Page 17 of This Time It's Real
I don’t notice how deep I’ve wandered down this particular rabbit hole until I find myself watching a twenty-minute, fan-edited video compilation of Caz Song drinking water.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter to myself, promptly slamming my laptop shut. “I’m being ridiculous.”
For a while, I just sit there in my own silence, listening to the apartment breathing around me. The birds singing in the night’s distance. The dull tangle of piano chords drifting from some floors down below, by some neighbor I know of but have never met before.
Then I grab my phone. Read over the email I’ve pretty much etched into my brain by now.
I had the tremendous pleasure of reading your viral essay “Love and Other Small, Sacred Things” last night, and I found myself extremely moved . . .
And resolve hardens inside me. I open my laptop again and pull up a blank PowerPoint, suddenly grateful for all the times Ma asked me to look over her work before delivering a presentation to her company. This shouldn’t be too different from that.
In big, bold letters, I type out the first slide:A Strategic, Mutually Beneficial and Romantically Oriented Alliance to Help Further Our Respective Careers.
CHAPTER FIVE
The one major downside of my plan, I quickly realize, is having to speak to Caz Song alone.
Because Caz is never alone. Like,never.
Early in the morning, I find him surrounded by at least half our year level at the lockers, all of them seemingly fascinated by the way he takes his books out of his bag. Then, during class, people keep sliding into the seat next to him and going up to him for help, despite the fact that he’s far from the best student. Even his walks to the school cafeteria are somehow a big group activity, with at least ten people trailing after him, offering to buy him lunch or describe today’s specials.
By the end of fifth-period PE class, I’m starting to feel restless.
Desperate.
So when everyone’s released early to go change, all stinking of fresh sweat and ancient gym equipment, I throw on my uniform as fast as I can, pack my stuff, and wait outside the boys’ locker rooms.
A few guys come out first, hair still dripping wet from the showers (I’ve never understood how guys can actually shower at school), and start at the sight of me. I give them an awkward wave.
“Nothing to see here,” I call cheerily, stepping aside to let them through. “Just chilling . . .”
To my immense relief, Caz is the next person to emerge. His hair is more damp than wet, falling in messy ink-black strands over his face, and for a moment I remember the way he’d looked on my TV screen last night. The way he’d touched that other girl’s cheek.
“Hi,” I say. My voice comes out higher and louder than I intended, bouncing off the dull tiled walls around us.
He pauses. Stares at me. “Oh, look,” he says finally, his mouth curving into something too muted to qualify as a smile. “It’s my nonfan.”
I suppress a wince and try to go on as if I haven’t heard him. “Do you—do you have a minute?”
My pulse speeds up. I’ve never done this before, never approached a boy out of nowhere, let alone a celebrity. We’re standing so close that I can smell his shampoo—a fresh, mildly sweet scent that reminds me of summer. Green apple, maybe.
Caz shrugs, looking somewhat bemused. “Yeah, sure, I guess.”
“Perfect.”
Without another word, I grab his wrist and drag him into the nearest empty room—
Which happens to be a janitor’s closet. Great.
“Uh,” Caz says as I shut the door behind us. The sharp stench of bleach and damp cloth instantly rises to my nose, and I’m acutely aware that there’s a dirty mop propped up inches away from my hair. “Why are we standing in a janitor’s closet?”
“That’s an excellent question.”
I yank open my schoolbag and fish around for my laptop before setting it up on a shelf of hand sanitizer. To be honest, I’d really been imagining this playing out a different way; there’d be a projector, for one, to bring out the high-res visuals of my slideshow, and enough space for me to make elaborate hand gestures without knocking over a giant mountain of toilet paper.
But whatever. I can be flexible.
“So. I have an idea,” I tell Caz as formally as possible while I wait for my PowerPoint to load. “And it’s going to sound a little . . .outlandish, maybe, but I promise it’ll be good. For both of us. Life-changing, even.”
