Page 14 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
“Okay, okay, got it.” She grabs my arms and gently steers me away from the cabinet, speaking in the same soothing tone I’ve heard meditation instructors adopt. “Look, my darling, it isn’t the end of the world. People are only reacting this way because they’re surprised. Like, everyone was under the assumption that you two were getting along just fine, especially since you’re cocaptains and all, and now that there’s drama, they’re going to latch on to it. But it’ll blow over on its own in a couple days or so.”
“Are you sure?” I ask her, scanning the area. In the sea of schoolbags and binders and blue-and-white blazers, more curious gazes catch on mine, then slide over to the vandalized photo. My throat fills with humiliation.
“I’m very confident,” Abigail reassures me. But she blinks rapidly when she says it, the way she does when she’s lying.
The bakery is usually crowded after school.
I push through the doors and let the familiar scent of coconut and butter and sweet milk envelop me. It smells like home. Feels like it too. Our bakery is nestled right in the middle of town, next to the Korean barbecue place everyone goes to in the winter and the Asian grocery with its never-ending supply of Wang Wang gummy candies and fish sauce and braised beef instant noodles. A little farther out is the theater, where you can find the latest wuxia films and Chinese rom-coms and sci-fi films, and the dim sum restaurant that gives out free newspapers to the elderly, and the nail salon that’ll do your manicure for free if you’re suffering through a breakup.
All of it is as intimate to me as the path to my own house.
I drop my bag down by the counter and squeeze past the customers lined up with their trays of bread. Custard swirls, tuna buns, green tea mochi, jam doughnuts. Tiny cakes layered with diced strawberries and kiwi fruit and fresh-whipped cream. Normally I would wait until everyone was gone to sneak one of the leftover cupcakes from the shelves, but today I feel too sick to even contemplate eating.
“Catch!”
I spin around just in time to see the bright blur of color streaking toward me. By instinct, my hands shoot up and grab the basketball seconds before it can smash my nose.
“A warning would have been nice,” I grumble as Max walks up to me.
“Yeah, that’s why I saidcatch,” Max says, grabbing the basketball back only to spin it on one finger. His black, bristly hair is so shiny that at first I think he’s just showered but, upon closer inspection, is the result of a disgusting amount of hair gel.
“Aren’t you meant to be on campus right now?” I ask. Max has never shown much interest in our bakery, but he’s been visiting even less ever since he moved into his college dorm. Whenever he does choose to pop in, it’s because he claims to be too lazy to cook for himself. “Surely even you sports students have actual classes to attend.”
He shrugs. “Skipped them. The lectures were boring.”
“You can’t just— You can’tskipyour classes.”Not when your tuition costs almost as much as what the bakery makes in a year, I’m tempted to add, but don’t. My brother’s life is a simple, happy one, comprising just four things: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and basketball. It’s the life I want for him, the life I swore to myself I’d let him keep, even with our dad gone.
“Sure I can,” he says with an easy smile. “Everyone does it. And it’s enough having one perfect student in the family, yeah?”
My expression threatens to waver, my stomach coiling around itself. Here, in the warmth of the bakery, the email disaster doesn’t even seem totally real. I try to swallow, but it feels like swallowing a hard pill without water.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask him, sidestepping the subject. It’s a miracle my voice holds strong.
“She’s in the back.”
He bounds after me, humming some sort of video game soundtrack as I slip through the kitchen and find her inside. She’s leaning against the wall by the bins, using a broom to support herself like she doesn’t have the energy to carry her own weight, her complexion pale beneath the flickering fluorescent bulbs, the hollows under her eyes dark. My heart pinches. She looks exhausted, but that’s nothing new.
“Here, I can sweep this place up for you,” I tell her in the cheeriest voice I can muster.
She blinks. Shakes her head. “No, no. I’m okay. You focus on your schoolwork.”
“I don’t have much schoolwork,” I lie, even as my mind flips through all my tasks for tonight, my assignments due tomorrow, the articles I still need to write.
Mom hesitates, her bony hands tightening over the broom.
“Give it to me,” I say firmly, yanking the broom away from her. “I’ve got it.”
But Max elbows me. “Hold up. Didn’t you say you were going to help me practice my passes?”
He’s right. I did promise him that.
“I can practice with you while I clean up,” I say. “Just don’t knock anything over.”
“Are you certain you can handle it?” Mom asks, frowning at me. Neither of us even entertains the possibility of Max helping with the cleaning. The last time he did, he managed to knock over all the bins and spent hours picking pieces of eggshell off the ground. “Don’t you want to rest first or—”
“Mom, I promise, it’s no problem.” I laugh at her with such ease I almost believe myself and push her lightly toward the door. I can feel the ridges of her spine underneath my fingertips. There’s no meat, only bone and muscle, the results of labor.
As soon as she’s out of sight, I start sweeping on autopilot. Half the blisters on my palms and fingers are from gripping the pen too long. The other half are from this.
