Page 68 of The Other Side of Together

The heaviness in my chest tugs me down to the padded bench, and I slide my phone off the counter and clutch it to my chest, the metal frigid against my bare sternum. All I have to do is call Marcus. He’s begged. I’ve dialed, but never called. I open the messages he’s sent for the past ten days and scroll to the final one, blinking through tears.

It’s been a long day. Don’t know what day it is. When you left, everything just kind of stopped. I was late for school today because I couldn’t get out of bed. Just laid there and stared at the fan. It was too dark. My dad assaulted me with questions yesterday after I said I didn’t want Chinese. Said he doesn’t like the dark circles under my eyes. Asked if I was on something. I was last week. Not sure how long withdrawals last. The way everything in my chest feels right now tells me they’re not leaving anytime soon. Johnny texted an hour ago and said he doesn’t like how many times I’ve avoided hanging this week. Audrey hates that I canceled our lunch date but eating makes me wanna puke. My AP history teacher didn’t like my final paper. Know what I don’t like? That I used to like my life but don’t anymore. Know what else? That you’re gone and I have no idea why. I also don’t like feeling this mad at you. I don’t like how much you’ve messed me up. Don’t like myself for letting you. I hate that I have memories. That I make up conversations with you in my head so I won’t forget your voice. Hate that I’m not strong enough to delete your texts or voicemails from when things were good. Know how many texts we averaged every day? 410. Averaged. One day, we sent over 1,000. Someday maybe I’ll delete all 20,960 but I hate thinking about that, too. Just can’t hate you, no matter how hard I try. Too much love I don’t know what to do with now. I’ll start working on that so in 50 years, maybe I’ll finally love something besides you.

His words slam against my heart like someone pounding fists against a locked door. I read one text after the other, tears sliding down my face, then I click on my voicemail. Twelve messages stare back at me; they’ve almost killed me everytime I’ve listened. Hopefully they’ll finish me this time. The last thing I’ll hear is Marcus’s voice. I scroll to the second to last and close my eyes. Leaning back against the wall, I grip the phone with one hand, the other pushing my heart back into place.

“If anyone ever tells me I’m too young to fall in love, I’ll freaking lose it.”I pause the message, let his voice melt over all the painful, aching places inside me.

“I didn’t even recognize myself this morning. Don’t look like myself, don’t feel like myself, and honestly…I don’t wanna be myself right now. I know it sounds dramatic, but I’d rather be anything than without you. You’re the one thing I want. I got up and left class today because someone said May—like the month—and I broke. Don’t even know how to do this. Maybe you don’t wanna work it out, but…”His voice drifts away and when he speaks again, it quivers.“I need you.”He pauses again, letting out a long, weary breath, and I picture him sitting on the edge of his bed, staring into his dark room.“We can’t just leave things this way. I can’t, anyway.”

I can’t either. But I have to. So I’ll go downstairs and pretend with Nick with Marcus’s words in my ears.

I scroll to the last voicemail, push play, close my eyes. Silence, rustling. I picture Marcus running his hand through his hair, elbows on his knees, head hung. Then his voice crackles: “I love you, Mei.”A click. The end of that world.

Nick’s invisible leash tugs me through the sprawling ballroom dripping with chandeliers and wrapped tightly in gold wallpaper. I’m nothing but a pet dressed in satin and diamonds. Fancy pets on fancy leashes want the same thing ordinary pets want: freedom.

My dress clings to me, and I want to rip it off so I can breathe. The diamonds hanging from my neck and ears are soheavy, the only comfortable position is looking down at my crystal hors d’oeuvres plate. They’ll have to come off when I run.

I scan the room for exits, sip the bubbling champagne. It mixes with the acid in my throat and almost erupts out of me and all over the starched tuxes and flowy gowns draped on women who laugh through their noses, their eyelashes reaching out to scratch me if I get too close. But I won’t. I’ll slip out one of the four exit doors. My only hope of that is to make Nick as drunk as he was last night.

“So you’re the lucky plus one for Mr. Chao.” A woman twice my age wearing a dress that looks like a vampire cape gives me a toothy smile that fades as she inspects the diamond necklace glittering on my exposed sternum. “We were wondering who he’d bring tonight.” She tilts her head, waiting for my answer.

I smile and shrug once, wondering what I’m supposed to say to this woman who sees Nick as some kind of prize, but he kisses both her cheeks and beams at her.

“Yes, this is my fiancé, Mei Li. Mei Li, Rosa.”

The bubbles from the small sip of champagne in my stomach multiply and I want to throw them up along with fear and disgust but instead, I pretend to take a sip of champagne and the conversation flows between her and Nick. I nod in all the right places as servers in short, shimmery dresses circle our group, taking empty glasses, replacing them with full ones. One of the girls reaches for mine but I hold it up so she can see it’s still full. I need something to hold onto. But then our eyes meet, and I freeze, my throat dry. Su Ling. She hesitates, then turns away, and my fingers choke the glass stem.

My eyes follow her from where I’m frozen in the crowded ballroom, people drifting around me like water around a glacier. She has the same, faint birth mark on her lower jaw and even with bleached blonde hair, I know her face.

My eyes follow Su Ling from table to table, her short skirt climbing her legs as she bends and twists. She says something to a group of men whose eyes are focused everywhere but her face until one of them stands and takes her hand.

They walk toward me, and my heart trips over itself like I should meet her halfway or run the other direction. But as they pass, I open my mouth, stiffening when her hand catches mine and slips something hard against my palm. I look down at a keycard and a note scrawled on the back of a cocktail menu:Meet me in 2803 before the toast.

I look up in time to see her slip out of the room with the man. People are looking for her. Detective Miller. She didn’t run away to work here. She’d never leave her kids. Why would she choose this? Maybe she’s running from something. Or someone.

I hurry toward the door she walked through but someone grabs the back of my arm and whirls me around. I almost lose balance on my stilettos, but Nick’s firm grip keeps me upright, his face in mine.

“Where’d you sneak off to?” Waves of sharp, tangy liquor jab at me and I hold my breath.

“I got lost in the crowd. This place is so big.”

His eyes shift and he pulls me closer. “Perhaps we should get lost together, right after the toast.”

“I’m not feeling great. My stomach is upset,” I lie, praying he’ll believe me. “Would it be okay if I go lie down for a bit?” I pause, pulling all the strength I can find to say the rest through a weak smile. “Maybe I’ll feel better after the toast…”

Nick squeezes my arm tighter, sucks in a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. My stomach churns until panic is swept away by hope and relief when he hands me the keycard.

The thought of running and not meeting Su Ling pounds through my head as I slip inside the dark hotel room, counting the silent, frantic seconds. I shouldn’t waste time; I should be running. But why is Su Ling here and what if she needs help and I’m all she has?

On second 683, she pushes through the door, frantically locking it behind her and turning to me. “What are you doing here, Mei Li?” Her eyes are all over my face in the gray light.

Mine go from her platinum hair to her sunken eyes. She looks like she’s aged forty years in the past three weeks. “I’m…here to meet a chef. For an internship. Nick set it up.”

She swallows, her fists clenching at her side. “I was afraid—”

“Why are you here?” I rush, my whisper harsh against the stillness of the hotel room. “The police are looking for you.”

“I know,” she nods, her neck tense.

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