by Gloria Chao
I hugged a pillow to my chest. “My parents disowned me.”
“What does that mean? Aren’t you eighteen?”
“Well, no, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I told them I don’t want to be a doctor—”
“Thank God!” she yelled at the ceiling. “That would’ve been like a dog trying to be a cat.”
“And . . . some other stuff, and they cut me off. Physically, emotionally, financially. But it’s more than just that. They think I’m a terrible person. Immoral. They’re ashamed of me.” I wanted to crawl under the covers and hide.
“If they’re getting their G-string in a twist over something that trivial, then I say fuck them! Who cares what they think? You’re the one who has to live your life, not them. And you’re at MIT, for Christ’s sake! How is that not enough? Now that I’m here, I could murder someone and my parents would still be proud of me.”
Her words pierced through my brainwashing and I felt a little better. I considered saying, Yeah, fuck them, but couldn’t bring myself to. I didn’t actually believe the ancestors would strike me down, but I don’t know, why risk it?
“I don’t understand why making your own life decisions makes you immoral,” Nicolette said.
When I didn’t respond (I couldn’t), she flung her covers off and jumped out of bed. “Come on, we’re gonna take your mind off this shit. Get dressed.”
Both our heads turned as something banged against our door. Not a knock, just one single thud. I pointed to Nicolette to ask, Expecting anyone? to which she shook her head. Since I was closer, I dragged myself over.
My foot landed on an ice puck and slid out from under me, sending me headfirst into the wall.
Nicolette flung the door open. After a beat, she yelled, “What the fuck, Arthur! You made my roommate hit her head. You’re such an asshole!”
I peeked around Nicolette to see a torn Dixie Cup on the floor next to a red-haired boy wearing a Nu Delta sweatshirt.
“You’re the asshole!” he yelled, flinging the cup at Nicolette. “You gave me chlamydia!”
After flipping her off, he bolted, moving with intoxicated swerves and dulled reflexes.
Nicolette slammed the door. “What a loser. I can’t believe I ever thought he was cute.”
I picked the thin circle of ice up off the floor and tilted it this way and that. It caught the light overhead, reflecting a yellow tint. It also smelled. Like Chinatown. Holy Mother of . . . Did this kid freeze his pee and slide it under our door so it would melt into our carpet?
Screaming, I chucked the frozen puck as hard as I could toward Nicolette’s side. It shot under the bed, disappearing in a tangle of blankets. She scrambled over, grabbed the revenge pee, and hurled it out the door. It ricocheted down the hall, smacking against the wall periodically. Whack. Whack. Whack. Gross. There was a trail of chlamydia down the hallway now.
“Why have I held pee twice this year?” I screamed as I ran to the bathroom.
“Twice?” Nicolette’s voice called after me.
I washed my hands ten times, scrubbing for a minute each with the damn surgical scrubs I’d received from Urgent Care. If they believed it could cure herpes, maybe it could kill the chlamydia crawling up and down my fingers. For the first time in my life, I worried I might faint. My mother would be so proud, except for the fact that it confirmed once and for all I could never be a doctor.
“Are you ready?” Nicolette asked, her hands on the back of the chair I was in. We were in MIT’s secret tunnels—really, just underground corridors, but “secret tunnels” sounded infinitely cooler.
I was hanging over the precipice of a downslope, just one rolly wheel contacting the floor.
“Wait,” I said just as she let go.
My scream filled the passageway, reverberating back to me and making me whoop even louder. As I picked up speed, I clutched the seat to keep from flying off. My loose hair tangled in front of my eyes, but I didn’t dare let go to move it aside.
“Push yourself off the wall!” Nicolette screamed at me.
I flung my head to clear the hair from my vision and stuck my foot out just in time, pushing off and sending myself down the next hallway. My chair spun in a circle, making me giggle with dizziness. I felt so free. Free of secrets, if just for a moment.
As the incline decreased and the chair slowed, I finally let go and threw my hands in the air. I shrieked, feeling the anger, frustration, and disappointment escape my body through my lungs. The chair hit a bump. I tried to right myself, but it was too late. I went flying . . .
