It’s an honor to be waiting outside the school gates in the winter cold.

This is what I’ve been telling myself for the past hour as I shiver in my ironed blazer and watch my fingernails turn a concerning shade of purple.

It’s an immense honor. A privilege. A joy. It’s exactly what I envisioned when Ms. Hedge, the year level coordinator, called for me in the middle of my math honors class yesterday and asked that I show a few visiting parents around the school.

“I trust that you’re the right person to do it,” she’d said with a wide smile, her gnarled hands folded neatly across her desk. “As school captain, you can tell them about how much Woodvale Academy cares for its students, and how well we’ve set you up for success. Feel free to also mention all the

extracurriculars you’re involved in and your many achievements— like how you recently came in first in the track- and- field regional finals. The parents will love that.”

I’d smiled back at her and nodded along with so much fake enthusiasm I gave myself a neck cramp.

My neck is still stiff as I straighten the badges pinned to my front pocket,

stamping my feet hard to ward off what feels like imminent frostbite. My best friend, Abigail Ong, always jokes that I collect badges like a magpie. She’s not wrong, exactly, but I’m not just admiring

how the gold lettering for school captain catches the pale morning light. It’s also a matter of symbolism.

Every single badge I own is proof of something: that I have perfect grades, that I’m the MVP of every sports team I’m in, that I’m an active member of the school community, that I help out at the local library. That I’m smart, and successful, and have a good future ahead of me— Footsteps crunch over the dry grass.

I jerk my head up and squint into the distance. It’s so early that the parking

lot is still empty, save for a rusted brown Toyota that’s probably been there since before the school was built. All the redbrick buildings on campus are quiet, the windows closed, the clouds rising over the bare trees painted a soft, watercolor pink.

No sign of any lost- looking parents.

Instead, a terribly familiar face comes into view, and out of habit, all the muscles in my body tense. Black eyes, sharp angles, a smile like a blade.

That single, ridiculous strand of dark hair falling over his forehead. The school blazer draped around his shoulders like he’s posing for a high- fashion magazine.

Julius Gong.

My co-captain, and the most prominent source of pain in my life.

At the mere sight of him, I experience a rush of loathing so pure and visceral it feels akin to wonder. It’s hard to believe that someone with such an awful personality could have such pleasing looks— or that

someone with such pleasing looks could have such an awful personality.

The equivalent of opening up a gift box with gorgeous silk ribbons and confetti and foil packaging and finding inside it a poisonous snake.

The snake in question stops three solid feet away from me. The patchy,

yellowing grass stretched out between us is no-man’s-land.

“You’re early,” he says, in his usual slow drawl, as if he can barely be bothered delivering the whole sentence. In the entire decade I’ve been unfortunate enough to know him, Julius has never started a single

conversation with a proper greeting.

“Earlier than you,” I tell him, like it’s a major point of victory that I’ve been standing here so long I can’t feel my toes.

“Yes, well, I was busy with other things.”

I catch the implication: I’m busier than you. I have more important things to do because I’m a more important person.

“I’m busy too,” I say immediately. “Very busy. My whole morning has been

one urgent matter after another. In fact, I came here straight from my workout—”

“That does sound like a very urgent matter. I fear the nation’s economy would collapse if you didn’t get your daily push- ups in.”

You’re just bitter because I proved in our last PE class that I can do more push- ups than you. The words are perched right on the tip of my tongue.

They would be so satisfying to say out loud, almost as satisfying as beating him in another fitness test, but I swallow them down. Stuff my hands in my pockets. The chill seems to be spreading through my bone marrow in the particularly unpleasant kind of way I’ve come to associate with winters here in Melbourne.

Julius smiles with one side of his mouth, an expression so insincere I would rather he scowl. “Cold?”

“Nope,” I say through chattering teeth. “Not at all.”

“Your skin is blue, Sadie.”

“Must be the lighting.”

“You’re also shaking.”

“With anticipation,” I insist.

“You do realize we only needed to get here at seven thirty, right?” He rolls back his sleeve, consults his watch. It’s a brand too expensive for me to recognize, but fancy enough for me to know it’s expensive. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if he was checking the time for the sole purpose of

showing it off. “It’s seven twenty now. How long exactly have you been standing out here like an honorary human statue?”

I ignore his question. “Of course I realize. I was there when Ms. Hedge told us.” Because after Ms. Hedge had given me her cheerful little speech about representing the school, Julius had shown up in her office too, and to my acute annoyance, she’d given him the exact same task. I’d then vowed that I would beat him in this— I would rock up to school way earlier, a hundred times more prepared, in case anyone else arrived early too, and make an incredible first impression on the parents before he could. I’m aware that this isn’t something we’ll be graded on, but that doesn’t matter. In my head, I like to keep a running mental scoreboard of every test, competition, and opportunity in which Julius and I have clashed since we were seven, complete with its own specific point system that makes sense to only me: Plus three points for earning one of Mr. Kaye’s rare, approving smiles. Plus five points for hitting a fundraiser goal. Plus six points for coming first in the school basketball tournament.

