The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

by F. C. Yee

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN: 978-1-4197-2548-7

  eISBN: 978-1-68335-122-1

  Text copyright © 2017 Christian Yee

  Cover illustrations copyright © 2017 Vincent Chong

  Cover and book design by Alyssa Nassner

  Cover copyright © 2017 Amulet Books

  Published in 2017 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  ABIGAIL

  1

  So I didn’t handle the mugging as well as I could have.

  I would have known what do to if I’d been the victim. Hand over everything quietly. Run away as fast as possible. Go for the eyes if I was cornered. I’d passed the optional SafeStrong girl’s defense seminar at school with flying colors.

  But we’d never covered what to do when you see six grown men stomping the utter hell out of a boy your age in broad daylight. It was a Tuesday morning, for god’s sake. I was on my way to school, the kid was down on the ground, and the muggers were kicking him like their lives depended on it. They weren’t even trying to take his money.

  “Get away from him!” I screamed. I swung my backpack around by the strap like an Olympic hammer thrower and flung it at the group.

  The result wasn’t exactly gold medal–worthy. The pack, heavy with my schoolbooks, fell short and came to rest at one of the assailants’ heels. They all turned to look at me.

  Crap.

  I should have made a break for it, but something froze me in place.

  It was the boy’s eyes. Even though he’d taken a beating that should have knocked him senseless, his eyes were perfectly clear as they locked on to mine. He stared at me like I was the only important thing in the world.

  One of the men threw his cigarette on the ground and took a step in my direction, adjusting his trucker cap in a particularly menacing fashion. Crap, crap, crap.

  That was as far as he got. The boy said something, his words lost in the distance. The man flinched like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and then turned back to resume the brutal pounding.

  Finally my legs remembered what they were good for. I ran away.

  I should have been worried that the assault and battery would turn into outright homicide, but I kept going without looking back. I was too freaked out.

  The last sight I had of that kid was his gleaming white teeth.

  “You shouldn’t have bothered in the first place,” Yunie told me in homeroom. “He was with them.”

  I lifted my head up from the desk. “Huh?”

  “It was a gang initiation. The older members induct the new ones by beating the snot out of them. If he was smiling at you the whole time, it was because he was happy about getting ‘jumped in.’ ”

  “I don’t think there are gangs that hang out in the Johnson Square dog run, Yunie.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said as she thumbed through her messages. “Some areas past the Walgreens are pretty sketch.”

  Maybe she was right. It was easy to forget in the bubble of Santa Firenza Prep that our town wasn’t affluent. A competitive school was really the only thing it had going for it. We were hardly Anderton or Edison Park or any of the other pockets of Bay Area wealth where the venture capital and tech exec families lived.

  On the other hand, that kid couldn’t have been a gang member. It wasn’t the kind of detail you focus on in the heat of the moment, but looking back on it, he was wearing rags. Like a beggar.

  Ugh. I’d run across a group of assholes beating a homeless person for kicks and wasn’t able to do anything to stop them. I groaned and dropped my forehead to the desk again.

  “Flog yourself some more,” Yunie said. “You told a teacher as soon as you got to school and spent all morning giving the police report, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I muttered into the veneer. “But if I wasn’t such an idiot, I could have called the cops right there.” The skirts on our uniforms didn’t have pockets. So of course I was carrying my phone in my backpack. That is to say, I’d been carrying it.

  It was going to be a long haul, re-creating the notes from my AP classes. My secret weapons—all of the practice exams that I’d hounded my teachers into giving me—were gone. Studying by any method other than active recall was for chumps.

  And my textbooks. I wasn’t sure what the school policy on replacements was. If the cost fell on me, I’d probably have to sell my blood plasma.

  But while I’d never admit it, not even to Yunie, what hurt most wasn’t losing my phone or my notes. It was the fake-gold earrings I’d pinned to the canvas straps. The ones my dad had bought me at Disneyland, even though I’d been too young for piercings back then—too young to remember much of the trip at all.

  I’d never see them again.

  The bell rang. Something heavy fell past my head to the floor, and I bolted upright.

  “Hey, jerk!” I yelped. “That could have hit me in the—whuh?”

  It was my backpack. With all my stuff still in it. Minnie Mouses unharmed.

  Mrs. Nanda, our homeroom teacher, stood by her desk and rapped her EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR paperweight to get our attention, punctuating the air like a judge’s gavel. Her round, pleasant face was even more chipper and sprightly than usual.

  “Class, I’d like to introduce a new student,” she said. “Please welcome Quentin Sun.”

  Holy crap. It was him.

  2

  “Greetings,” he said, his accent thick but his voice loud and clear. “I have arrived.”

  Now, I’d done my best to describe this guy to the police. They pressed me hard for details, as apparently this wasn’t the first group mugging in recent weeks.