Straight into Darren.
He managed to wrap his arms around me as my momentum knocked him into the wall. The chair crashed and a wheel popped off. His messenger bag dug into my ribs, and I prayed that he didn’t have a laptop in there. He was probably on his way back from the library and using the tunnels to stay warm.
I was still catching my breath when Darren said, “Chair surfing?”
“How does everyone know about this but me?” I was still pressed against him, our faces inches apart, and he was the only thing I saw. Meaning, I didn’t see Nicolette approach. I had completely forgotten about her.
Her magenta lips turned up in a sly smile. “Well, well, what’ve we got here?”
I reluctantly stepped out of his arms and made introductions.
“We’re helping Mei forget about her overbearing parents,” Nicolette told him. “They disowned her earlier.”
I was partly relieved that Darren knew and I didn’t have to be the one to say it, but I was also peeved that Nicolette was speaking as if she were reciting the symptoms of a damaged sympathetic cervical trunk.
I gazed up at him. “Kiemasu, right?”
He smiled sadly, then nodded. “Kiemasu.”
Nicolette clapped him on the back. “Want a turn?”
“I think I’ll go flying immediately on account of these.” He waggled a long leg. “That’s a nice chair. Where’d you get it?”
She grinned proudly. “Did you see that Tech article about how three chairs went missing from the Reading Room?”
“That was you?”
“No, but it sounded like a good idea, so I went in and stole two more.”
Darren raised his eyebrows at me. “I need to be more careful around you. You’re running with the rough crowd.”
Nicolette laughed. “Yeah, that hack we pulled last week during the football game? Where we tricked those Crimson preppies into spelling out ‘Harvard Sucks’ in the stands? That was all me.”
“Hack” was MIT’s term for sneaky pranks, and it spawned the word computer geeks use today. We liked to play jokes on other schools and put weird things, like cop cars, onto MIT’s iconic Great Dome.
“Hey, is that where you are most nights?” I asked Nicolette. “Hacking?”
She nodded. “Yeah. What’d you think I was doing?”
“No idea,” I lied, then flashed an innocent smile. She chuckled. My first guess couldn’t be that far off; she hadn’t gotten chlamydia crawling in tunnels and climbing on pipes.
“Come on, big guy, Hello Kitty,” she said, nodding at each of us. (I rolled my eyes.) “You guys are in for a treat—just follow this hacker.”
After weaving through the tunnels, a basement, and too many stairs to count, we made it to the door. Which door, I had no idea. I lost track of our whereabouts hundreds of steps ago.
“Keep an eye out for cops,” Nicolette said as she turned the lock pick with expertise. “I just need another . . .”
Click.
“Ha!” she exclaimed as the door swung open. “Welcome to MIT’s famous domes.”
I followed Darren onto the roof of Building 7. From this height, the Boston skyline was visible both in the distance and reflected on the Charles River. Despite the lights on the horizon, the stars scattered across the dark sky shone brightly.
“Orion,” I whispered, pointing at the constellation’s three-pronged belt. My mother used to take me stargazing. The thought
of her made my heart lurch.
Darren took my hand and we strolled toward the little dome. He ascended the neck-high platform first (chest level for him) and extended a palm down. I grabbed hold, thankful that it had warmed slightly the past few days and I was wearing my thin, flexible down coat (curated by scared-of-the-cold Mǎmá Lu, of course). With Darren’s help, I heaved myself onto the limestone.
I turned to assist Nicolette, but she was nowhere in sight. That sneaky wonderful girl. No wonder she had spouted off so much information on our journey over here—she hadn’t planned to come onto the roof with us.
Following Nicolette’s advice, we scooted up the dome on our butts. The height didn’t bother me, but I wondered what kinds of germs I was rubbing into my pants to bring home later. Bird poop? STDs from MIT students who’d once had sex here? There was definitely a picture making the rounds on Facebook of a couple doing it on the little dome. Maybe it was Nicolette, I realized. Maybe she did get chlamydia from hacking!