Plus eight points for winning a class debate. As of now, Julius is at 490 points. I’m at 495, thanks to the history test I

came first in last week. Still, I can’t be complacent. Complacency is for losers.

“They better arrive soon,” Julius says, checking his watch again. The vaguely American curl of his words has a way of making the disdain in his voice more pronounced. For some time now, I’ve suspected that his accent is fake. He’s only ever set foot in the States for campus tours; there’s no logical reason why he’d sound like that, except to seem special. “I have no

interest in freezing.”

I roll my eyes. The world isn’t made to serve you, I want to snap at him . But the world must have been made to laugh in my face, because right on cue, as if he’s manifested them into existence, four cars roll into the parking lot. The doors click open, one by one, and an auntie steps out from each vehicle. Auntie is the most accurate descriptor I can think of. I don’t mean it in the

blood- relative kind of way (though my own aunts are definitely all aunties), but as a state of mind, a particular mode of existence. It can be felt, it can be seen, but it can’t be strictly defined. It has its unique markers: like the massive perms, the tattooed eyebrows, the Chanel bags, the valuable jade pendant tied together with a cheap red string. But there are also

noticeable variations among them.

For instance, the first auntie to strut up to the gates is wearing six- inch heels and a neon-green scarf so bright it could function as a traffic light. The auntie in line after her is dressed in more subdued colors and has

naturally stern features that remind me of my mom.

I’m not surprised that the parents interested in sending their kids to our school all happen to be Asian. We make up at least 90 percent of the student population at Woodvale Academy, and that’s just a conservative estimate. How it came to be this way is sort of a chicken-and-egg question. Are the Asian kids here because their parents wanted them to attend a selective high school for gifted students? Or were their parents drawn to this school

because they heard there were a bunch of Asian kids here?

I know for my mom it was the latter. A week after my dad left, she withdrew me from the practically all- white Catholic primary school I was in at the time and moved us to the other side of town. It’s good to be surrounded by community, she told me, her

voice so weary I couldn’t think of anything except to go along with whatever she wanted, that day and every day after-ward. People who will understand.

Julius shifts beside me, and I jolt back to the present. When he moves forward, I step out faster in front of him, my model-student smile snapping into place. I practice it in front of the mirror every day.

“Ayi, shi lai canguan xuexiao de ma?” I say in my very best Mandarin. Are you here to tour the school?

The first auntie blinks at me, then replies in smooth English, with an American accent that could put Julius’s to shame, “Yes. I am.”

Heat shoots up my face. Without even having to look, I can sense Julius’s quiet glee, his delight at my embarrassment. And before I can recover, he’s already made his grand entrance, his spine straight, chin up, the smug curve of his lips broadening into a warm grin.

“Hello,” he says, because he never has any problem greeting other people.

“I’m Julius Gong, the school captain, and I’ll be showing you around campus this morning.”

I clear my throat.

He raises a dark brow at me, but adds nothing.

I clear my throat again, louder.

“And this is Sadie,” he says after a beat, waving a loose hand at me. “The

other captain.”

“School captain,” I can’t help emphasizing. My smile is starting to hurt my face. “I’m school captain. I’m also set to be valedictorian.”

“I honestly don’t think they care,” Julius murmurs into my ear, his voice low enough for only me to hear, his breath warm despite the freezing weather.

I try to act like he doesn’t exist. This is made somewhat difficult by the fact

that all four aunties are busy scanning Julius from head to toe, like they’re trying to pick out their future son-in-law.

“How old are you?” one of the auntie asks.

“Seventeen,” Julius says readily.

“You look very tall,” another auntie says. “What’s your height?”

Julius regards her with all the patience in the world. “Six foot one.”

“That is tall,” she says, like this is an impressive feat on par with curing cancer. It’s just genetics, I’m tempted to point out, though of course I restrain myself. He literally didn’t even have to do anything. “And you’ve been at this school for how long, now?”

“Ten years,” he replies. “Almost my entire life.”

I press my tongue down against the sharp edge of my teeth. This part I could answer for him. By either curse or coincidence— and I’m increasingly leaning toward curse— we had entered Woodvale Academy in

the same year. I had been the quiet girl, the shy one, the new kid nobody really wanted

anything to do with, while he was interesting, mysterious, effortlessly cool.

He had acted as if he already knew he would one day rule the place, taking

everything in with that calculating black gaze of his. Then in PE, we were

placed on opposing teams for a game of dodgeball. The second he had the

ball in his hands, his eyes had slid to me. Pinned me down. It was like those David Attenborough animal documentaries where you watch in slow motion as the serpent closes in on its prey. I was the rabbit; he was the snake.

