Page 55 of If You Could See the Sun
I’m not here to walk a runway; I’m here to complete a task and get my money.
Besides, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be invisible soon anyway.
“So. Where do you want to go?” Henry asks, his steps falling in line with mine. Our shoulders are just close enough to touch, which, I realize, isn’t something I should be noticing.
I shoot him a strange look. “Wherever Vanessa is. Whereelsewould we go?”
“We could grab dinner first... Maybe walk around a bit—”
“And possibly miss out on our target?” My voice rises an octave with incredulity. Henry’s always been annoyingly cavalier about all the Beijing Ghost tasks, but even for him, this seems a frivolous suggestion. “Or risk bumping into her before we gather our evidence? All for a—a meal? I don’t think so. Plus, I ate a granola bar before coming here. I’m good.”
He makes a small, exasperated noise with the back of his throat. Stops walking so abruptly I almost trip. “Alice.”
“What?”
But whatever he’s about to say is lost to the swell of orchestral music in the background. The screen above us flickers, and the brilliant wash of gold light is replaced by vivid hues of red and pink. Projected roses bloom over the giant screen’s corners, magnified to the size of the outdoor dining table we’ve stopped beside, and images start flashing over the center.
Couple selfies. Shots of a pretty girl in her late twenties clearly taken by someone who knows her on an intimate level: pictures of her posing at a beach, smiling from the opposite end of a dinner table, hugging a cat and teddy bear in the comfort of her kitchen.
Then snippets of text pop up on the screen as well, written in pretty, enlarged italics.
You’re beautiful...
I’ve lovedyou ever since
we met in high school...
Gasps and cheers arise from the many onlookers around us as they realize the same thing I do—
It’s a proposal.
“This seems very unnecessary,” I mutter as I scan the rapidly gathering crowd. People are running—actuallyrunning—to some distant spot outside a Guess store, where I can vaguely make out the shape of a man bending down on one knee. As cheesy as the proposal is, if Vanessa happens to already be here, she seems like the type who’d join the crowd. Maybe I could spot her from here, and follow her...
“I think it’s rather romantic,” Henry says lightly, while more roses threaten to take over the entire illuminated screen.
I whip my head back to stare at him. “If this is your idea of romance, I’m somewhat concerned for your future girlfriend.”
Girlfriend.
The word hangs in the cool evening air between us, and if I had the energy and resources and brainpower to invent a time machine just so I could go back and retract that one sentence, I would without hesitation.
Henry and I have spoken about plenty of things over the past few months. Exams. Criminal activity. Bribery. The Boxer Rebellion. How we both achieved the same perfect English test score in Year Ten but I received more praise.
But we’ve never touched upon the topic of relationships. Of romance.
It’s not as if I haven’tthoughtabout it in his presence, haven’t occasionally wondered about things I shouldn’t, dwelled a little too long on the shape of his lips, but to speak it aloud and acknowledge it feels like a kind of surrender.
It doesn’t help that Zhang Jie’s hit ballad “This Is Love” is now blasting at top volume from the speakers.
Or that Henry’s gazing intently down at me.
“Anyway,”I say, raising my voice over the music, praying he can’t distinguish the reddish glow of the screen from the heated redness of my cheeks. “I’m happy for the couple and all, but we should really, uh, focus on finding Vanessa...”
To both my disappointment and relief, Henry doesn’t say anything else as he follows me down toward the crowd. The girl must’ve accepted the proposal, because people are clapping wildly and wolf whistling, and off to the side of all the commotion is—
“Shit,” I hiss under my breath, grabbing Henry by the sleeve and dragging him behind a nearby pillar with me.
“What—” he starts to say, but I clamp my hand over his mouth, forcing him farther back against the stone, out of view, my own body pressed up to his. Close enough to feel the heat of his skin. The warm tickle of his breath on my cheek.
