THE FALLOUT FROM CALLUM'S PARTY was underwhelming, to be honest.
Riley was already awake when I woke up, scrolling through her phone. "How are you feeling?" I asked her.
She turned around in her bed, staring happily across the distance between our bunks. "Fine. I stuck to my ciders, didn't even get drunk."
"Good," I told her wryly. "I dealt with too many drunk people last night."
Riley laughed and arched an eyebrow, silently prompting me to tell her everything. So I did. From the first time I left the group to sit on the porch, to when I finally arrived back at Callum's flat after putting Quen to bed. She was completely absorbed in my tale. From her scandalised gasps and laughter, it appeared that she had never heard such eventful gossip about her hometown acquaintances.
When I checked my phone, I had three new message threads in my personal inbox.
The first was from Viv, who informed me first that she remembered nothing after her third game of beer pong and second that she didn't care. The only thing that mattered to her was that I had gotten her, Sophie and Riley home safely.
Vivian: I will live to party another day.
Krista: You're insane.
The second message was from Noah.
Noah: I apologise for the way I said it.
Noah: But not for what I said.
Just reading those curt words, I felt the familiar tendrils of anger climbing up my spine. Part of me was glad to see him bounce back to his usual arrogant self. It was disturbing watching him cry.
No matter how much I disliked him, it was incredibly disconcerting to see Noah so vulnerable and guardless. Like seeing a peeled watermelon or something, all mushy and lacking the hard shell I had become accustomed to.
Krista: Apology accepted. Take care.
Then I blocked his account.
Now that he'd officially shot his chances with me to smithereens, I was one-hundred percent sure he wouldn't even try to message me again. There was a finality about his tone—even through digitised words—that told me I didn't ever have to worry about being approached by him again.
Good riddance, scumbag.
The third message was from Quen.
Quen: Thank you for rescuing me last night.
Quen: Did I do anything weird last night?
Krista: How much do you remember?
Quen: Not much.
I knew firsthand not to take drunk people seriously.
My work experiences at Topaz, and personal experiences with drinking, taught me that being intoxicated didn't just make a person uninhibited—in many cases, they did things they never even usually thought about.
A part of me had hoped that I would get the opportunity to clear the air with Quen, and tell him that his friend was way out of line. And drop him. Perhaps this would be overstepping. But if he ceased being friends with Noah, I wouldn't shed any tears.
Looked like that wouldn't happen now. Noah was blocked already, so I guess the matter was over. I might still have broached the subject if Quen actually remembered what went on last night. But without his own memory and response, it would just feel like driving a wedge between Quen and Noah—his close friend, badminton partner and flatmate all in one—instead of Quen choosing to distance himself on his own.
I just had to move past it.
I put my head into my pillow and screamed in frustration.
"Young love," Riley sang amusedly, her voice way too chirpy for the morning-after. "I sure don't miss that."
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Three days later, I recounted the hectic events of that weekend—SciBall and Callum's party—to my older sister Olly.
"Hold on, but you didn't kiss?"
Despite all Mom's complaining about how she missed me and how she couldn't wait to see me, Olly was the only one who'd come to pick me up from the airport. My parents were working, Thomas was out of state and Kevin was—
Kevin.
I knew without a doubt he would rather watch YouTube than stand in my arrival party. Let's just say, he showed his affection in unconventional ways.
Olly and I slid out of Mom's car after she'd parked on the side of the street. I grunted with effort as I brought my suitcase out of the trunk and answered, "No, one of my friends interrupted."
I followed my sister as she walked into the lobby of the apartment building where we'd grown up.
"Aw, no," Olly whined sympathetically. She punched the elevator button once I'd hefted my suitcase clear of the threshold. "And you didn't kiss him at his apartment either?"
"He'd literally thrown up half an hour ago. And he was asleep."
"K-Dog!" Kevin shouted when Olly and I stepped through the front door.
He had his gaming headphones looped around his neck, while he prepared dinner in the kitchen. As soon as Mom and Dad came home, we could all, bar Tommy, sit down and eat together like when we were all crammed under one roof. I was so hungry I could hardly wait.
"K-Dog!" I shouted back. Kev didn't like to share photos of himself, so this was the first time I'd seen his face and hair in months. "You need to cut your hair. You're starting to look—"
"—like a K-Pop idol? Ravishing?" he asked seriously, flipping his shaggy locks. "Disastrously handsome?"
"Yeah. Sure. That's totally what I was going to say," I rolled my eyes. I stepped out of my sneakers and placed them on the shoe rack by the front door, sliding my feet into my worn plastic slippers. "When's Mom getting off work?"
"Four. She should be home soon," Olly answered me.
Olly shrugged her jacket off and hooked it over one of the chairs around the dinner table. Then she raised her eyebrows suggestively at me, eager to hear more of my romantic strife. Because of our large age gap, I'd grown up closer with my brothers.
We'd never had many chances for girl talk, but she seemed to want to make the most of the ones that arose now.
"We'll talk in your room?"
Kev perked up. "Ooh, what's this? Med school drama? Did you meet your McDreamy?"
"No, we're going to discuss how—now that Kris is home—our menstrual cycles would finally sync up and we can save time on buying pads," Olly smiled sweetly. "It's economical."
"Blergh," Kev mock-retched over the steaming, sizzling wok. "Why? Why, Olly? You haven't visited home for weeks and now you feel the need to torture me like that?"
"Yup," my big sister said unapologetically.
I shrugged at Kev's horrified expression before wheeling my suitcase into my childhood bedroom and shutting the door.
