Page 38 of This Time It's Real
“Intensive exercise,” I correct.As well as embarrassing myself in front of a group of strangers. No matter how tiny they are.
“You call ti jianzi intensive exercise?” Caz shakes his head like I’ve just told a bad joke. “Eliza, I’ve seen eighty-year-olds kick shuttlecocks with minimal difficulty. I think you’ll be fine.”
Emily nods vigorously and turns her dark, pleading eyes on me. I’ve always hated those puppy-dog eyes. Hated them, because they’re so effective. Because they always make me say and do things I know I’ll regret—
Like saying yes to her game of ti jianzi.
A brief, stunned silence falls over the girls as Caz and I make our way toward their circle, though I suspect the silence is directed more at him. I imagine seeing him from their perspective, this famous actor who has appeared without warning like someone from a dream: tall and easy mannered and effortlessly handsome.And he is smiling at only Emily, barely acknowledging the others, saying, “Thanks for inviting me over, Em,” with a wink like they’re best friends.
Whatever his reasons, an unexpected gust of warmth fills my chest seeing them together like this, blows all the locked doors and windows inside me wide open.
But apprehension soon comes creeping in on its heels. Interacting with siblings is murky territory. No matter how hard I try to control our arrangement, to keep it strictly scheduled and organized and professional, things like this pop up and threaten to tangle everything irrevocably.
“You go first,” the girl with the polka-dot headband instructs Caz, her eyes hard, hands firm on her hips. She has the high, ringing voice of someone who is used to having her way, but when Caz raises a cool eyebrow at her, she wilts. Mumbles, “Or—or whatever works best.”
“I can go, Meredith,” Emily says cheerily. The leader, Meredith, frowns, but she doesn’t protest. Not with Caz and me standing here, disrupting the power dynamics.
Emily picks up the shuttlecock and kicks it high into the air, with a sound like rattling coins. The girl beside her catches the object on its way down using the toe of her sneaker, then bounces it over to Meredith, who passes it quickly, roughly, to Caz—who retrieves it with ease.
He bounces the shuttlecock back and forth between two feet, even hits it with the top of his head, which draws in bursts of loud, enthusiastic applause.
And he looks . . . Well, he looks ridiculous. This isn’t exactly a graceful, dignified game, and even Caz can’t quite manage to make ti jianzi look the way horse riding or archery or boxing does. But he’s good at it, insanely coordinated, confident despite the inherent ridiculousness of this game, and that’s more than enough to impress.
He’ssogood, in fact, that soon he’s drawn a substantial crowd.
I try to keep my attention on the shuttlecock, but my skin tingles with the new, uncomfortable awareness. There are far too many pairs of eyes trained on us. On me. Sweat beads above my brow.
“Go, Caz!” someone cheers from the sidelines, joined by some unnecessarily loud whoops and whistles, as if this is the final round of the Olympics.
Caz just smiles his superstar smile and continues passing the shuttlecock around without any hint of self-consciousness, at ease in all the attention.
But when the shuttlecock comes flying toward me, I fumble and drop it. And then I hear it: a low but audible snort from one of the watchers. There are too many people around to tell where it came from, but it doesn’t matter. My whole face burns as if struck by a match.
Shakily, I pick the shuttlecock up again and attempt to kick, but it flops pathetically to the side, and Emily has to retrieve it instead. This time, the snort isn’t even muffled. Nor their voice, dripping with obvious disbelief:
“That’sthe girl who’s dating Caz Song?”
It feels like someone’s reached into my stomach and squeezed my insides into a ball. This sort of first-degree humiliation is exactly what I wanted to avoid. And even though it’s irrational and petty, I feel an abrupt stab of anger toward Caz. Caz, who’s still smiling, playing to the audience, the sun’s molten-gold light falling around him like a halo.
Of courseheenjoys doing things on a whim. Nothing is ever embarrassing forhim.
“I—I’m going to rest for a bit,” I call out, stepping back into the shade, my blood pounding hot and thick. Everyone is staring. “You guys keep playing without me.”
Caz shoots me a quick look like,Are you sure?Emily and her friends don’t even glance up.
“Really. It’s fine,” I say.
But they’ve already started up again anyway.
“I like him.”
It’s later that afternoon, and Emily and I are balanced on the low metal railings outside the school library, feet dangling inches off the ground, while we wait for Li Shushu to pick us up. Our bags have been dropped on the lawn, bloated and brimming with textbooks, dirty Tupperware, laptop chargers, and more useless yet mandatory things.
My shoulders hurt.
I massage them with one hand, slide back on the poles, look ahead. Cars have already started pulling into the outside parking lot, tinted glass and polished metal gleaming, fumes rising off the pavement in waves, like heat.
“Who?” I finally ask, though I can guess.