When we reached the local maximum (not the global one—that was the Great Dome), I snuggled against Darren for warmth. Just me and him, on top of the world, where nothing else could reach us.
“Saved anyone else recently?” he asked, staring at the stars overhead.
“Nope. The campus has been safe—no distress calls.” I pictured someone beaming a dumpling into the sky to ask for my help and had to stifle a laugh.
The teasing crinkle appeared, along with a new, unreadable tilt to his lips. “So you haven’t had to tell your Horny story again? How is Horny, by the way?”
My mouth slacked open. “You heard that?”
“Every word.”
We burst into laughter at the same time.
“Well, that’s mortifying,” I said when, really, it wasn’t. Back at Chow Chow all those weeks ago, I had thought Darren knowing about Horny would have been The Worst Thing, but now it was just funny.
When the laughs subsided, he said in his warm honey voice, “Actually, it made me notice you more.”
Seriously? He hadn’t looked my way once that day. The blonde popped into my head, and I shoved her out with a kick to her perfectly plump behind.
“Made you notice my weirdness maybe,” I said as lightheartedly as I could.
“I prefer to call it ‘uniqueness.’ ”
He leaned in to me, our knees interlacing and his sandalwood scent enveloping me. I wondered if he could smell my soap too.
He placed a hand over mine, and my palm immediately turned sticky, but propriety be damned—who said sweaty girls couldn’t get the guy? Confidently, I weaved my fingers through his.
We looked into each other’s eyes, no longer in the awkward way of stolen first glances, but in the I-truly-see-you kind of way. The chemistry between us was so strong I could practically see the forces—ionic, covalent, even van der Waals.
Our gazes wandered to other features, our path dictated by the moon’s illumination. I followed the light to his cheekbones to his nose to the mole beside his lip, a pinpoint speck. Had I been sitting farther, I might have mistaken it for a crumb. Somehow I felt like I knew him better now that I had noticed it. A landmark for me to anchor on to.
When his gaze passed over my features, I didn’t feel self-conscious. Just beautiful. The way Darren saw me. The way I now saw myself. It had come at a price, a steep one I still wasn’t fully sure I wanted to pay, but . . . I felt beautiful, completely měi, even down to the off-center mole on my forehead, which for the first time, I didn’t feel the need to hide.
He traced his index finger over the pale-pink scar on my chin.
“I tripped when I was little and there was broken glass on the ground,” I explained.
He leaned down and kissed the scar gently, his breath trailing across my cheek. It was so tender. So compassionate. I turned my head, and our mouths met in an explosion of heat.
I had spent countless hours worrying about how to act in a boy’s presence, reading elicit romance books to try to learn what my parents wouldn’t teach me . . . but now that it was happening, it felt so natural. I didn’t need to think.
I gave in to my impulses, resting my hands on either side of him and pressing my torso to his. I felt his chest heave against mine, and then he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him as if he needed me closer than physically possible. I curled into his lap seamlessly, our limbs entangling.
He ran a hand up my back and into my hair, cradling my head. My skin tingled everywhere he touched, little jolts of pleasure that danced through my synapses. And his lips. God, his lips. They were so soft, caressing mine like silk. The tip of my tongue glided gently along them, feeling, tasting.
I wanted more.
Our tongues met, electricity pulsing through me and sending the butterflies in my stomach into a flurry. Our heads, lips, bodies moved in sync, almost as if we were choreographed.
When he pulled away, my breath came out in heavy gasps, forming puffs of fog in the cold air. He brushed my hair back with one hand and trailed soft kisses along my forehead, ear, and cheek.
A siren on the street below startled us, jolting Darren’s jaw into my nose as we turned in different directions. I yelped in pain, then rubbed the sore spot with my fingers. Luckily, his arms had tightened at the noise and I hadn’t rolled off the dome. In that moment, I realized just how precariously balanced we were.
“I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed. His cheeks were flushed—from embarrassment or passion, I wasn’t sure. He brushed a kiss along the bridge of my nose. “Are you okay?”
“Everything’s perfect,” I said, and meant it.
