Page 48 of This Time It's Real
I release a long breath. Refocus. Touch the frayed friendship bracelet on my wrist. “I’m fine,” I tell her, and my voice cooperates, steadies itself before things can escalate.
“Well, if you’re sure . . .”
“I am.”
“I really—I didn’t mean to assume,” she says, her voice smaller as she draws the phone closer to her face. “I’m really sorry. I just realized how shitty that sounded—I genuinely didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
I crack open another egg, but I apply too much pressure; the shell collapses between my fingers with a soft crunch, little shards of it falling into the bowl.Crap.“Um, don’t worry about it,” I say, distracted, frustration rising inside me. “I need to just . . . just do this thing . . .” With a spoon, I try to scoop all the shell bits back out, but the process takes forever, and requires far too much concentration for me to continue the conversation.
“Can I call you later?” I say at last, biting back a grimace.
“What time?”
After school, I start to tell her, but then I remember the time difference issue. “Like, this time tomorrow?”
“Can’t. I have a meeting with Divya and the other student council kids.”
“Thursday?”
Some shuffling on her end, like she’s looking through a planner. “No. No, sorry. There’s this really important chem test . . . Um, what about Friday morning my time?”
“I have a call set up with Sarah—you know, from Craneswift.”
“Right.”
“Okay, then . . .” I pause and set the spoon down. Suddenly, I can’t remember what we used to do, how we’d go about planning these calls. Yet I’m almost certain that it never used to be this hard.“Then . . . bye for now?”
“Mhm. Bye.”
And then she’s gone, leaving me with a blank phone screen and my eggshell batter and the faint, nagging feeling that something’s gone wrong—and not just my baking. But I don’t have time to psychoanalyze it.
As the sun creeps slowly over the kitchen window, I mix and stir and pour as if my life depends on it until I’ve made a hideous but distinctly less orange cake. I pack it into one of those plastic restaurant takeout containers Ma always insists on saving.
I guess it’s the thought that counts.
I decide to give Caz his presents before lunch.
He’s recently started shooting some big-budget xianxia drama based on a super-popular web novel, so he doesn’t show up at school in the mornings anymore—making this the earliest possible time I can get it all over with. I’ll hand him the gifts and forget about it for the rest of the day.
But as I draw closer to Caz’s locker, the jar of paper cranes in my hands, the candles and birthday cake tucked deep in my schoolbag, I feel two things snake past the sharp of my ribs.
Hope.
Dumb, dangerous hope.
And dread.
It should be physically impossible for them to coexist inside me—this silly lightness in my chest, buoying me up, and this heavy sinking sensation in my gut. But now, in broad daylight, with Caz standing right there, as unfortunately beautiful as ever, I’m forced to admit that what I wrote on those paper cranes wasn’t just my exhaustion talking.
I might actually be crushing on Caz Song. Like a total sucker.
Even though our arrangement is already messy enough. Even though this makes yet another starry-eyed, rosy-cheeked fangirl with her heart on her sleeve.
As if to prove my point, in that very moment, Caz’s usual gang of friends come spilling through the locker area and swarm around him.
“Happy birthday, my man,” Daiki calls, slapping Caz’s shoulder while the others echo the sentiment with loud whoops, and Savannah, grinning widely, pulls out one of the most beautiful cakes I’ve ever seen.
My heart sinks.