Somehow, out of the thirty- something kids in that sweaty, poorly ventilated

gym, he had picked me as the person to beat. But I was exceptionally good at dodging, light and fast on my feet. Each

time he aimed at me, I swerved out of the way. In the end, it was only the

two of us left. He kept throwing. I kept ducking. It probably would have

gone on like that until the very last period, but the other kids in our class were getting tired of standing around, and the teacher had to step in and call it a tie.

From that point on, Julius Gong became the bane of my existence. The issue is that nobody else seems to share my frustrations, because he only ever bares his fangs at me.

In fact, the aunties are already in love with him. He’s still smiling and nodding, asking the aunties about their health and their cooking and some upcoming farmer’s market (when I’m certain Julius has never set foot into anything that starts with farmer in his life), and they’re all just eating it up.

As one of the aunties asks him about his grades, he pauses, turns his head just a fraction toward me, and his smile twists into a smirk I alone can see.

“They’re okay,” he says, with false modesty.

“I did receive the Top Achiever’s Award for English just last semester. And chem-istry. And economics. And physics.”

“Wah,” the aunties gush in sync. They couldn’t be more cooperative if he’d

paid them. “That’s incredible.”

“You’re so smart.”

“To do so well at such a competitive school? You must be a genius.”

“Both handsome and intelligent. Your parents really raised you well."

I can imagine my own blood boiling inside me, the steam scorching my

throat. To the rest of the world, he might be an angel, a perfect student with a pretty face. But I know what he really is, what he’s like.

“We should get the tour going,” I say sweetly, clenching my teeth behind

my fake beam. “There’s lots for us to see. Since there are four of you . . . I can show you two around.” I gesture to the aunties standing closest to me.

Neither of them looks particularly happy about this arrangement. The auntie

with the green scarf actually heaves an audible sigh of disappointment, which is always encouraging. “And Julius can lead the way for the others.”

The remaining two women step behind him at once, and Julius pushes open the wrought iron gates with all the ease of a host at his own party. “Gladly,” he says. “Follow me.”

In the back of my mind, the numbers flash like a warning sign:

Three points to Julius.

I spend the next hour talking until my throat hurts.

It’s not as if the school campus is even that big: We have three buildings in total, all designed in the same boring, rectangular style with white- framed windows and gable roofs, and spread out around the main oval.

The issue is more that there’s a lot of explaining to do.

Like: why photos of the senior teachers have been cut out and glued to the ceiling. “It’s a gesture of appreciation and respect,” I tell them, because prank is not the right word here.

“At Woodvale, teachers and students are on very close terms, and we’re encouraged to express ourselves in, ah, creative ways. Every time we walk through these beautiful halls, we’re reminded that our teachers are always looking down on us from above. Like, um, angels. Or God.”

Or why there’s a massive statue of a green donkey in the middle of the hall when our mascot is meant to be a horse and our school colors are blue and white.

“Donkeys are symbolic,” I lie on the spot. In truth, our deputy principal, who’d ordered the cursed statue, apparently just isn’t very sensitive to either colors or animals. It could have been worse, I guess; she could have ordered a statue of a cow.

“They stand for determination and hard work and grit: all crucial school values we take to heart.”

Or why the schedule on the bulletin board says our next assembly will be happening at 9:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 10:20 a.m., 3:00 p.m., 3:35 p.m., and somehow also 8:00 p.m. “We like to be very flexible,” I say, ushering them along. “Obviously there is only one time for the assembly that everyone

knows about.

Obviously this has been communicated well, because the communication at

this school is flawless. Now, have you seen our drinking fountains? We have a great filtration system . . .”

Or why there’s a construction site next to the cafeteria.

“I remember reading about this on the school website,” the green- scarf auntie says with a small frown. We’ve stopped just outside the wire fences, and even I have to admit, the view isn’t great. There’s nothing but rubble and plastic coverings and a few scattered poles. As we stare, a literal tumbleweed rolls across the dirt. “It’s for the new sports and recreation

center, no? I thought it was meant to be finished two years ago.”

“Right. That. ” My smile widens in direct proportion to my panic. I don’t know how to tell her that, yes, the sports and recreation center was finished two years ago. But then there came a minor issue with the bathrooms. To be specific, the toilets were all built facing the side, instead of the door, so you couldn’t sit down on them without banging your nose. At first the school

asked us to be grateful and flexible and view it as a learning experience, but after Georgina Wilkins got a bruise from the stalls and threatened to sue, they decided it was better to rebuild the center from the

ground up after all. “There were some small delays,” I say, “but only so they could make it even bigger and better. There are some truly exciting features coming, including a mini golf course on the roof, a swimming pool, and three private gyms. But as you know, excellence takes time.”

