Be fair.” I could hardly speak, my mind was such a jumble. Memories were rearranging themselves in a new order, like a deck of cards being shuffled in different ways, giving you a whole new hand. “He might be a jerk, but he’s still good at physics. His winning has nothing to do with me.”
“I’m glad to hear that, at least,” Shani said. “I was thinking we’d have to tie you down in here to stop you getting back together with him.”
I needed time to think. To figure out what I was going to do. But one thing was clear.
“We won’t be getting back together. I have to break up with him.”
The sooner the better. Like, before my bruises healed.
T
UESDAY AT MIDMORNING
break, I was called into the administration office, where a huge bouquet of flowers sat on the counter.
“These are for you, Miss Chang,” the receptionist said with a delighted smile. “They’re just beautiful. Is it a special occasion?”
Not that I knew of. I breathed deeply. Ginger flower. Bird of paradise. Lilies. Maybe Dad’s assistant had actually gotten a date mixed up in her immaculate planner.
I opened the card.
Dear Gillian,
I was a jerk. I hope the flowers make up for it a little. Can we have dinner Friday night to celebrate finals being over?
Lucas
As I read each word, my thumb pressed harder into the heavy ivory stock, until with a wet-sounding
crack
, it bent in half. Was he insane? Did he seriously think he could toss me against a soda machine and then ask me out? Did he think I was so desperate for his attention that I’d overlook all these bruises and go on as if life were normal?
I looked up at the receptionist. “Would you like to have these?”
She blinked. “Anyone would. But—”
“Please. Take them and put them on your desk. You’ll enjoy them much more than I will.”
“But—”
Before she could actually refuse, I ducked out the door and speed-walked down the corridor, so that I’d be out of sight by the time she rounded the counter. I made it to my next class with seconds to spare. U.S. History. With an exam I was in no shape to take. I muddled through it somehow, and then at last it was lunchtime.
I waved a yogurt and fruit salad to go at Lissa and Jeremy, who were already at our usual table, and slipped out the door. I hoped Lissa would understand—I really needed to be alone to think this through. Closing the door of our room on the noise in the corridor, I breathed a long sigh of relief and cracked the yogurt open.
I’d been putting off the breakup speech because—let’s face it—I have pretty much zero experience with dating a guy, never mind breaking up with him. How come we aren’t all issued a manual when we turn thirteen that tells us how to do this stuff? I mean, you can’t just send him a text message that says “Game over,” can you? It’d be tacky to call his voice-mail inbox and give the speech to it—but I only knew that from watching movies.
What I did know was that Lucas still thought we were a couple. My friends thought he was a loser and a bully, with a sprinkling of sociopath. The less my parents knew, the better, so I couldn’t ask them for help—though I was beginning to think my dad was right about sticking to academics while I was in school. If that History final was any indication, guys could really mess with your mind.
Should I arrange a meeting tonight and just get it over with? Or should I go out with Lucas Friday night and do the deed at the restaurant, where he’d be in a public place, forced to be normal and unlikely to hurt me?
There’s your answer right there, girl. How can you put
Lucas
and
hurt me
in the same sentence and want to do anything but unload him as fast as possible?
But what should I say? What would he do? Good grief, this was awful. Too hard. I needed help, right now.
I opened the drawer of my night table and pulled my Bible out of it.
Lord, You’re the only one I can turn to. I need strength and wisdom, all in one indestructible package. I need a safe place and the right words. In fact, if the angel Gabriel is just sitting around up there polishing his sword, I could use him for backup, too.
Eyes closed, I ran a finger down the gilt edges of the pages and opened the Bible at random. Then I blinked and focused. Proverbs 2.
“If you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding . . . then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. . . . Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse.”
What had Lissa said? That I’d turned into some kind of silent accessory? I’d lost my voice—my ability to call out for anything—because Lucas didn’t like it. Didn’t like people listening to me instead of him. I mean, give me a break, here. Asian girls are brought up to be seen and not heard, you know? If Nai-Nai had her way, I’d say nothing but yes and no and please pass the white pepper.
I’d always been wired differently, always used my voice to praise God and tell people about how cool He is. When was the last time I’d done that? When had I stopped talking about the thing that was most important to me—my faith?