If You Could See the Sun (43)

Maybe Evie Wu can sense my hesitation through the phone, because she hurries to explain, “I know it’s bad. Trust me, I don’t want to be doing this either. But... I don’t have any other choice. If I fail this exam again, my mother...” A shaky breath. “No. No, I have to pass. I must. And I can’t without the answers...” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I can’t do it on my own.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay, you’ll do it?”

The hope in her voice—the strain of guilt in it, too—kills me a little. Makes my resolve weaken. But still, I correct, “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

My neck is starting to ache from holding the phone in place for so long—or maybe it’s from stress. I shift position, press the phone to my other ear, just in time to hear her say, “...can pay you more. Double your usual rates, if that’s the issue.”

It’s not the issue, but I make a note of it anyway. “Look, I want to help you, I do. I just need to consider—well, everything. The logistics. The risk.” The fact that if I procure the answers, I’ll be cheating too. “How about I get back to you in a day or two?”

“Yeah.” She sounds disappointed. “Yeah, okay. Wait—before you go. Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” she adds quickly.

I pause, alert. “What is it?”

“So I heard about this app from a friend. A few people, actually. I’ve also read all the reviews. And a lot of them are curious—me, included... How do you manage to do it? All of these tasks without being seen? You’re not—” She breaks off for a second, laughs, the sound quiet and nervous. It makes me feel intimidating in a way I never imagined I could be before. “You’re not actually a ghost, are you?”

She says this like a joke, but there’s a trace of genuine fear in her voice. I wonder, briefly, what would scare her more: me being a ghost, or me being a human girl with the inexplicable power to turn invisible. I wonder what would sound more believable.

“Why not?” I say in the end. “Anything is possible.”



* * *



The rest of the school day passes in a blur.

I drift from class to class, bump into people in the halls, do the in-class history exercises robotically, hand them in early. And even though I haven’t made my mind up yet about the request, I linger once everyone’s gone.

Mr. Murphy starts at the sight of me. Blinks rapidly, like he’s scared I might start crying again. “Alice.” He folds his hands over his desk. “What’s up?”

“I was just wondering,” I begin, going over the lines I’ve rehearsed for the past hour in my head, “since I know I didn’t do that well for the last test—”

“I haven’t marked those papers yet.”

“Still,” I insist. “I have a pretty good idea of how I did, and—I’m not going to lie, I feel...horrible about it, which is why it’s more important than ever that I perform well in our midterms.” I make myself look right at him, and pray that my expression is earnest, rather than terrified. “And so I—I was wondering if you’ve already written the midterms...? And if you’ve got a revision guide ready, like you did last year? I mean, I obviously don’t want to rush you or anything but—”

“Oh no, don’t worry,” Mr. Murphy says with a light chuckle, evidently relieved I’m back in control of my emotions again. “I just finished writing your midterms yesterday—would’ve gotten it done earlier, honestly, if it weren’t for my kids.” He makes a you-know-the-struggle kind of face, and I nod just to speed things along, even though I obviously don’t. “The revision guide should be ready soon too. I’ll send the class an email once I’ve got it printed out for next class—how ’bout that?”

“That’d be perfect,” I say, offering him my best straight-A student smile.

He smiles back, not suspecting a thing. I’m still Alice Sun, after all. Even if I messed up on my last test, there’s no way I’d ever dare cheat. “You know what’s so great about you, Alice?” Mr. Murphy says as he stuffs today’s worksheets into an already overflowing, see-through folder. Even though Airington keeps making grand statements about being a completely “paper-free school,” he’s one of those teachers who’s always preferred physical copies. “You’re so driven. So determined. No matter what happens, you just have a plan and you do it—and you do it well too.”

Normally, this kind of praise would make me giddy with joy, but my chest only tightens.

“You’ll go far with that mindset of yours,” Mr. Murphy continues, gazing out into the empty classroom as if he can see some glorious vision of my future shining right there before us. “I’m certain of it.”

It’s too much. I feel so guilty that I barely manage to stutter out a thanks, just grab my books and go.



* * *



When I get back to the dorms, Chanel is in a bad mood.

I know this because she’s lying on our bedroom floor in her BTS pajamas and feasting on three giant bags of spicy strips at 11:00 p.m., breaking the intermittent fasting thing she’s been practicing religiously since the start of the school year.