The auntie considers this for a moment and, to my relief, moves on.

We’ve circled our way back to the school gates now. The students have started to trickle in, yelling goodbye to their parents from the curb, swinging their bags over their shoulders and messaging their friends. Julius is also there. He’s standing before the aunties, his styled hair glinting in the

rising orange light, with his perfect skin and perfect uniform and perfect posture. Just seeing him makes me want to put my fist through something hard— ideally, his jaw.

“We’ll definitely be sending our daughter here,” one of the aunties is saying. “If you’re the standard for the students at Woodvale, then this is the perfect school.”

I feel a black thunderbolt of rage, the electricity crackling down my spine.

It’s made worse when Julius catches my eye, like he wants to make sure I’m listening.

“It’s been a pleasure,” he says smoothly.

“No, no, the pleasure is all mine,” the auntie returns in Mandarin, and my jaw unhinges. She was the one who’d used English with me earlier. It probably means nothing. Or it definitely means she likes Julius more, and feels more familiar with him, and trusts him even though there are pyramid scheme leaders more trustworthy than he is. “We

couldn’t have asked for a better tour guide. Really.”

Still looking at me, Julius smiles. “I’m so happy to hear it.”

I bite my tongue, swallow all impulses for violence, and wave to the aunties as they leave. The second their clacking heels have faded into the distance, I rush off to my first class: history.

Unfortunately, this is also the first of my shared classes with Julius, and it’s

not long before his footsteps catch up to mine.

“That went well, didn’t it?” he says, his voice drifting just over my shoulder.

“Did it?” I say, shoving the glass doors to the humanities building open with maybe a bit more force than necessary. I’m kind of hoping that it’ll swing back and hit him, but of course, he catches the door easily with one hand and slides in after me.

“I mean that it went well for me,” he clarifies. “Both of them are sending their children here. I bet Ms. Hedge will be pleased.

She must have known I was the best person for this task, though I suppose

you made some limited contributions as well.”

I mutter something unrepeatable under my breath.

“What was that?” I can almost hear the gloating smile in his voice.

“Nothing. I just said we’re going to be late if we keep talking.”

“Well, unlike you, I have no problem with multitasking.”

Go to your happy place, I will myself as I push open the next set of doors.

In my mind, I’m no longer walking these crowded halls, listening to the warning bell chime. No longer in this town, even. I’ve graduated, undefeated, as valedictorian and school captain and gotten my degree from

Berkeley, and I’ve bought a huge house in a big city for my mom and my older brother, Max (ideally, he would have managed to actually find a job on his own after finishing his expensive sports university, but this is meant to be an achievable dream, not an alternate reality).

In the new house, there are more windows than walls and at dawn the sunlight turns everything into gold. We’ll have vases full of fresh jasmines, and chocolate- covered strawberries for dessert, and lunches outside in our own gardens. My mom will still run her bakery, but she won’t have to work

twelve hours a day, and we won’t be understaffed anymore, and we’ll only

go to sneak out taro buns and tuna rolls warm from the oven. It’ll be just us, and we won’t need anyone else. Our lives will be better than they used to be with my dad around. I’ll do everything he should’ve done, provide everything he should have provided. I’ll do so much that nobody

will feel his absence lingering in our living room like a silent ghost anymore. Maybe Mom will even start smiling again. All I have to do to make that life happen is push through these last few months. Turn in all my homework on time and ace every remaining test and make my teachers happy so I can keep my conditional offer of admission to Berkeley. Abigail always enjoys placing emphasis on the admission part, but I’m more concerned about the conditional part. So. Just a few more months of this.

Which sounds simple enough, but at the thought, I feel a pressure that’s

almost like a physical force, crushing my ribs. I have to steady myself before entering the classroom, breathe in through my nostrils, bounce up and down slightly on the balls of my feet, the way I do before running a race. It doesn’t help that the room is too bright, too loud, everyone lounging

around the clusters of desks and talking at full volume.

Julius pauses beside me. “What, not going in?” The corners of his lips are curved in their usual condescending manner, but he studies me for an extra beat, like he’s trying to figure something out.

“I am,” I say, ignoring the tightness in my chest and pushing past him.

I’ve made it all of two steps inside when a freckled face jumps into my vision. Rosie Wilson- Wang. She’s one of those people who know exactly how pretty they are, and uses it to her full advantage. She’s also the girl who copied my science fair project last year without telling me, then went on to receive an A-plus for “innovation” and “creativity.”

“Sadie,” she gushes, which is a bad sign right away. Science project aside, Rosie and I are on amicable terms, but that’s because I’ve made it my mission to be on amicable terms with everyone. Or at least appear to be.

“Hey,” I say.

