Page 26 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
“It appears so.”
“Well, it definitely didn’t fall frommypocket,” I can’t help emphasizing.
“How about we just agree it was lost in transit?” Cyrus says, which is about as diplomatic as we’re getting, even if I’m still certain he’s wrong. He slides the key smoothly into the lock and sunlight bursts through the door. The open air is perfect, layered with flavors I hadn’t noticed before we entered the teahouse, like the crisp aroma of bamboo leaves and the damp scent of the soil.
Wang Laoshi is waiting for us outside. My heart falls. We must be so far behind that everyone has already left.
“We’re last?” I ask.
Wang Laoshi shakes his head. “No, you’re first.”
“Wait. Seriously?” As a rule, I don’t like to gape—it’s never a graceful look. But I’m pretty sure I’m gaping at him now.
“Of course. I’m always serious,” Wang Laoshi says with a stern frown, which is the best kind of confirmation he could offer. “I’ll be letting Dr. Linda Shen know you’re today’s winners. I’m sure she’ll be pleased—she was the one who chose the teahouse for this activity.”
Now that I think about it, Idorecall my mother mentioning how much my aunt loves her tea.
“See? I told you,” Cyrus says, nudging me with his elbow and forcing my attention back to him. “Even if one of us lost the key and caused some unexpected delays—”
“You,” I cut in. I mean to say it with vehemence, but my anger evaporates before it can boil, the euphoria of our victory plating everything in rose gold. It’s been so, so long since I last won anything. Since I didn’t feel like I was struggling alone at the very bottom. “You lost the key.”
“We would’ve been way ahead of the others with the clues,” Cyrus goes on, grinning at me. “What can I say? We make a good team.”
I’m not totally convinced that we make agoodteam—I just feel like good teamwork shouldn’t involve such frequent thoughts of murder—but with our first win secured, everything is working out according to plan. And if I’m being fair, I have to give Cyrus credit for getting us here.
So I bite down on my tongue and nod. I can put up with this a little longer if it means getting my revenge and getting into my aunt’s good graces, I tell myself. I can.
After all, I’ve put up with more in the past for less.
That night, while Daisy’s showering, I curl up in my blankets and call my parents.
“Hello? Baobei?”
The sound of my mom’s voice sends an unexpected wave of homesickness crashing through me. It’s still morning on her end, and I can hear something sizzling in the background; footsteps on hardwood; the lovely, ordinary rhythm of life back home. I imagine my father in the kitchen, flipping an omelet because my mom always makes it too runny, and the homesickness crashes in harder, sweeping the shores of my ribs.
“Hi, Mom,” I say softly.
“Howiseverything?” she asks. “Your dad’s cooking breakfast right now. I asked him not to—I bet he’s going to burn the omelet again—but he’s been going on and on about how much he misses you. He wanted to call you yesterday, but I told him you’d be busy with all the activities you’re doing.”
“I really miss you guys too. And everything’s … good,” I say, surprised to find that it’s not a total lie. The curtains are still open a sliver, and through them, Shanghai is glowing, all its magnificent buildings bathed in an array of lights. It’s the kind of sight you could never get sick of, even if you stared at it every night. “I’ve been learning a lot. I actually won the first activity today—it was, like, this escape room thing in a teahouse—and I got this really pretty tea set for you and Dad. I’ll show you when I get back.”
“You won atea set?” From the sheer pride and enthusiasm in my mom’s voice, you’d think I’d won a whole mansion with cash stuffed into every room and our family name trimmed into the two-hundred-acre front lawn. “That’s amazing. How’s everything else? Did you make any new friends?”
It’s an old question, a familiar one.
Did you make any new friends?she’d asked eagerly that first afternoon after I transferred schools. I’d kept quiet, my lips quivering from the sheer effort of holding back my tears, and waited until she pulled the car away from the curb before my composure cracked.Nobody spoke to me the entire day, I sobbed.I—I don’t know why. Even when I tried to be friendly and ask questions, they just … ignored me. All of them.
Maybe it’s because you joined in the middle of the semester, my mom had tried to comfort me.They’re just getting used to you.
Maybe, I’d allowed, but I knew somehow that it wasn’t so simple.
Did you make any new friends?she’d asked when she picked me up from school the next week, still hopeful. By then, the rumors had reached me. The real reason why nobody wanted to sit next to me in class. To them, I was the girl who’d pushed someone off the stairs at my old school, the freak who’d been expelled for exhibiting violent, unstable behavior, the outcast who’d lashed out at one of the most popular, beloved boys.
During those days, it felt like I would die before the rumors did.
Did you make any new friends?my mom had asked again after I moved to my current school. It had felt strange to call Cate Addison a friend, as if I were imposing, even though we did everything friends ought to: We ate lunch together, shopped together, saved each other’s numbers and made plans for the weekends. But I was too relieved to have someone to eat lunch with, someone who would smile back at me when I greeted them.I did, I’d told my mother, and her relief was even more palpable than mine.See? I knew all you needed was a fresh start, she’d gushed, squeezing my hand.You deserve one.
Now I glance over in the direction of the bathroom, which Daisy had rushed into after I offered to let her go first, promising she’d be done as soon as she could and apologizing three times for making me wait while I reassured her, laughing, just as many times that it was fine. The shower is running loudly enough to cover my next words, so I say, “There’s this girl who’s really nice. Everyone’s been pretty nice to me, actually.”
