If You Could See the Sun (28)

6


I wake to the loud buzzing of bees.

No, not bees, I realize as I force my eyes open. It’s my phone vibrating against my bedside table, the screen lighting up again and again in rapid succession as more notifications come flooding in. I fumble to pick it up, my stomach already knotting with anxiety.

The last time I received this many alerts at once was when I forgot to call Mama three days in a row during exam season, and she thought I’d been kidnapped or hospitalized or something. I’d felt so guilty afterward that I promised to message her at least once a day, just to let her know I was safe. And even with everything going on—even on a night like last night—I’ve honored that promise.

But if it’s not Mama frantically checking that I’m still alive...

My confusion lifts, then returns with double the intensity when I spot the little Beijing Ghost icon beside what must be over fifty new notifications. Did someone manage to hack the app?

Wide awake now, I untangle the cheap, thin sheets from my legs and jump down from bed, yanking my phone free from its charger. Then I scroll through the messages, and a silent laugh of disbelief rises to my lips.

I’d thought Chanel was only joking about the review last night, but it turns out she really went ahead with it. Not only that, but it must’ve been pretty convincing—convincing enough to cause a 770 percent spike in user activity overnight.

My pulse quickens as I read over the new requests. There’s an odd fluttering sensation in the pit of my stomach, caught somewhere between nerves and excitement and impatience, like that feeling I sometimes get right before heading into an exam.

I filter through the smaller requests, the ones that wouldn’t make me much money and probably aren’t worth my time, and a few troll messages asking about weird sex stuff. Then I come to the most recent work order, and pause.

The message is surprisingly detailed and long enough to be an essay, and even comes with its own nondisclosure agreement attached, but that’s not what makes an alarm bell go off in my head. It’s the request itself; the user wants me to remove a series of nudes from Jake Nguyen’s phone before he can send them out.

Everything I overheard from Rainie’s conversation—or supposed audition—in the bathroom comes rushing back to me. It all seems like too much of a coincidence. Besides, almost everyone knows Rainie and Jake have been on and off since last year, and their most recent split was ugly. Apparently Rainie burned 100,000 RMB worth of the gift bags Jake gave her in a fit of rage, and Jake responded by hitting every bar and club in Thailand over the summer break.

But the nudes—that’s definitely a new development. It wouldn’t be the biggest scandal to hit our school, of course, not since Stephanie Kong’s potential Olympics career was cut short by a leaked sex tape, but it’s no small matter either.

After some deliberation, I type in the private chat:

This counts as child pornography, you know that right? Why don’t you go to the school, or the police?

My suspicions are confirmed when the user replies, almost immediately:

it’s complicated. i can’t risk anyone finding out abt this...would do more harm than good, tbh.

but you’ll help me, right??

I haven’t had a chance to form a response yet when new messages pour in:

please?

this is rly urgent.

like he told me he’d send the pics to his friends when/if he felt like it

i tried to talk to him but he’s blocked me on all social media alr. even facebook.

i don’t know what else to do...

I can practically feel Rainie’s panic radiating through the other side of the screen, and with each new message I read, I can also feel my own anger simmering. Rising. First there was Chanel’s cheating father, and now this. If nothing else, these couple of days have served as a great reminder of why I’m glad to be single.

More messages pop up:

sorry, i didn’t mean to spam u...i get u must be busy & there’s probably lots of ppl messaging u rn...

i’d be happy to pay u early if that speeds things up

would 50,000 RMB be enough?

I’ll admit—it does feel wrong to capitalize on her desperation like this, to charge money for the kind of help I should be offering for free, even if 50,000 RMB might mean nothing to her and her family.

But I would also be lying if I said my heart didn’t skip a beat at the number.

50,000 RMB. That’s more than what Mama makes in a whole year.

I glance at the time on my phone. It’s still half past five in the morning, giving me enough time to sign the NDA, revise for my Chinese tingxie quiz, and—ideally—come up with a game plan before first period.

I shoot back:

Ok. I’ll try my best.

Then I yank my uniform over my head, grab my school bag, and slide out the door, keeping my steps as light as possible so as to not wake Chanel up. After everything she went through last night, it’s the least I can do.



* * *



Henry and I are the first people to enter the English classroom.

Well, technically, that’s a lie—our teacher, Mr. Chen, is already seated behind his desk. He’s busy shuffling around piles of marked papers when I walk in, a Styrofoam coffee cup dangling from his mouth, his oil-black, shoulder-length hair combed back in a low ponytail. Out of all the teachers at Airington, Mr. Chen is probably the most talked about, and by far the most respected; he’s written for the New York Times, had lunch with the Obamas, published a poetry collection on the Asian diaspora experience which was later nominated for a Nobel Prize, and got his law degree from Harvard before he’d even turned twenty, then gave up a six-figure job at a prestigious New York law firm on a whim to teach all around the globe.