“Did you come in with Julius?” She peers over at him with what feels like unnecessary appreciation, then adds, “He’s so great, isn’t he?”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cough up blood. I guess it’s a testament to how well I hide my true feelings that nobody other than Abigail would even suspect how much I hate him. “Mm,”

I muster.

“His hair looks really good today.” Her eyes trail after him as he takes his seat at the front of the classroom. “Like, it looks so soft?” It’s somewhat concerning that she’s chosen to vocalize this as a question. It implies a desire to find out the answer.

“Sorry,” I say, trying not to look too disturbed. “Were you going to ask me

something?”

“Right, yeah.” She beams at me. “I was just wondering if you could send me your notes.”

“Oh. Sure. For history, you mean, or—”

“For all our history classes so far this semester,” she says quickly. “You know, because of that exam coming up next month? And, like, sure, I could technically use my own notes, but your notes are so much more comprehensive and organized.”

“Oh,” I say again. “Yeah, I guess I could—”

“Perfect,” she says, squeezing my wrist.

Her long acrylic nails scratch my

skin, but I stay still. “You’re such a saint, Sadie. A true lifesaver.”

The compliment goes down my throat like syrup. It’s embarrassing how tight I latch on to these little pieces of validation, how

much I want to be liked, to make everyone happy.

Sometimes I think I would give them one of my own arms if they asked very nicely.

Rosie moves to her desk by the window where her tight-knit circle of friends are sitting. All of them are gorgeous, most of them are dancers, and a significant, overlapping portion of them are influencers. Yesterday, one of them posted a ten- second video of themselves standing before a mirror and bobbing their head.

It had received seventy thousand likes, and the comments were flooded with people begging to be adopted, or run over by her Porsche. “By the way,” Rosie calls over her shoulder, “could you scan your notes in color and sort them by date and topic? And could you add in your practice essays too?

Just send it all over to my school email by tonight—”

“Hey, could you send it to me too?” Her friend, the head-bobbing influencer

herself, winks at me.

“Me too, please, while you’re at it,” her other friend chimes in.

I nod once, weakly, and they all turn their heads back to giggle about something on their phones.

“Thanks,” Rosie says, without glancing up again. “Much love.”

I swallow, her previous compliment threatening to make its way back up.

But that’s fine. It’s no big deal. Certainly no reason to get worked up. I make a mental note to run to the school printers this afternoon before I head off to my mom’s bakery. It’ll push back my already tight schedule by about thirty minutes, which

means I’ll have to shorten my evening run to only five miles or eat dinner while I work or maybe both, but really, it’s not an issue.

I take another deep breath, though it sounds strained to my own ears, and a little frantic, like someone who’s been under-water too long coming up for air right before diving down again. No big deal at all.

I’ve already pulled out my notebooks and written down today’s date when Abigail Ong waltzes in as if she isn’t seven minutes late.

I would ask her to at least try and be more subtle, but that would be asking the impossible. Abigail is basically a walking, glow-in- the- dark exclamation mark, with her platinum silver hair and rolled-up skirt and

platform combat boots, which are really just stylish stilts. They thud over the carpet as she makes her way toward me. Ms. Hedge has told her off multiple times for not wearing proper school shoes, but then Abigail ended up writing a five- page thesis about why her boots did in fact meet all the

requirements for school shoes, complete with a proper bibliography and

everything. I don’t think she’s ever put so much effort into any of her actual

essays before.

“I’ve arrived,” Abigail announces to the class in general.

Our history teacher, Ms. Rachel, glances up from her desk.

“That’s nice. Take your seat, Abigail.” No other teacher would be so chill about it, but that’s one of the reasons why Ms. Rachel is universally adored.

The other reasons being that she’s in her

twenties, she throws Christmas- themed pizza parties at the end of every

school year, and her surname sounds like a first name, thereby creating the illusion that we’re on a casual first- name basis with her.

“I’m giving you half of this period to work on your group projects,” Ms.

Rachel tells Abigail. “Of course, seeing as it’s due by nine o’clock, I would assume that you’re pretty much finished. But I like to be generous.”

Abigail offers the teacher a mock salute, then drops into the chair beside me.

“Hello, darling,” she says. She started calling people darling ironically last year, but it seems to have entered her permanent vocabulary. The same goes for bamboozled, vexed, and the random, self- invented phrase fumbled the birdie.

I finish underlining the date with my ruler so it’s perfectly straight. This is like my version of drugs. “Hi,” I say. “Do I really want to know why you’re late?”

“Why else? My sister got into a fight with Liam again, so he canceled last minute. I had to walk two- point- five miles here in these heels.” She kicks out her boots for emphasis.

“Have you considered, I don’t know, not relying on your sister’s on- and- off boyfriend for your daily commute?”

“Nick drives a Lamborghini.”

“So?”

“So I’m a fan of expensive cars.”