  But I’d let Officers Davis and Rodriguez down. Nice eyes and a winning smile weren’t much to go by. I was too frazzled to notice anything before, which meant this was my first decent look at the boy without the influence of adrenaline.

  So a couple of things.

  One: He was short. Like, really short for a guy. I felt bad that my brain went there first, but he wasn’t even as tall as Mrs. Nanda.

  Two: He was totally okay, physically. I didn’t see how anyone could be up and about after that beating, but here he was, unbruised and unblemished. I felt relieved and disturbed at the same time to see there wasn’t a scratch on him.

  And his mint condition just made Point Three even more obvious. He was . . . yeesh.

  Nothing good could come of our new classmate being that handsome. It was destructive. Twisted. Weaponized. He had the cheekbones and sharp jawline of a pop star, but his thick eyebrows and wild, unkempt hair lent him an air of natural ruggedness that some pampered singer could never achieve in a million y
ears of makeup.

  “Argh, my ovaries,” Yunie mumbled. She wasn’t alone, judging by the soft intakes of breath coming from around the room.

  “Arrived from where?” said Mrs. Nanda.

  Quentin looked at her in amusement. “China?”

  “Yes, but where in, though?” said Mrs. Nanda, trying her best to convey that she was sensitive to the regional differences. Fujianese, Taishanese, Beijingren—she’d taught them all.

  He just shrugged. “The stones,” he said.

  “You mean the mountains, sweetie?” said Rachel Li, batting her eyelashes at him from the front row.

  “No! I don’t misspeak.”

  The class giggled at his English. But none of it was incorrect, technically speaking.

  “Tell us a little about yourself,” Mrs. Nanda said.

  Quentin puffed out his chest. The white button-down shirt and black pants of our school’s uniform for boys made most of them look like limo drivers. But on him, the cheap stitching just made it clearer that he was extremely well-muscled underneath.

  “I am the greatest of my kind,” he said. “In this world I have no equal. I am known to thousands in faraway lands, and everyone I meet can’t help but declare me king!”

  There was a moment of silence and sputtering before guffaws broke out.

  “Well . . . um . . . we are all high achievers here at SF Prep,” said Mrs. Nanda as politely as she could. “I’m sure you’ll fit right in?”

  Quentin surveyed the cramped beige classroom with a cool squint. To him, the other twenty-two laughing students were merely peons on whom his important message had been lost.

  “Enough wasting of time,” he snapped. “I came to these petty halls only to reclaim what is mine.”

  Before anyone could stop him, he hopped onto Rachel’s desk and stepped over her to the next one, like she wasn’t even there.

  “Hey! Quentin!” Mrs. Nanda said, frantically waving her hands. “Get down now!”

  The new student ignored her, stalking down the column of desks. Toward mine.

  Everyone in his way leaned to the side to avoid getting kicked. They were all too flabbergasted to do anything but serve as his counterweights.

  He stopped on my desk and crouched down, looking me in the eye. His gaze pinned me to my seat.

  I couldn’t turn away. He was so close our noses were almost touching. He smelled like wine and peaches.

  “You!” he said.

  “What?” I squeaked.

  Quentin gave me a grin that was utterly feral. He tilted his head as if to whisper, but spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “You belong to me.”

  3

  “He’s going to sue you, Genie,” Jenny Rolston said while we were changing in the locker room. “Once he learns that’s how we do things in America, he’s going to find a lawyer.”

  I slammed my locker shut. It immediately bounced back open, more than a year of my rough handling having misaligned the latch. It took the weight of my shoulder to close the dented gray door for good.

  “Hey, he got in my face,” I said, my head still buried under my jersey.

  “Yeah, he was rude. And crazy. But you totally overreacted. He’s probably blind now.”

  “Big Joe from SafeStrong would have approved of my reflexes. And my use of thumbs.”

  Jenny sighed. “If they suspend you for gouging out the eyes of a transfer student and I have to use a sub during regionals, I’m going to murder you.”

  I let the team captain have the last word. After today’s double-dose of unpleasantness I just wanted to focus on practice. I had better things to worry about than a wackjob new student who’d latched on to me like a newborn duck. I laced up my sneakers, tied my hair back, and joined the rest of the girls on the court.

  Jenny’s death threat had been a compliment, sort of. I’d been pretty instrumental to the SF Lady Sharks’ sudden surge of victories in the last year and a half. But it’s not because I’m the greatest athlete in the world. I have no illusions as to why I’ve been on varsity volleyball since I was a freshman.

  It’s because I’m tall.

  Ridiculously tall. Grossly tall. Monstrously tall.

  Tall like a model, Yunie says. She’s allowed to lie to me.

  Jenny had her eye on me from day one. She didn’t have to twist my arm to recruit me; it’s safe to say this has been a mutually beneficial arrangement. I lead the league in career stuffs despite only having half a career, and I can probably get the attention of a college coach for a few minutes come admissions time. At least until he or she realizes I have the jump serve of a walrus.

