If You Could See the Sun (46)

We flew back to Beijing a few weeks after that, our first and last shot at the American Dream over, the chapter unceremoniously closed. But I never stopped thinking about the sacrifices my parents made, the pleading look on Mama’s face when she said it, almost like a child—I want to go home—and how the only reason they left home in the first place was because of me.

Even now.

I relive every moment of those final bitter months until my brain threatens to melt in my skull and my eyelids begin to weigh a thousand tons.

And right before I drift off to sleep on my desk, what I think is this:

My parents didn’t work this hard for me to only get this far.





10


“You’re stress pacing again,” Chanel observes from her dressing table.

I’m not just stress pacing—I’m the textbook definition of anxiety right now. My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my throat, and my mouth tastes like ash. Ever since I messaged Evie Wu on Beijing Ghost this morning, telling her I’d be willing to help her cheat, my nervous system has been on the verge of breaking down. And I hate it, truly. I hate everything about this.

But I need to honor my choices.

“You also look like you’re going to throw up,” Chanel adds helpfully.

“I won’t,” I tell her, just as my stomach lurches. I fight back the rising swell of nausea. “I mean—oh god, I hope not.”

“Hey,” she says. She tears open a new face mask packet, dabbing the excess foam on the pale insides of her wrists. “Not to be super gross, but like, if you were to throw up...do you think your vomit would be invisible as well? Because technically it’d be outside your body, but if it was also produced by—”

“Chanel?” I interrupt.

“Hmm?”

“Please stop talking.”

She manages to stay quiet for a full minute, pressing the mask onto her skin, before she says, “Will you at least tell me what kind of task you’re doing today that’s so—”

“Nope,” I say, and she responds with an exaggerated pout. “And careful, your mask is going to wrinkle.”

She stops pouting at once, settling instead for a stiff poker face as she hurries to smooth out the edges of her mask again. If I wasn’t trying so hard to keep my lunch down, I might’ve laughed.

“Anyway,” I say, completing another lap around our tiny dorm room. My feet refuse to stay still. “I’m not withholding information this time because I don’t trust you. But the less people know, the less likely things will go horribly wrong—and the less liable you’ll be.”

“But Henry knows.”

I grimace. “Yeah, well. That’s because I need him for something. Speaking of which...” I glance up at the clock, and my heart seizes. 5:50 p.m. It’s time.

Oh my god. This is really happening.

When I speak again, my voice comes out as a squeak. “I—I should go find him now. Get this over with.”

I leave everything except my phone in the dorm and rush outside, barely catching Chanel’s quick “good luck!” as the door swings shut behind me.

Henry and I agreed to meet by the main entrance of the humanities building at 6:00 p.m. At exactly 5:59 p.m., we both arrive at the same time, and I have to give it to him—Henry might be unbearably pretentious, but at least he’s punctual.

He also happens to look especially put together today; his dark blazer freshly ironed, his tie straight, not a single hair out of place. I almost laugh. He looks like he’s about to deliver a speech to the school, rather than help me pull off a crime.

“Alice,” he says when he sees me, ever so polite.

“Henry.” I return his greeting with a mock salute, mimicking his formal tone.

Faint irritation flits over his face. Good. If Henry is in the mood to bicker with me, then at least I’ll have something to keep me distracted from my nerves—

“Are you nervous?” he asks.

Or not.

“Why would you think I’m nervous?” I snap, reaching over his shoulder to yank open the door.

“Well, you appear to be shaking.”

I follow his gaze, and hastily hide my trembling hands in my pockets, pushing past him into the building. “It’s cold,” I mutter.

“It’s twenty-two degrees right now.”

My jaw clenches. “What are you, the weatherman?”

“Really? The weatherman?” His voice is light, amused. “Not your best insult, Alice.”

I try to stab him to death with my eyes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.

I keep walking.

The corridor is almost completely empty, as it should be. No student wants to stay behind after class, especially when our dorms are only a courtyard away, or when they can take a Didi to the Village or Solana. But for the teachers, it’s a different story. Most of them bike to school, and like to hang back in the classrooms until after dark, when the streets outside aren’t as crowded and the probability of being run over by a car is significantly lower. Mr. Murphy is one of them.

Sure enough, the lights in the history classroom are still on. Through the small window in the door, I can make out his figure hunched over the teacher’s desk, stacks of papers laid out before him. It looks like he’ll be busy marking them for a while.