I snort. “You’re such a capitalist.”

“I like to think I’m supporting the people contributing to our economy.”

“I rest my case. And it’s not like he bought that car with his own money,” I point out. “He’s a fuerdai; his parents probably gave it to him for his twentieth birthday as a little bonus to go with his new villa in Sanya. But

money aside, I just feel like he’s sort of a red flag.”

Abigail raises a hand in protest. “He is not—”

“He has a literal red flag hanging in his car.”

“Okay, but you say that about all men, everywhere,” Abigail says. “You don’t trust any of them.”

Maybe she’s right. I definitely don’t trust Nick, but I guess I should also give him some credit: He’s the only reason Abigail and I are friends in the first place. When he started dropping Abigail off at school three years ago, someone had misunder-stood the situation and spread the rumor that Abigail was dating a guy way older than her for money. As with anything else at

Woodvale, it’d traveled to basically everyone— including the receptionists

— by the end of second period. Even though we’d never exchanged more

than a few words to each other before, I hadn’t been able to resist stopping

by her locker during a break to ask if she was okay.

She was, shockingly. In fact, she found the whole thing hilarious. I was surprised someone could genuinely not care what other people thought of her, when her situation was my very worst nightmare; she was surprised that someone could

genuinely care about a random stranger and sacrifice their own free time to

comfort them.

So we spent recess chatting, and then the next period, and then the last hour

of school, at which point it only made sense for us to exchange numbers and continue the conversation at home.

“I’m telling you, he’s not a bad person. I have, like, perfect gut instincts when it comes to this stuff. I’ve correctly predicted the breakup of every couple in our year level so far, haven’t I?”

she’s saying. She rummages through her bag— I swear I hear something cracking inside it— and tugs out a blunt pencil, a crumpled worksheet from last year, a bag of sour worms, and her lunch for the day. It must have been packed by her mom; the bread crusts are removed, the carrots are cut in the shape of hearts, and there’s a sticky note that says You’re a star! Her parents are big believers in positive messages, but they’re also just big believers in

Abigail. Before visiting her house, I’d assumed that kind of unconditional

love and support only existed in old sitcoms. “Oh, how was the parents’ tour by the way?”

“I lost,” I say bitterly. I keep my voice as quiet as possible, because I’d rather die than let Julius overhear me admitting defeat.

“You lost?” Abigail repeats, laughing. “You can’t lose a tour—”

“I can. I did. I have.”

“You’re so ridiculous,” she says. I would be affronted if it came from anyone else, but Abigail only teases a very select number of people she deems important. Everyone else might as well be background noise, flies, motes of dust; in her eyes, they simply

don’t exist. “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about the group project anymore. You’re done already, I gather, like the unreasonably organized person you are?”

“Of course. You know my policy.” Anytime I receive a deadline, I’ll set myself my own deadline at least a week before it.

That’s why I spent the first two days of winter break completing my part of the project on China’s Warlord Era, which includes a four- thousand- word research essay, a hand- drawn animation of the Zhili- Anhui War, and an interactive map of the various cliques. The workload itself was stressful,

yes, but I’m only calm when I’m ahead. “I just need my group to give me

their summaries, and then we can submit it.”

Abigail glances up and points at my group members, Georgina Wilkins and

Ray Suzuki, who are coming over to our desk. “Uh, they don’t look like

they’re holding anything. Should you be concerned?”

I frown. They are both empty- handed, and as they squeeze closer past the

desks, I can make out the sheepish smile on Georgina’s face.

A bad feeling digs into my gut.

Still, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. “Hey, how are you?”

I ask, because it feels rude to demand to see their summaries right away.

But Ray doesn’t seem to have any qualms about rudeness.

“We didn’t do it,” he says bluntly.

I blink. He might as well have punched me in the stomach.

“ I— You didn’t do . . . the summary?”

“Nope,” he says, sticking his hands into his pockets.

“Okay.” I can hear a faint ringing sound in my ears, building into a screech.

I do my best to recalibrate. Stay calm. Stay friendly. Stay focused. “Okay.

Okay, um. It’s okay if you didn’t finish— maybe just show me what you have and—”

“I didn’t do any of it,” he says.

Another punch, even harder than the last. If I were standing up, I’d be staggering back.

“Right. And is there a reason why, or . . .”

He looks me straight in the eye. “I don’t know. Guess I just wasn’t sure how. Or, like, what we were meant to be doing, you feel?”

“The summary,” I get out. The summary I already wrote out for you, I add inside my head. Word for word. The one I asked you to copy down onto the template that I predesigned, and printed, and personally delivered to your house in the winter rain on the first day of the midyear break so you could

do it when you had time. That summary? “I thought . . . I mean, sure,” I say, seeing his blank stare. “That’s okay. What about you, Georgina?”

