If You Could See the Sun (67)

“Oh,” I breathe.

Oh. Wow.

I sit down on the carpet, dizzy with comprehension.

After a few minutes of pure, unadulterated silence, I realize Henry’s watching me, sharp-eyed and tight jawed, waiting for my response. This might be the most nervous I’ve ever seen him.

“Good,” I manage at last. “It’s good. For me as well.”

I don’t expect him to get anything out of my ridiculous jumble of words, but he does.

He moves so our knees are close to touching, and I ask without thinking, “Is this the part where you kiss me?”

He leans closer, and even in the dim hotel lights, I can make out the silent laughter in his eyes. “That was not my intention.” A pause, teasing. “Why? Did you want me to?”

“What? N-no, of course not,” I stammer, twisting away at once. Then, because I’m physically incapable of keeping my mouth shut, I babble on, “It’s just—you know, in the movies...when it gets to this kind of scene, with this kind of lighting—”

There’s a sharp rap on the door.

We both freeze.

It almost gives me whiplash, how quickly the mood changes, like having your emotional, family-friendly farm animal movie interrupted by a cheery ad from McDonald’s.

Another knock. Even louder than the first.

The irrational, already terrified part of my brain is convinced the police have found us somehow, that they’re waiting to arrest us right this second, that it’s over, my life is ruined—

But then I hear a girl’s giggle. Someone else whispers something I can’t quite catch, and the giggle turns into a muffled shriek of laughter.

Henry and I exchange a quick, silent look, and from the grim set of his jaw, I know we’ve arrived at the same conclusion. The room’s lights are on; there’s no point pretending he isn’t inside.

“Who is it?” Henry calls.

“Guess!” a voice that’s obviously Rainie’s replies.

Henry moves toward the door in slow, careful strides, hands held up, the way you’re meant to approach an animal in the wild. “Er... Rainie? What are you doing here?”

“To see you, of course,” she says, the same time another person shouts:

“We heard you got the best suite, dude! Let us in—we want to check it out!”

At this rate, they’re going to wake up the entire hotel.

And to make everything so much worse, at least two others—god, how many people are there outside the door right now?—start chanting: “Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!”

Henry glances at me in a there’s-nothing-we-can-do kind of way, and despite the stone in my stomach, I nod.

“Okay—just be quiet you lot,” Henry says as he pulls the door open. Immediately, Rainie Lam, Bobby Yu, Vanessa Liu, and Mina Huang stumble into the room in a giggling heap, bringing with them the strong, unmistakeable scent of alcohol.

“Wonderful,” Henry mutters under his breath.

But even in their intoxicated state, our four unwelcome guests stop and stare when they realize I’m here as well. Vanessa almost drops the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s in her hands. Bobby’s mouth opens so wide I’m tempted to ask if his jaw hurts.

Rainie actually gasps. “Alice?”

“Hi,” I say.



* * *



After the four of them have recovered from their initial shock and voiced their suspicions that Henry and I are secretly dating, they make themselves at home, lounging on the plum-colored sofa and the king-sized bed. They show zero sign of planning to go back to their rooms anytime tonight.

I want to vomit.

I want to scream and shove them all back out the door.

But instead I just smile and smile as Vanessa fumbles through the mini fridge for a packet of Pringles chips and Rainie pulls out a speaker and starts playing one of her mother’s hit singles, swaying and belting out the lyrics as if we’re in a karaoke bar, and Bobby Yu starts doing pushups on the carpet.

The smile remains frozen on my face. Only my eyes move, checking my reflection in the window, tracking the time. The neon alarm beside Henry’s bed flashes: 11:59 PM.

I’m still not invisible yet.

At some point, Rainie gets tired of singing and turns the music down, and starts bitching about Julie Walsh instead. Everyone joins in enthusiastically, even Mina, who hardly ever talks, and Rainie does an impression of Julie that’s so accurate Vanessa falls back on the floor and cries real tears of laughter. Then the conversation turns to who they think might hook up by the end of this trip, then how much of an asshole Jake Nguyen is (“I can’t believe I used to like, like him,” Rainie laments, and Bobby complains that most girls have bad taste while Mina gives her a few sympathetic pats on the shoulder), then about what Drunk Henry would look like.

“It’s just funny to imagine,” Rainie says between giggles. She points to Henry, who’s been standing stiffly in the corner of the room beside me this whole time. “Because you’re so—so—what’s the word?”

“Aloof?” Vanessa suggests.

“Composed?” Mina offers.

“Hot?” Bobby says, and we all turn to stare at him. “What?” He scowls. “The dude is objectively good-looking. Don’t judge me for saying it aloud.”