The tape roll screeched as Yuki pulled on it and used her teeth to bite off a piece. Sliding the ring up her elbow so her hands were free, she connected a blue string from one post-it to another on the pale lilac of her bedroom wall. It crossed midway with a black thread taped to the same papers.
Blue string for Truths. Red string for Lies. Black for the unknown.
Every student in the fortune cookie club had their name on the bedroom wall above her bed. Yuki supposed it resembled a convoluted hit list to the uninitiated eye. Only Ethan's fortune and hers had ink telling their Truth and Lie but black strings brought Sophia and Rhett into their square of influence.
Someone knocked on her door and opened it. "Yuki, I brought you some fruit," her grandmother said. "Are you studying?"
"Yes, Nana," Yuki answered with a sigh. Twirling the masking tape roll around her finger, she walked to her desk where her grandma set a plate down. When Yuki looked at the apple on its porcelain surface, all the air left her lungs at once. She stopped moving.
"It took me a couple tries, but I think I finally got it perfect." Her grandma tapped the back of the apple swan, with several cut pieces fanning out to form wings and seeds pressed into the head for eyes. "Just like your mother used to do."
"Nana...you really didn't have to," Yuki whispered. She wanted to say thank you, but when she tried, the words lodged in her throat. She didn't want to remember. She wanted to be stronger than this, than her past. If she kept walking, kept moving forward, there had to be light at the end of the road.
"Ah, well it's pretty," her grandma said with a beaming smile as she dusted her hands off. "Let me see your test results."
Yuki fetched the paper for her SAT scores from her three-ring binder and handed it over. She knew it wasn't good enough, had beaten herself up already, yet she cringed at the sound of tongue clicking. Her grandma plucked the dreaded glasses of disapproval from their resting place on her short, curly grey hair and set them on her nose.
"Yuki, Yuki. Only 1400? You can do better than that. Your father scored 1570 on his first try..."
Checked out. Zoned out. Yuki couldn't listen anymore, so she just didn't. Yet she heard the words anyway, because they'd been drilled into her brain.
Her father, born poor, had attended Princeton University, become a successful businessman, and married rich as the icing on the cake. If she didn't follow in his footsteps, she was crazy. Ungrateful. Wasted potential. It didn't matter that his footsteps led to death and ruin.
"I'll do better, Nana. I'll make you and Papa proud," Yuki said, because it was what her grandmother wanted to hear. She always knew what words were desired of her, even if she didn't believe them to be true. "I have a history assignment to finish tonight."
With some parting words that went unheard, the door closed behind her grandma. The room fell into silence until with a sharp movement, Yuki knocked the apple swan off the plate and into the trash bin beside her desk. It landed with a thud and for a moment she saw her mother's kind eyes and her beautiful, steady hands making precision cuts with the fruit knife.
She shoved the image away, instead pulling out her old laptop to start researching the War of 1812 for Sophia's paper. No time existed for tears and memories, not when she had grades to attain, money to make, and a scholarship to win.
But she wondered, at the end of it all, would her grandparents be proud of her? When she looked in the mirror, would she recognize herself or would she see a lying girl who was the spitting image of a dead man?
Her phone chimed.
Flipping it open, she leaned back in her chair. "Moshi moshi."
"Night bird as always. No wonder you look dead tired in class."
"Rhett?" Yuki sat up. Her old phone had been smashed and burned. How— "How do you have my number?"
"Take a lucky guess." There was a bite to his words Yuki had never heard before but then it softened. "You wanna come over, Snowflake?"
Yuki bit her lip, eyeing the glowing screen of words that were already blurring together. But Sophia would wreak havoc on her social life if she didn't finish this assignment for her. "Would love to, but I've got homework."
"Bring it with you; I'll help with it. You can sleep in Minji's room. She's excited to see you again." But Rhett didn't say anything about him wanting to see her.
It hurt how much she wanted this, a sense of normalcy. The lie that her parents would pick her up after summer ended. The blissful reality that the worst part of life was not being with Rhett for an entire school year.
"Anything I can bring over?" she asked.
"You, yourself, and your appetite. Minji's experimenting with hotteok." A clatter sounded followed by an exclamation from Rhett. "Gotta go. See you soon!"
The line buzzed in Yuki's ear until she snapped her phone shut. Padding over in her house slippers to the sticky-noted wall, she eyed Rhett's blank paper and sighed. She had to be his Lie. Why else would he be so kind to her?
Unlike most of Zenith High's students, Rhett came from an upper middle class family. His father worked as an industrial engineer, a far cry from owning conglomerates or being distant relations of royalty. That scholarship would be a dream for him too, not necessarily because of the money, but the unspoken promise that Era would get the winner into the college they chose.