Georgina makes a gesture that reminds me of a flower wilt-ing. “I’m sorry,”

she says, pouting. “I tried to start, I promise, but, like, my face still hurts from when I hit my nose against the bathroom wall?”

“I thought you said you were fine,” Ray says.

Georgina shoots him a quick, pointed look, then turns back to me, her dark eyes shining with emotion. “I feel worse whenever I have to work on an assignment. It’s, like, super unfortunate. I wish I could do more to help, but. . .”

Stay calm, I remind myself. I clench the muscles in my arm so hard they

hurt and then, very slowly, force them to relax again.

I repeat this until I no longer feel like committing murder. “It’s not your fault,” I tell her, eyeing the clock. Only eighteen minutes left until the deadline. I have two summaries to write up, which leaves just nine minutes for each. Eight minutes, if I want to take time to double- check everything

before submitting. “You know what? I can just do the rest myself. Totally

cool.”

I expect more resistance, but they retreat rapidly, as if they’ve just dropped

a grenade in my lap.

But no time to worry about them. This is my project. This is my grade on the line. One mistake and my whole average will drop, and Berkeley won’t want me anymore. I push my sleeves up as high as they’ll go, then open up my school laptop to find my notes. Just seventeen minutes left. Briefly, as I stare at the tiny words loaded onto the screen, the dozens of tabs pulled

open, I feel so overwhelmed I could choke. The words fade in and out; my vision blurs.

Nothing gets in.

Then I notice Julius watching me in my peripheral vision, and it’s like I’ve

been zapped. Everything sharpens back into focus. I won’t give him the

satisfaction of seeing me struggle. I refuse to.

With deliberate, feigned calm, I pick up my pen and begin copying the

summary down.

For those next seventeen minutes, I don’t move or speak or even lift my

head until I’ve written down the last word. Then I release a sigh that travels

all the way through my bones, down to my sore muscles and stiff fingers.

That was too close. Way too close. Next time it might be safer to just do

everything myself.

“Thanks, Sadie,” Ms. Rachel says as she collects our project.

“I can’t wait to read through this one; the Warlord Era is absolutely fascinating. It was one of my favorite subjects in college.”

I act like this is news to me, a happy coincidence. Like I didn’t spend hours

searching her up online and reading through an old interview she did for her

alma mater’s student magazine, where she mentioned her interest in the Warlord Era. Like I didn’t choose this specific topic for the very purpose of appealing to her personal tastes. Abigail would affectionately refer to such behavior as my sociopathic

tendencies.

“I’m just going to pop into my office to put this away,” Ms.

Rachel tells me, nodding toward the pile of papers gathered in her arms.

“I’ll be five minutes. Could you keep an eye on the class for me while I’m

gone?”

“Of course.”

“Great. I can always count on you.” Ms.

Rachel smiles at everyone like

they’re special, but somehow it still manages to feel genuine when she’s

smiling at me.

The second she steps out the door, the class dissolves into chaos.

People slump back in their seats, kick their feet on desks, stretch their arms

out in loud, open- mouthed yawns. Muffled conversations give way to open

hoots of laughter and shouts across the room.

Before I can do anything about it, an alert pops up from my school inbox.

One new email.

My heart leaps. I’m praying it’s a reply from Mr. Kaye, our math teacher;

I’d sent him a desperate email after midnight yesterday about one of the

bonus questions. Unfortunately I still have all my tabs open, and my aging

laptop is clearly protesting; I have to click my inbox about twenty times

before the rainbow spinning wheel disappears. Then I glance at the name of

the sender, and my hope whittles away into rage.

It’s from Julius.

Just so you know, Ms. Rachel took a peek at our group project earlier and

said it looked— and I quote “phenomenal.” I’m saying this now so you’re

not too shocked when our grades come back and mine’s higher than yours. I

know how upset you get every time I win.

Best regards,

Julius Gong, School Captain I snap my head up, my eyes going straight to him, but he’s turned away, chatting to the pretty girl sitting next to him. As he laughs, I’m gripped by the visceral urge to march up there and shake him by the shoulders, dig my nails into his smooth skin.

I want to leave a permanent mark. I want him to feel it, to hurt. I want to

destroy him.

“Sadie.” Abigail’s voice sounds a thousand miles away, even though she’s

sitting right next to me. “Um, there’s a vein in your temple that looks like it should be examined by a health professional.”

When I don’t reply, she leans over me and reads the email on my screen.

“Damn,” she breathes. “That boy’s really making it his life mission to get

on your nerves.”

I squeeze out a scoff that sounds more like I’m being strangled.

Across the classroom, he’s still laughing with the other girl.

Happy place, I remind myself. Remember your happy place.

Your future.