Olly leapt onto my bed with unrestrained interest and propped her chin on her hands. "So he hasn't made a move yet. That's fine. There's always next time. Because I think he really likes you. He might have been a bit short with you, but he probably just had to express his feelings honestly. And he did say you looked radiant at the ball. And you talked for a while on the porch, right? Alone."
Her words didn't connect properly in my head.
"What are you talking about?" I wondered, staring confusedly. Then, I realised whom Olly was describing. "Gross, that was Noah! I'd never go there with him." Even mentioning his name made me feel disgusted.
"Oh. Who's the boy you like then?"
"Quentin!"
"I thought that was the one hosting the party," Olly said quizzically.
"That's Callum. He's a giant manchild."
"Oops. Sorry, Kris. You've just never had so much drama in your life, it's a little hard to keep up with."
"It's not even drama," I pointed out. Then I flopped down on the mattress beside Olly. "I know we're just friends. But why can't he just profess his love for me with a hand-painted portrait like Wenghao did for you?"
Olly laughed aloud at that. Wenghao, my brother-in-law, was clueless and a little offbeat when it came to romance. His gestures were either too small or too large for my tastes. Somehow Olly saw through his uncomfortable attempts, to the heartfelt sentiment that lay behind it.
"This Quentin sounds much more mature than Wenghao was in senior year, whom I love dearly, of course." Olly sighed, "You guys were friends before anything else, which is a much better way to go. I think, when the time is right, you'll fall together on your own. No grand gestures necessary."
"Well, at this rate we're going to fall apart before we fall together. Quen said something weird at SciBall about the way I interact with people, and then his scummy friend attacked me the day after. I really hope my instincts are right about him. That he's a nice guy. And not a 'nice' guy."
"You just said the same thing."
"No, one's tokenistic," I reiterated.
My sister pursed her lips. "Right."
"What's that tone for?"
"Nothing. I just remember what it was like to be your age. Fretting about what was said and how it was said—worse, what wasn't said and how it wasn't said. Everything was a huge deal. It was all so exhausting."
"Ah, yes, I forgot you're now geriatric and have no concerns with relationship drama."
"I have relationship drama!" she insisted drily. "If Wenghao forgets to defrost, wash or buy what I asked him, things get very heated."
"Ugh. That sounds so domestic I don't know whether to be disgusted or jealous."
"Don't be either, Kris. You won't be able to be this anxious about a boy for much longer. Med school makes everything else pale in significance. It will numb you in ways you never knew possible." When she saw my stricken expression, Olly quickly added, "Glorious ways, of course."
"Sounds really exciting," I drawled sarcastically.
If I was honest, the process of applying to med schools didn't scare me. There was a huge chasm between studying Pre-Med and actually being admitted to a grad program, but I wasn't scared of not being able to clear the leap. I was afraid of making it to the other side and realising it was the wrong place for me and not being able to turn back.
"It is exciting! And you received an interview offer from Grossman—one of the top five, even."
"Yeah," I said lightly. "It's great that it's so close to Mom."
"Close?" Olly arched an eyebrow. "Not prestigious, highly-ranked, selective? Aiya, if I was half as smart as you when I was your age, I would have aimed for Harvard, John Hopkins—the best of the best. I can't believe you didn't apply to those."
"I'm not made of money. I leveraged the application fees against the schools I have the highest chances of getting into," I explained mechanically. "Prestige doesn't really matter to me. So long as I get into a program."
"And if you don't get into a program?" Olly asked carefully, at length. "Not to say that you wouldn't, of course."
I thought about her question for a minute.
It would be disappointing to be stranded without a path forward. But compared to the prospect of being locked into a more long-term commitment, I couldn't say that I would be too distressed. Was I supposed to feel so apathetic about all this?
"Then I find a way to break the news to Mom," I replied truthfully.
Rolling over on to my back, I glanced over at my desk. That was where I had pulled countless all-nighters studying for the SATs. There were random letters from the bank, old textbooks and refill pads that—in all three years I'd been away—I still hadn't found a neat place for, nor had the gall to throw out. It wasn't like I studied that much whenever I came home nowadays; most of my revision and assignment work was done through my laptop.
When I looked back towards the bed, Olly was staring at me with a fond, bemused expression. Like she knew something about me that I had yet to discover. I jerked my chin forward expectantly, about to tell her to spill her thoughts.
"吃饭了!" Kev's voice came from the kitchen.
I listened intently for sounds outside my bedroom, and realised Mom and Dad must have come home from work together. Usually they drove back separately, at their own pace, but Olly had taken Mom's car to pick me up—my sister, being a central city slicker, only used public transport now.
She and I chorused, "来了!"
I opened my bedroom door, ready to greet my parents and tell them all about how college was going. They loved to hear about my good grades, my progress in the med school application process and lies about how Viv and Riley were doing.
Mom thought they were studious, intelligent—which was correct—good influences for her daughter—which was incorrect. If anything, I was the redeeming nerd in our friend group. The mom friend.
"Don't mention Quen at the dinner table," I warned Olly with a murderous tone. "Mom hears one whisper of a tall, Chinese engineer-to-be and she'll start sending out wedding invitations."
My sister scoffed, clearly thinking I was an amateur. "Ha! I know better than that, love."
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A / N :
I'm honestly impressed I've come up with this many plot points that are non-romantic and non-vomiting. I wanted to write a story about people falling in love without kissing or touching, just based on their personalities. And now the friendship dynamics between each character are getting very complicated, so yay(!)
Do we have a favourite character?
Can be as main or as side as you like. I'm a big fan of the Jays!
Could even be Mao Mao, the cat - whose name translates to Cat Cat, btw. Fun fact!
See you in the next chapter,
Aimee x