Page 54 of If You Could See the Sun
“Hmm?”I repeat, incredulous. “Did you even read it?”
His eyes shift from the phone to my face, a gel pen twirling around and around between his long slender fingers. “Yes, of course. In its entirety.”
“And you—you knew about this?”
“No,” he says calmly, voice low enough for just the two of us to hear. Everyone else is busy pretending to jot down Julie Walsh’s board notes on Discrimination in Developing Countries, their hands already reaching for their bags and laptop cases, ready to run out of here the second the bell rings. “But I find it rather plausible. Her artistic statement for her final project last year doesn’t align at all with her coursework this semester. Either she underwent a drastic change in world views over the summer, or those views weren’t hers to begin with.”
I shake my head in disbelief. Even by the usual Beijing Ghost standards, the anonymous message currently loaded up on my phone is...well, shocking.
Apparently, Airington’s favorite art prodigy, Vanessa Liu, has been buying all her art ideas and designs from some older university student. The source wants me to follow her to Shimao Tianjie, or simplyThe Place, tomorrow—one of those high-end, inner-city places I never visit—where she’s meant to be meeting up with the student for another little exchange.
“But I’ve seen her draw,” I insist, keeping my voice down too. “She’s—I mean, she’stalented. I don’t understand why...”
“Talent isn’t the same as genius,” Henry replies, with all the secure, unaffected ease of someone who’s spent his life in the latter category and knows it.
A familiar thorn of envy—ofwant—digs into my side.
I set the phone down. “Well. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow night.”
Henry glances up, and for the first time since I brought up this subject, he looks interested. When he speaks again, he seems to choose his words with care. “Would you...perhaps like some company?”
“From who?” I say, confused. The whole point of Beijing Ghost is that I’m meant to operate alone: undetected, unseen.
He raises his brows. Waits.
“What,you?” I say it like a joke, but his expression remains completely serious.
“Why not?” He holds up the pen he’s been spinning. “Exams are over. We’ve both got some extra time on our hands. And I go to The Place all the time. I could be of some help.”
“But. But if someone sees you—”
“We can go there early,” he says readily, shrugging. “I’ll show you around a bit, then head back on my own when you find her.”
“But you—I just—”
The pen stills in his grip. He cocks his head a few degrees, his gaze steady on me, sharp and assessing and intensely black beneath the classroom lights. “What?”
And I don’t know what. Only that the idea of meeting him alone outside school at night makes my stomach dip as though I’ve just tumbled from a great height. I mean, sure, we’ve been walking to class together and I’ve even been inside his dorm room, but this...with only the two of us...this is—
“I won’t be able to focus with you there,” I blurt out, then realize exactly how that sounds.
His lips twitch. It’s the same half-suppressed smile he wears when he’s making his grand closing statement in a debate tournament, or when he knows the answer to a particularly hard question in class, or when he’s making an impressive business pitch. It’s the smile he wears when he’s about to get what he wants. “Are you saying you find my presence distracting, Alice?”
“N-no. That’s not at all what I...” I clear my throat just as the bell rings, drowning out the rest of my half-formed protests. When the loud buzzing finally stops, Henry speaks up before I can.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night then.” For some reason, he sounds weirdly excited.
The Place looks like something straight out of a movie. The high-budget kind.
It’s an absolute behemoth of a road, with multilevel luxury brand stores and futuristic, glow-in-the-dark signs and rooftop restaurants crowded together along the sides, and a massive outdoor screen stretching from one end of the road all the way to the other, blocking out the hazy evening sky above it.
A clip of a dragon swimming through pools of gold is playing on the overhead screen when Henry and I step out from his driver’s car. The light is so bright it casts a golden sheen over everything, from the smooth pavement tiles to the rich midnight fabric of Henry’s button-down coat and the knife-edged angles of his face.
He’s dressed even better than usual today; his hair is all soft and freshly combed and falling just above his eyes, and he has on a crisp white shirt underneath, the collar strategically undone, the sleeves peeking out every time he moves his arms around. Maybe he’s heading off to a big event after this. A tech convention or something.
Then again,everyonehere looks awfully stylish. Half the girls we pass on our way down the road could very well be models, with their velvet thigh-high boots and designer belts and bouncy, curled hair.
I run a self-conscious hand over my own plain shirt and leggings, then shake the thought away.
