Disappointment crossed her face. “Yeah, I guess.”
Aisha whooshed into the classroom, leaving me alone in the corridor. I let my head fall against the wall and stayed there until a cough made me look up. Mr. Francis, the world history teacher, had arrived and was frowning at me.
“Everything okay, Delilah?”
“Yeah.” I skulked into the classroom. Aisha sat sullenly in her seat. I sank into mine and willed myself to become invisible, to melt into the air, to stop existing. I gripped my pencil so tight, my hand went numb, and still I couldn’t make my heart slow down, couldn’t stop the hole from opening up and swallowing me.
The rest of the day was more of the same. Everybody had seen me sitting with Logan and his posse. There were a few curious smiles thrown my way, one or two people—kids who would never otherwise give me a second glance—came up to me and said hi, tried to dig out more information about how I snagged Logan when he’d been so unattainable. There were even more sharp glances, lips curled into a sneer, snatched whispers like, “Why would he choose her?” Every stare, every quiet comment, weighed heavily on my shoulders, until I found myself hunching once more, my hands cupping my elbows. The way I used to when Brandon was around.
The realization sliced through everything. The air around me thrummed. I’d gotten rid of Brandon just to replace him with Logan. And the rest of my time in high school would be spent playing by Logan’s rules, having to sit with his friends at lunch instead of Aisha, asking in a very sweet, very sad voice, could I please sit with Aisha today, him smiling indulgently at me. We’d go to school dances as a couple, and he’d decide that we should dance, and all the while what I had done would hang over me.
A hot kernel sat deep in my gut, getting hotter by the second, until my entire being was filled with its heat. I had to fight back. I’d call him out on his bluff. If he claimed to love me as much as he did, he wouldn’t want me behind bars. Probably not, anyway. It was worth a try.
My resolve lasted throughout my shift at the library, where I channeled some of my frustration into packaging orders.
“Wow, someone’s being really productive today,” Lisa said, from behind her laptop. She had a state-of-the-art computer from the school to keep up with the cataloging, but she chose to use her clunky laptop to keep all her records.
I made a noncommittal grunt and continued wrapping packages with a vengeance. There was a knock at the door, and my head snapped up. Lisa and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. Nobody ever came down here.
“Hello?” came a voice. Even though it was muffled, every hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. “I’m looking for Delilah? I was told she’d be down here.”
Oh. My. Fucking. God. It was Logan.
“Why are you taking visitors down here?” Lisa snapped, her cheeks red.
I could kill him. Thank god the door was locked.
“I’m not. Sorry,” I whispered to Lisa. “I’ll get rid of him.”
I swept my table clean and then unlocked the door and slipped out, closing it tight behind me.
“Ready to go?” he said, flashing me his trademark sweetheart smile. The smile that stole hearts. I wanted to scratch it off his face. “Your shift was over fifteen minutes ago. I was waiting outside, but—”
“Don’t you ever come to my workplace again,” I hissed.
He looked surprised but recovered himself and nodded. “I’m sorry, Dee. I guess I got impatient. I just wanted to see you so badly. Anyway, are you done? Should we go?”
“I’m taking the bus home,” I said.
“No, you’re not,” he said easily. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”
I inhaled, ready to roar at him, shove him back, tell him to get the hell out of my life, when the door swung open and Lisa walked out. She cocked her head to one side when she spotted me and Logan.
“What are you kids still doing here?” she chirped in her tiny, sweet librarian voice. My heart thudded at how angry she must be right now, though she was hiding it very well.
“I came to pick Delilah up,” Logan said.
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend!” she said. “That is so cute.”
I have her a weak smile.
“Delilah’s told me so much about her job and how great it is working for you.”
“She has?” Lisa’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline.
I shook my head quickly. “He’s exaggerating.” I imagined stabbing Logan right in the head. How dare he come here, and talk to my employer, and invade the only space that’s mine, and—
Lisa laughed. “Okay, sorry to cut this short, but I have to rush off. You kids have fun!” she said before walking off, her skirt swishing in time with her ponytail. Only I caught the glimpse of coldness in her eyes, and the sight of it twisted like a knife in my guts.
“Let’s go,” I growled and headed out of the library without waiting for him.
I refused to look at him throughout the car ride. I stared straight ahead, ignoring all of his attempts at making conversation. I’d show him what a miserable asshole I could be when I put my mind to it. I frowned when he pulled up in front of a supermarket but refused to give him the satisfaction of asking what we were doing here.
“Come on, we’ve got a bit of shopping to do,” he said.
I closed my eyes for a moment, drawing from that kernel of rage, letting my anger get good and hot, then turned to face him. “Cut the crap, Logan. I’m not playing your game anymore.”
His eyebrows knitted together. “But Dee—”
“I’m not. It’s over. You can go to the cops or whatever. I’d rather be in prison than do this with you.” The last two words were spat out, dripping with revulsion. I leaned back, every inch of my skin prickling, battle drums throbbing through my veins.
Logan blinked and ran his fingers through his hair. “I mean… I don’t know what to say. I thought things were going so well. You got along really well with the girls, and—”
“I don’t have a problem with ‘the girls.’ I have a problem with you!”