“Maybe we should get out of here before the sirens find us,” he said reluctantly. “And before we freeze.” He rubbed his hands over my arms.
As we slid down the dome on our pìgus, I said, “So . . . there’s this wedding next Saturday. . . .”
He perked up at the word “wedding” and stopped scooting. “I like weddings. Dinner, cake, dancing—what’s not to like?” He struck a pose with his hands, and I smiled, remembering his adorable, flailing jig from MIThenge.
“Would you want to be my plus one?”
“I’d be honored,” he said, the excitement on his face matching the energy in his voice. “Whose is it?”
“My brother’s.”
His face fell, the brightness disappearing like a candle being blown out. “Will that be awkward given everything with, you know, them?”
“My parents won’t be there,” I answered as I returned to scooting, needing the distraction. “They disowned Xing years ago because they don’t approve of his fiancée. That was actually a large part of my disagreement with them, in addition to the career stuff.”
As soon as we were back on solid ground, he took my hands with both of his, squeezing once. The warmth traveled from my palms to my heart. “I’m so sorry about your parents, Mei.”
Surprisingly, it was all I needed. I had thought my situation would require dissecting each piece, brainstorming my next step, maybe even creating a ten-step plan, but those simple words and a kind gesture were enough for now.
Maybe there was something magical about the dome. MIT. Darren.
He held on to my hand until we reached Burton Conner. As we walked, I ran my tongue along my swollen lips, feeling the tenderness to remind me of our kisses, that it wasn’t a dream.
We paused at the dorm’s entrance, where the front light illuminated everything. I snuck a glance at the dark, walled-off garden to the right, the complete opposite of the bright, public spot we stood in now. It felt too creepy to pull him in there, yet I didn’t want to sneak another kiss in the open.
His hands pressed the small of my back, pulling my lips to his. The electricity sparked again, and I sank into him. I no longer cared who could see us. I wouldn’t stop even if my mother were here, hands on hips, that cold stare boring into us.
Darren pulled away first, much too soon. “Chin up, Lady Almond. It’ll get better.”
“Kiemasu,”
I whispered, then vanished into the dorm like a magic act.
Voicemail from Nǎinai and Yilong
Nǎinai: Mei Mei, I’m disappointed in you. You a good girl deep down. Stop being foolish and fix this.
Yilong: Don’t throw away everything we’ve given you. Don’t be like Xing. Otherwise, you are no niece of mine.
Nǎinai:
CHAPTER 20
DR. AND DR.
MIDSTUDYING, I SCROUNGED THROUGH MY desk, searching for a fix of dried squid, my favorite brain food. But I came up empty. Of course.
When I failed to convince myself that the knot in my stomach was because I was hungry and nothing else, I slammed the drawer in frustration, sending a photo loose from the stack of papers on my desk.
My favorite baby picture, tucked into my college-bound boxes in a last-minute sentimental rush. It fluttered to the ground, catching the light streaming in from the window.
Two-year-old me, dressed in a red, embroidered, cotton-padded mián’ao and navy-blue sweatpants that said PUMP instead of PUMA. My father was holding me—no, he was clutching me to him, his arms awkward and cramped from squeezing so hard. His cheek was pressed against mine, an uncharacteristic curve to his lips. And his eyes—they radiated love.
I was his baobèi.
And this baobèi was about to lose it. I snatched up my phone and ballet shoes, then retreated to Mr. Porter’s open arms.
Everything felt tight. Too tight, like a coffin. My muscles screamed at me as I dissolved into movement without any warm-up. And as stiff as I was on the outside, the inside was rigor mortis—still too soon after the death of my relationship with my parents.
There was a hole in my chest, a piece of me missing without them. When I thought about continuing down this path, trying to find my way, the crater grew. I folded my arms across my torso as if that could stop it, but the void swelled and billowed, laughing at me.
But then when I thought about making up with them, the hole in my chest closed as a cavity opened in my brain, a partial lobotomy. I couldn’t go through life as a shadow. If I gave in to them, I’d lose myself.