Yuki grabbed a duffel bag from under her bed and started tossing clothes inside. If she won the scholarship, her SAT scores wouldn't matter. She wouldn't have to worry about the "Asian tax" or how she could no longer list the sports she'd once excelled at on her applications. That acceptance letter arriving in the mail—the surprise on her grandparents' faces—it would be worth everything to her.
So for that, she was willing to risk getting hurt. Rhett could try to break her heart if he wanted to; she'd be a good sport about it.
Zipper closed, Yuki snapped the buttons shut over it and slung the blue bag over her shoulder, picking up her laptop as she passed the desk. Before the accident, she'd raced downstairs at a breakneck two steps at a time speed. Now she took it slow, careful to distribute the weight of her bag evenly by putting the straps over her shoulders like a backpack.
"Nana, I'm going to spend the night at the Tudors'," Yuki called into the kitchen. "Where's Papa?"
"He's already retired for the night." The spraying of the sink faucet shut off and her grandma walked over wiping her hands with a towel. "The Tudors invited you over? What about homework?"
"Rhett and I are going to do homework together. Mrs. Tudor always makes everyone go to bed at ten even on weekends, so don't worry, Nana. I won't stay up late." At her grandmother's insistent dabbing at her face with the towel to wipe some—what? nonexistent apple juice?—from her face, Yuki backpedaled to the door and kicked her slippers into a basket.
"You can go, just...don't tell them anything." Her grandmother glanced sadly at the wedding photo of Yuki's parents on fireplace mantle, while Yuki winced at the cracked glass. If only they'd replaced the evidence of her rage getting the better of her instead of leaving it as a reproach. In the beginning, she'd wanted to erase the past. Now she realized she couldn't, and that the better choice was to preserve it as if nothing had ever happened. It would be forever summer and her grandparents kept up their part in the charade without a hitch.
"Of course, Nana." Yuki kissed her grandmother's cheek, slipped on her shoes, and headed out the door.
The sun had just set, but she jogged to reach the bright Tudor house. This time, Rhett sang the duet from Tangled, Minji's favorite movie. His younger sister must be on a Disney princess binge again. The strumming of his guitar accompanied the lyrics.
Yuki waited beneath the window, catching her breath. When Rhett started up the chorus, singing Eugene's part, she joined in with the melody, their voices entwining in the night air. Then they reached the final line and his blonde head poked out between the drapes.
"Rapunzel, let down your hair!" Yuki laughed, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her grey hoodie to protect them from the chill.
"I think I'll need to buy some extensions," Rhett replied dryly, looking down at her.
The front door swung open like a hurricane blasted it open and a young girl came running out. Her long dark hair flew behind her as she skipped barefoot on the stone path up to Yuki. "Unnie, I made hotteok! Try it."
Yuki barely had time to open her mouth before Rhett's sister shoved a piece of what looked like a pancake in. "Hot" —fanning the food with her hand, Yuki attempted to nod her approval to Minji's rapid questions about the quality— "Hot, but good." The sugar melted on her tongue while the dough burned her lips.
"Hurry up and come in!" Minji tugged her inside by the hand, stickiness transferring over. "I'm so mad at you for not visiting but Rhett said you've been busy."
Yuki made sure to shut the door and stopped to remove her shoes at the entry.
"Minji, you'd better come flip this one!" Mr. Tudor's voice called.
While Minji raced off to tend to her cooking duties, Yuki tucked her shoes into one of the cloth baskets on the shoe shelf. A blue basket was empty so she placed her footwear inside, her finger skimming the faded name tag in its metal slot. Snowflake. She straightened and found Rhett watching her from the base of the stairs.
His eyes flicked to the basket, then back to her. "Been awhile."
Yuki probed her burned lip with her tongue. "Two years is hardly forever."
Rhett shook his head as if he disagreed. The ceiling lights made his hair glow in a soft halo. "I'll carry your bag up. Want to study in the library? I'll get us some drinks."
"Sure. Sounds good," Yuki said, surrendering her luggage. The Tudor house hadn't changed a bit, with warm golden lighting and simple white furniture. Even more than her grandparents' place, this felt like coming home. "And Baguette?"
Rhett paused, his glasses slightly askew. She resisted the urge to reach up and straighten them, instead being struck with sudden regret at how much he'd matured, him and Minji both. Even if she wanted it to be forever summer, time didn't stop for anyone.
Yuki smiled sadly. "Sorry I took so long."
Chapter Word Count: 1815