Logan shook his head, his face a mask of sadness. “I’m really sorry you feel that way, Dee. Fine. All right.”
I could have leapt up, punched my way through the car roof and clouds and through the atmosphere. I called him out on his bluff and it worked! I was going to be free of this nightmare.
There was a click—Logan had unbuckled his seat belt. I watched for a second, bemused, as he got out of the car and walked across the parking lot toward the supermarket. He stopped at the old pay phone out front, took out his wallet—
I scrambled to unlock my seat belt, shot out of the car—too slow, too fucking slow. Images flashed through my mind as I ran—the red and blue flashes of cop cars screeching into the parking lot, everybody watching, phones flashing as I got cuffed and pushed inside a cop car, me in an orange jumpsuit, Mom sobbing, “Why, Dee, why did you do it?”
His fingers moved across the buttons, pushed three numbers. He glanced up, saw me running, and smiled apologetically.
I reached him just as he said, “Yes, I’d like to report a murder. The murder of Detective Brandon Jackson.”
I grabbed his arm, tried to wrench the phone out of his hand, but he was a lacrosse player, and I might as well be made of marshmallow. Weak, soft. I couldn’t budge him. I could only whisper, “Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, please hang up now, please please please.” A couple of shoppers came out of the store, glanced at us, and kept going.
Logan watched me in silence for a moment, while the operator said something.
Just as I thought my heart would tear itself out of my rib cage, Logan smiled, showing a flash of beautifully straight teeth, and said, “Oops, sorry, I was mistaken. Thanks for your time!” and hung up.
For the next few moments, there was no sound but the roar of blood in my ears, my heart pound
ing, pounding, a mad beast. Then, his eyes wide with sincerity, Logan took my hand and squeezed it.
“I’m sorry I had to do that, Dee, but I need you to know I’m serious about this. I’m serious about us.”
All I could do was gape at him. Everything had blurred into fuzz behind him—the shoppers streaming in and out, the cars driving past, the sounds and the smells, it all felt unreal. Logan was the only thing that was clear-edged and sharp, and though he spoke quietly, his words were so solid that they were almost physical.
“I want you to give us a chance. A real chance,” he continued. “Come on, Dee, we deserve this, you know? We’re going to be so, so good, I swear.”
Every cell in my body writhed with revulsion. He was delusional, completely and utterly. I wanted to spit in his face and tell him to go to hell. But I couldn’t do it to Mom, it would destroy her.
Patience.
Pa was always telling me to be patient, to work my way out of problems slowly, patiently.
I saw myself at NUS, walking across campus in the sticky tropical heat, surrounded by students speaking Singlish. A place where no one knew who I was, the bodies I’d left behind, the secrets I’d buried. There was hope. I had to suck it up and pretend to be Logan’s girlfriend for the rest of high school. That wasn’t so bad. I was planning on applying to NUS, anyway. That meant I’d only have to keep up this charade for another year or so, and then I’d be out of here. It was a familiar goal, one I’d kept turning to whenever Brandon’s fists found their way onto my body. It felt like returning to an old friend. College, where I would finally be free.
I closed my eyes and said, “All right. Fine.”
I could do this. I could be patient for a year in exchange for a lifetime of freedom.
Chapter Twelve
Logan
Joy has a particular flavor to it—liquid gold, like honey champagne. It bubbled through my veins when Delilah finally saw sense in what I was proposing and agreed to give us a go. I wanted to pull her close and kiss her, but no, I’d already promised I wouldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do, and I was a man of my word.
“This calls for a celebration,” I said.
“No parties,” Delilah said, rather snappishly, I thought, but I let it slide.
“I wasn’t going to suggest a party.” She wasn’t ready to go to parties with me, which was fine. Parties were so impersonal. “I’m going to cook for you and your mom.”
She goggled at me. “Why?”
“Would you rather we go to Freddy’s instead?”
Freddy’s was the local diner. It used to be your typical diner—metal and faux leather booths, greasy burgers and soggy fries, ’50s music. But it was recently bought by some wealthy hipster and now it was all gentrified. The booths were ripped out and switched to boxy wooden chairs, the walls were bare brick, the menu was written on a giant chalkboard behind the bar, and the drinks came in mason jars. The place became an overnight sensation. Every other Draycott kid had been in there and taken a selfie under the naked light bulbs and hashtagged the pictures with #freddysdraycott. We were bound to run into people we knew.
Delilah gave me a death glare. “No, I would not.” She took a deep breath and unclenched her fists. “Fine, you can cook for me and my mom. But you are leaving right after dinner. I have a ton of homework.”
“Deal,” I said and held out my hand for her.
She glared at it like it was a poisonous snake waiting to strike. I cocked my head to one side and raised an eyebrow. She shuddered as she put her hand on top of mine, which made me laugh again. Who would have known Delilah would have such a taste for theatrics? Honestly, I would probably be slightly disappointed if she wasn’t fighting me so hard. I loved scrappy, feisty Delilah.
“You know, if you supposedly care for me, you shouldn’t enjoy my suffering,” she said as we walked inside the store.
“I’m not. I’m just laughing at how stubborn you are.”
