If You Could See the Sun (26)

My heart wavers.

“Hey,” I blurt out, taking a step closer even as I curse my own mouth. “Um... Are you all right?”

Chanel glances up at me from her cocoon of blankets. I half expect her to brush the question off, or maybe simply stay silent until I get the message and go away, but she replies quickly, with surprising violence, “Aside from the fact that my dad’s a total asshole? I’m great.”

I try to hide my shock. I can’t imagine ever calling Baba something like that, not with all his lectures on filial piety and respecting my elders no matter what entrenched in my very bones.

“Sorry,” Chanel says, maybe sensing my discomfort. She tugs the blankets higher over her face, so her words are muffled when she explains, “It’s just been a shitty day.”

I hesitate, then go to sit down on the floor beside her and ask, as if I were auditioning for Side Character Two in a high school drama, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She snorts, though it sounds a bit like a sob. “Aren’t we already talking about it?”

“Right,” I say, feeling dumb. Part of me is already regretting this conversation, but another part—the part that once hoped Chanel and I might become best friends—doesn’t want to just leave it like this either. “I guess we are.”

“I just. I don’t get it.” She sighs, blowing a stray, slightly wet strand of hair from her eyes. Picks up her phone, scrolls through another photo, then slams it down again with such force I almost jump. “I. Don’t. Get. It.”

I decide to stay silent.

“It just doesn’t make sense. My mum never did—I mean, this whole time, she’s been busy preparing for his birthday. Can you believe that? She’s booked his favorite restaurant, and his favorite band, and she even had a qipao tailored just for the occasion, and he’s...” She tightens her grip on her phone, knuckles white. “What was he thinking? Why?” Then she turns to me, like she’s actually hoping I might have an answer.

“It’s not really about your mum though, right?” I say slowly. “I mean, if even Beyoncé was cheated on—”

Her eyes narrow. “Wait. How do you know that?”

“Know what?” I say, half wondering, in my sleep-deprived state, if she’s talking about Beyoncé.

“I didn’t say anything about my dad cheating just now. How do you know?”

Shit.

Panic seizes my throat. I choke out a vague uming sound, my mind scrambling for some plausible explanation.

“Did Grace tell you?” she presses. “Because I specifically asked her not to say anything until I had evidence. Ma ya,” she mutters, switching to Chinese. “That girl just can’t keep her mouth shut—”

“No, no, it’s not that. Really,” I add when she casts me a look of disbelief. I realize that if there were an official report card for criminals, I’d be sitting on a low B or C right now; any straight-A criminal would go with the ready-made excuse, pin all the blame on Grace and simply move on with their lives. But seeing as Chanel’s father has been deceiving her and her mother this whole time, it seems cruel to feed her another lie, no matter how small.

Besides, it might make things easier to have my roommate in on the plan, to turn invisible in the mornings without raising any alarm that I’ve disappeared.

“So what?” Chanel says, watching me closely. “Who told you?”

“No one.”

She frowns. “Then how...”

“Look, it’s probably easier if I show you.” I take out my phone and open up the app to my recent conversation with user C207—our recent conversation. Chanel’s eyes lock on the photos of her father at the restaurant, then snap to the identical photos on her own phone. Her mouth falls open.

“You’re the person behind Beijing Ghost?” she demands. She inspects the photos again, holding the phone so close her small nose is almost touching the screen. Then she stares back at me. “Seriously? You?”

“You don’t have to sound so skeptical,” I say, not sure whether I should be offended by her reaction.

“Sorry. You just didn’t strike me as the type to...you know.”

I really don’t, but there’s no point in asking her to specify. So instead I ask, “Who did you think it was, then?”

“I’m not sure.” She shrugs, the blankets sliding a few inches off her shoulders. “Henry, maybe? He’s good with the tech stuff, and he’s got his dad’s entrepreneurial genes.”

My jaw tightens. Henry, again. Even when he’s not here, he’s everywhere.

“Anyway,” Chanel says, with a little shake of her head. “That’s not the point. How did you do it? I thought—I don’t know, maybe the app came with some kind of secret spy camera system—but the photo quality is perfect. And the angle.” She jabs a manicured finger at the photo, clearly taken at eye level with her father and his girlfriend. “It’s almost as if you were right there in the room with them...”

“Well, um.” A nervous laugh escapes my throat. But better to get this over and done with, I suppose. “The thing is... I was. In the room with them.”

Chanel laughs, too, but it’s a sound of incredulity. “As if.”