If You Could See the Sun (81)

God. As if I needed another reason for this arrangement to be a bad idea.

“You should get out,” I tell him. “I mean, not as in I want to kick you out or anything, but if you’re not comfortable—”

“I want to be here,” he says, like that settles everything. Then he adds, quietly, “It’s been ages since we last saw each other. I...” He clears his throat. “I’ve missed fighting with you at school.”

My heart stutters.

“Same.” I allow myself just two more seconds to fully indulge in those last words, the look on his face when he said them, before moving on to business. “Speaking of school... How are things there?”

“Well, Peter still hasn’t been discharged from the hospital yet.”

All remaining thoughts of Henry’s dark gaze and parted lips vanish in a crushing wave of nausea. I can’t help picturing Peter’s pale, almost lifeless face, lying completely still while strapped to a heart monitor and IV, his parents weeping beside him. “Oh, god. Is he—”

“No,” Henry says quickly. “No, it’s not that bad. He’s lightly concussed, but he should technically be able to go about his life as usual by now. His parents are the ones keeping him there—they’re somewhat paranoid about him getting injured again. Understandably, of course.”

“Of course,” I echo, hugging a pillow to my chest. My pulse still hasn’t returned to normal yet.

“You know, if I’m being honest,” Henry says suddenly, “part of me was expecting you to go back for Peter.”

“You...were?”

I lean back, unsure how to respond. Unsure if I want to keep talking about this at all.

But Henry continues, “Because deep down—”

I glare at him.

“Deep, deep, deep down,” he amends, “you’re hardly as terrible as you try to be.”

“And look where I ended up,” I say bitterly, even though I don’t mean it, not really. I’ve had time to regret plenty of things—but somehow, going back for Peter isn’t one of them.

“See.” Henry gestures in my direction, eyebrows raised. “That’s precisely what I’m talking about.” A pause. “I never entirely understood why you’d insist on creating such an app—on forcing yourself to be someone you’re not—”

“It’s not that simple—”

“But I—”

“You don’t get it,” I say. I want to sound angry, to push him away, but my voice comes out thin and fragile as eggshells. “You—you and all the kids at Airington... All you have is light. Light and glory and power and the whole world laid out for you, just waiting for you to take whatever you like.” I draw in a shaky breath, wrap my arms tighter around myself, bury my chin into the pillow. “Is it really too much to ask? For people like me to want a bit of that light for ourselves?”

He’s silent for a long time. I watch the faint movement in his throat, the tension bunching in his shoulders. His eyes lock on mine. “No,” he says softly. “Of course not.”

“Then why...” My voice trembles. I inhale, try again. “Why do I feel so fucking tired all the time?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

And despite myself, I choke out a laugh. “I’ve never seen you so lost for words before.”

“Yes, well...” He looks away. “I’ll admit I really don’t know what to say.”

“Look, you don’t have to say anything—”

“But I do.” He shifts position slightly, his attention going to the plastic tiger again, then back to me. His expression is pained. “I wasn’t even aware that your family was living like this. I mean, I suspected, but...”

“Yeah,” I mutter, forcing down that same awful, itchy feeling from earlier: the desire to run, to hide, to turn into someone else—anyone else but me.

The desire grows even stronger when Henry asks, with the air of one who’s just grasped something incredibly obvious and can’t believe it’s taken them this long, “Is that why you came up with the idea for Beijing Ghost? To pay—to pay bills?”

No point denying it now, I guess.

“Not bills.” I dig my nails deeper into the pillow. At this rate, I’m probably going to tear a hole through the fabric. “Just...school fees and stuff.”

“If I’d known—Alice, you realize I don’t care about my cut of the profits, right? It was never really about the money for me.”

“Well, good, because you’re definitely not getting any of it now,” I tell him, only half-joking.

“It’s just not fair,” Henry says after a pause, and I’m surprised by the burr of anger in his voice. “You’re indisputably the smartest person in our entire year level—no, the entire school. You shouldn’t have to resort to monetizing your supernatural powers just to stay at Airington with the rest of us. It’s honestly...” He rakes an agitated hand through his hair. “It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is. You deserve to be there more than people like Andrew She. You deserve to be there more than I do.”

I stare at him. “Henry... Did you just admit that I’m smarter than you?”