Delilah snatched her hand out of mine and grabbed a basket before I could comment. “Sorry, can’t hold hands because basket,” she said, waving it around with both hands.
“I’ll carry that.” I caught one of the handles and held tight when she predictably tried to yank it back.
“Fine.” She reached for another basket, but I stopped her.
“We only need one.”
We stood there glaring at each other, neither one of us willing to let go of the basket, until someone cleared his throat. It was an elderly man.
“You kids mind getting out of the way?” he asked.
Delilah flushed and stepped back, and I took the chance to claim the basket. When I offered her my free hand, she took it without comment. Thus began the most delightfully infuriating grocery shopping I had ever done.
“What are you going to make for me and my mom tonight?”
I grinned at her. “My signature pasta dish.”
“I hate pasta.”
Oh, Delilah. “Oookay. I’ll make my famous spicy garlic pork instead, then.”
“I hate pork,” she snapped.
“I can make it with chicken.”
“I hate chicken.”
I almost laughed out loud then. God, she was so feisty. “What do you not hate?”
“Food that isn’t cooked by my stalker.”
“Pasta it is.”
She scowled but didn’t say anything.
Despite Delilah’s insistence on being contrarian, I noticed after the first couple of aisles, we fell into an easy step with each other. Her hand was no longer curled up tight in mine, as if to ensure minimal skin contact. Instead, it hung nicely loose, like holding each other’s hands was the most natural thing in the world. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop the huge grin from taking over my face.
I paused at the cookie aisle. “One of my vices,” I said.
She shrugged and scanned the shelves. I pointed at a box of chocolate-flavored rabbit cookies.
“Ever tried these?” I asked.
A long-suffering sigh. “No.”
“You’re going to love them.” I popped a box in our basket. Our basket! “I started eating these because of Jade Rabbit.”
Delilah actually sneered at me, which made me love her even more. “What’s that, like some Asian fetish version of Jessica Rabbit?”
“What? No!” My eyebrows were up. “You’ve really never heard of Jade Rabbit?”
Another shrug.
“Jade Rabbit is—was—China’s moon rover. It was launched in…um, twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen or something, and it was supposed to explore the moon. They named it after Chang’e’s pet rabbit.”
Delilah stopped scowling. “I grew up listening to stories about Chang’e,” she said, and for the first time, her voice didn’t have any barbs.
“You’ll have to tell me about Chang’e sometime. Jade Rabbit landed successfully and everything seemed fine, but then it turns out it couldn’t go into its dormant state, which it needed to do to survive the super-cold lunar nights. Its machines started to break down, and China could no longer control its movements. Basically, Jade Rabbit was slowly freezing to death. But the worst and best part was that Jade Rabbit started tweeting about its oncoming demise,” I said.
“The rover tweeted?” Delilah arched her eyebrows.
“Well, some people in charge of Jade Rabbit’s social media accounts tweeted. But the tweets were amazing. I actually saved them, just ’cause I loved them so much. Hang on…” I took my phone out and located them. I cleared my throat. “‘Although I should’ve gone to bed this morning, my masters discovered something abnormal with my mechanical control system. My masters are staying up all night working for a solution. I heard their eyes are looking more like my red rabbit eyes. Nevertheless, I’m aware that I might not survive this lunar night.’”
Deli
lah looked the way I felt when I first read Jade Rabbit’s message, like she was being pulled between laughter and tears.
“Just like any other hero, I’ve only encountered a little problem while on my own adventure. Good night, planet Earth. Good night, humanity.” My voice trembled a little at the end, but I could be forgiven for that; no one could possibly read Jade Rabbit’s dying message the whole way through without getting a little wobbly.
Delilah looked at me like she was finding a whole new way of thinking of me, because none of the old ways worked, and she had to shift her whole perspective. Something jumped in my stomach, sending warmth shooting through my chest. She must’ve seen it, she must have felt it in my voice, in my story; the beauty of us.
“Dee—”
“That was the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard,” she said flatly, grabbing a box of Goldfish crackers.
I shook my head, and god, I loved what an asshole Delilah could be. I couldn’t wait to laugh about this with her months down the road. I’d pull her close and remind her what an absolute brat she was to me in the early days and she’d grin and tell me it was worth it, and then our lips would meet in a kiss as hungry and sweet as the kiss we had after our first date.
Back in the car, Delilah retreated once more into a shell. I didn’t push her. We had all the time in the world, and the silence wasn’t entirely uncompanionable. When I pulled up in front of her house, she started to open her door then stopped with a sharp intake of breath. She stared out the windshield, her mouth slightly open, her face pale.
“What is it?” I asked.
She pointed to a car parked on the curb across the street. “That’s Mendez’s car. Brandon’s ex-partner,” she added when I didn’t reply.
“I take it she doesn’t often drop by unannounced?”
Delilah clenched her jaw. “Not before he died. Now she likes to drop by with doughnuts and all these questions about Brandon—” She swallowed and looked at me, her eyebrows knitted together. “What if she suspects something about Brandon’s death? He was always complaining about how she could never leave things alone. What if she’s been digging and she knows—”
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