  The one thing I’m not too keen on is being nicknamed “The Great Wall of China.” But then again, there are too many Asian students here to make it a minority slur. I’m pretty sure one of them came up with it in the first place.

  My feet squeaked against the hardwood as I took my position in middle blocker. The time flew by as I sweated and grunted and spiked out the minutes in the echoing gym. Our only audience besides Coach Daniels were the shoddily painted murals of fall and spring sports athletes covering the walls.

  At first I’d only joined this team to look well-rounded. I didn’t have Yunie’s gift for music, and I needed some extracurriculars. But over time I really came to love the game. When people asked why, I told them I thrived on the camaraderie.

  In reality, though, I liked destroying people. Single-handedly.

  I liked ruining the carefully crafted offensive schemes of the other team simply by existing. For five sets a week, the world was unfair in my favor. That didn’t happen very often.

  I was in the zone today, carrying the rookies that had been intentionally loaded on my side. Until I saw him standing in the bleachers.

  “What the hell?” I said. “Get him out of here!”

  “Can’t,” said Jenny. “Practice is over and we’re in extra time. We don’t have claim on the gym anymore. Just finish the scrim.”

  I grunted angrily and turned back to match point. I could still feel his eyes burning into the back of my head.

  “Someone’s got an admirer,” Maxine Wong said from the other side of the net.

  “Shut up.”

  “I heard all about it from Rachel,” said the girl whose starter spot I’d taken. “You wigged out because he wanted to have an arranged marriage right there in class? I thought FOBs were into that kind of thing.”

  My eyes widened. The serve from my side was bumped and set for her.

  “Shut UP!” I screamed as I went for the block.

  Maxine wasn’t beyond playing mind games. She was the same year as Jenny, but she crossed the line way too often with the sophomores and freshmen, at least in my opinion. I didn’t like her at all.

  Her taunts worked this time. She was better at playing while trash-talking than I was. I was off-balance and didn’t have enough off the jump. She was going to get the winning kill—

  “Gah!” Maxine yelped, landing hard on her butt. The ball bopped her on the head and rolled over the sideline.

  “Dang, girl!” Jenny shouted from behind. “I wanna see that come game time!”

  I looked at my hands, puzzled. I could have sworn I didn’t have that block.

  “Freak,” Maxine said, as she got to her feet.

  I glanced toward the bleachers. Quentin was gone.

  Damn it. That scumbag was throwing me off so much that he was throwing me on.

  “All right, this has gone too far,” I said. “You crossed the border into stalker territory a long time ago. I don’t mind talking to the police twice in one day.”

  Quentin was “walking me home.” Or at least that’s what he’d asked to do as I left school. I should have told him off right away instead of giving him the silent treatment. Now any uninitiated observers would think we were hashing out a misunderstanding like civilized people.

  “Go ahead and call them,” he said. “I’m told it’s a free country.”

  Wait, had his E
nglish gotten better?

  “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing,” I said, picking up the pace so that he fell behind and hopefully stayed there. “But it stops now. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Just because I found you getting your ass kicked doesn’t mean a thing. And you’re welcome, by the way.”

  He snorted. “A lot of help you were. You didn’t even tell anyone at school it was me you saw getting beat up, did you?”

  I growled in frustration. There were actually a bunch of things I wanted to ask—like how he’d healed up so quickly, or what had happened to his old raggedy clothes, or how his speech seemed to randomly fluctuate between a Bay Area teenager and a Confucian bard—but I didn’t want to encourage him.

  “You dream of a mountain,” Quentin said.

  I stopped in my tracks and turned around. We were completely alone on the block, a splintery picket fence hemming us in on one side, and an empty lot with more abandoned bicycles than grass across the street.

  “You dream of a mountain,” he repeated. “Green and full of flowers. Every night when you fall asleep, you can smell the jasmine blossoms and hear the running streams.”

  He said this with real drama. Like it was supposed to hit home for me. Forge some kind of a connection between us.

  I smirked. Because it didn’t.

  “Last night I dreamed I was floating in space and watching the stars,” I said, feeling smug. “But you should keep trying that pickup line. I know at least a couple of girls at school like cheese.”

  Quentin didn’t respond for a second. Apparently I was the one who’d floored him.

  He broke out into a gigantic, ear-to-ear smile. Under better circumstances it would have been gorgeous.

  “That’s it!” he said, hopping in excitement. “That proves it! You really are mine!”

  Okay. That kind of talk had to stop right here and right now. I inhaled deeply to unleash both a torrent of verbal abuse and a refresher in women’s history over the last century.

  But before I could give him what he asked for, Quentin jumped onto the neighboring fence, taking five feet in one smooth leap as easily as you’d take the escalator. He laughed and hooted and cartwheeled back and forth on the uprights, balancing on a surface that must have been narrower than a row of quarters.