But when I try to summon up the image of the giant house with the sunlit

rooms and soft curtains, all that material-izes is Julius’s sneering face, his

pitch- black eyes and haughty cheekbones and curved lips. Beautiful and

horrible, like those vivid flowers you find blooming in the wild that are actually carnivorous.

So instead I spread my fingers over the keyboard and begin to type in a

furious rush, stabbing out each letter with my nails.

This is my last resort, my sanctuary, the antidote to my anger.

Because I know better than anyone that I’m not really a saint.

Nowhere close. I simply like to unleash all my rage in my email drafts, where I can be as harsh and petty and unforgiving as I want, because I also know that I’ll never have the nerve to send them out. When I write, I write anything and everything that comes to mind.

Julius,

Just so YOU know, I’m keeping your email as evidence so that when our grades come back and mine’s obviously higher, you’ll understand how it feels to be slapped by your own hand.

I can’t wait for the day to arrive. But also, even if it were a tie, I don’t think

you have any reason to gloat. You managed to complete your project only

because you have smart people like Adam in your group, and you have

Adam in your group only because you gave the teacher that complete

rubbish speech about wanting to switch things up and bond with new peers

and so she let you choose.

Maybe the teacher and the parents you showed around this morning and

everyone else at this school buy your bullshit, but I can see right through

you, Julius Gong. You’re attention starved and self- obsessed and

unbearably vain and you wear your cynicism like a crown; you’re the kind

of kid on the playground who steals a toy not because you want it but

because somebody else does.

Also, your hairstyle is ridiculous. You might think it looks all natural and

effortless, but I bet you spend entire hours of your

morning styling it with a tiny comb so that the one singular strand falls over

your left eye at the perfect angle. From the bottom of my heart, I really hope

your comb breaks and you run out of whatever expensive hair products

you’ve been using to make your hair appear deceptively soft when I’m sure

it’s not, because there’s nothing soft about you, anywhere at all—

“Morning, Mr. Kaye!”

The name jolts me back to reality. I peel my eyes from my laptop and spot

Mr. Kaye walking past us down the corridor, a hand lifted in greeting.

I quickly save the draft. It’s the fifty- seventh draft email I have; the majority of them are dedicated to Julius, but there are a few others written for classmates and teachers who’ve made my life especially difficult in the past.

“Mr. Kaye,” I call, shooting up from my seat so fast I bang my knee against

the desk. “Mr. Kaye, wait—” I suppress a wince and rush out into the

corridor after him.

“Sadie,” he says, regarding me with the strained patience of a grandparent

humoring their overenergetic grandchild. He’s probably old enough to be

my grandpa, though it’s hard to tell, with his dyed black hair.

“Sorry to bother you,” I say. “But did you get that—”

“Email you sent?” he finishes for me. Unlike his hair, his brows are a peppery gray. They rise slowly up his wide forehead.

“Yes, I did. Are you often up at one in the morning?”

“No, of course not.” I often go to sleep later than that, but there’s no reason

to raise alarm. And the last thing I need is for this to devolve into a conversation about my unhealthy sleeping habits. I just want to know if my answer was correct or not. “For question six . . .”

“The textbook was wrong,” he tells me. “Don’t worry, Sadie, your

calculations were completely right. The answer should have been ninety-

two. I’ll make a note of it in class, though I doubt anyone else except Julius

has even touched the bonus questions.”

The textbook was wrong. The most beautiful arrangement of words to ever

exist. It’s like someone’s injected sunlight directly into my veins. I’m so

relieved, so euphoric, that I don’t even mind the mention of Julius.

“Oh my god, that’s amazing,” I say, completely sincere for once. “That’ s— thank you so much, Mr. Kaye. I redid my calculations so many times; I tried, like, eight different methods—”

“I’ll bet you did,” he says, and this time the corners of his lips rise too with

mild amusement. “Was that all?”

“Yes,” I babble, my face splitting into a beam. “Yes, thanks again. You have

no idea— this just made my entire day.”

I’m still beaming as I head back, my high bun bouncing, my footsteps light.

So maybe the morning was off to a bit of a rough start. That’s fine. Things

are good now.

I don’t even mind the fact that the classroom situation has deteriorated

further, or that Rosie and her friends have pushed back a few of the tables—

including mine— to shoot a video of

themselves spinning on the spot for god knows what reason. I simply wait

until they’re done and rearrange the tables myself.

“Your mood changed fast,” Abigail says, seeing my face. “Did Mr. Kaye

give you a cash prize or something?”

“Even better: The textbook was wrong.” I let out a happy sigh.

“I was right.”

When I take my seat again, I notice, dimly, that my laptop seems to be in a

different position. I pause, frowning. I could have sworn I’d lowered the

screen almost all the way down, not just halfway. But then Ms. Rachel

returns with important information for our upcoming test, and I forget

everything else. I’m too focused on planning out my next move to beat

Julius.