A Line in the Dark

by Malinda Lo

  She’s all smiles and flippy hair with Angie, who I can tell is trying super hard to act casual. There’s a tension to her posture, though, that spills her secret to anyone who knows her. Angie wants this to go well.

  The trees cast wavering shadows in the blue-white light of everyone’s phones. I put mine to sleep so my face at least can be in the dark. This feels unreal. There is no world where West Bed kids hang out with Peebs in Ellicott Park.

  “Is this where you guys usually meet up?” Ryan asks.

  It takes a moment for me to realize she’s talking to me. “Um, sometimes,” I say. I take a sip of the beer. It’s kind of bitter, and I don’t really like it, but I keep drinking it because Jordan’s vodka is out of reach now. “Um, how did you know we were here?” I ask.

  Ryan’s face is completely blank. “We were invited,” she says coolly.

  Before I can ask who invited her, she pulls out her cell phone and starts texting. My face heats up at her dismissal, even though I don’t want to talk her anyway. I drink more of the bitter beer and watch as Angie turns toward Margot, engrossed in their low-toned conversation. Courtney and the others are lighting up another joint. Jordan gets up and joins them, leaving me alone on the log next to the furiously texting Ryan. Angie laughs at something Margot says. I usually love the sound of Angie’s laugh, but now it grates. I drink the beer faster.

  —

  Everything is shivery, the trees and the leaves and even the ground. There are rocks everywhere, poking up through the soles of my sneakers and wedging between my feet as I stumble down the trail. I stub my toe against a sharp outcropping and flail my arms, grabbing at a tree for balance. Something jabs into my palm, and I hiss in pain. Blood trickles down my hand, which throbs.

  “Jess.”

  Angie lied to me. The ground ripples beneath me, an earthquake of rocks and shadows. Something thumps onto the ground.

  “Jess, your phone!”

  Angie grabs my arm, and I swing wildly.

  “Stop it. You dropped your phone.” Angie digs her fingers into my arm.

  “Ow,” I protest.

  “You’re drunk,” she says judgmentally, pressing my phone back into my hand.

  “No I’m not,” I object, but it sounds like nome not. “Leave me alone.” Leeme lone.

  She lied to me.

  I keep going, weaving down the narrow unofficial trail by the bouncing light of my phone. The movement makes me feel sick, and I pause to take a gulping breath.

  “I’ll walk you home,” Angie says. “You can’t go alone.”

  She slides an arm around my waist, steadying me, and I want to lean into her except I’m mad at her. I push her away, but she grabs me again.

  “I’m fine!” I insist. You lied you lied you lied.

  Angie’s fingers press into the soft fat of my stomach, pulling me closer to her. “I know,” she says, “but I’ll walk you anyway.”

  I WAKE UP IN MY BED. MY MOUTH IS DRY. THE SUN SHINES through the mini-blinds, and one beam seems aimed directly at my eyes. I turn over and see a glass of water on my nightstand.

  Angie. She walked me home last night. I remember our slow and awkward journey through the park. I kept hoping I would throw up, but I didn’t. I don’t remember getting back into my house, or coming up the stairs, or even flopping into my bed.

  I roll onto my back. There’s a lump digging into my hip, and I reach down and pull my phone out of my jeans pocket. A thin crack runs across the upper-right corner of the screen. I don’t remember dropping it but at least it still works. The battery’s almost dead but there’s a text message waiting. It’s from Angie.

  Call me when u wake up.

  It’s only 9:14 in the morning, not even that late. I gingerly put a hand to my head, but I feel okay. I sit up slowly. Still okay. I pick up the glass of water and drink some of it, and it feels like all my nerves suddenly switch on. I’m starving. I put the glass down and notice something on my hand. There’s a scab there, almost directly in the center of my palm, like stigmata.

  Angie lied to me about why she wanted to go to the park.

  Suddenly my stomach rumbles, and all the crap I drank lurches up inside me in foul waves. I throw off my blankets and stumble out of my room and down the empty hall to the bathroom. I slam the door shut and fall to the floor in front of the toilet, pushing up the seat. Sweat has broken out all over me, cold and sickening, but nothing comes as I gag over the bowl. There’s a light brown stain all around the water line even though my mom cleans the toilets every week, and the sight of that ring forces up the water I just drank. It streams out of me in an acidic, yellow-tinged drip. My chest heaves.

  I hug the toilet until the floor stops rocking and then make my way back to my bedroom. I hear noises from down in the kitchen, so I close my bedroom door before anyone can look up the stairs and see me.

  My phone is vibrating on my bed. It’s Angie, so I answer it. “Hello,” I say dully.

  “You’re alive.” She sounds relieved.

  “I’m alive,” I confirm, and my stomach groans in a desperate echo. “What happened last night? There’s like a wound on my hand.”

  “Oh my God, you were so drunk.” Her voice is low and breathy, and I imagine her still lying in bed. I shove that thought away. “You tripped and tried to catch yourself on a tree branch. Are you okay? You should put some Neosporin on it.”

  I sit down on the edge of my bed. “I’m . . . okay.”

  “That’s good. I was really worried about you.”

  The concern in her voice makes me feel guilty for being mad at her. “I’m sorry I was such a dumbass,” I mumble.

  She sighs. “It’s okay.”

  “Thanks for—for getting me home. What are you doing today?”

  “I have work. I should get—” She stops mid-sentence, and the line goes silent.

  “Angie?”

  “Oh my God, she just texted me,” she says excitedly.

  “Who?”

  “Margot Adams!”

  I feel queasy again. “What did she say?”

  “Just that she liked hanging out last night.” Angie breaks into a laugh. “Oh my God, she’s so funny!”

  “Did you guys plan to meet there last night?” The instant the words are out of my mouth I brace myself as if someone were going to punch me.

  “Yeah,” Angie says.

  A single syllable, but it’s so telling. So full of hope and shy happiness.

  “You’re not mad, are you?” Angie says worriedly. “I didn’t really know if she was going to come. She found me online and friended me and we were chatting, and I told her sometimes we hang out in the park on Friday nights, and she thought that was cool. But she didn’t say she was going to come.”

  My phone is getting slippery in my sweaty grip. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I count six beats of my heart, thudding like a fist on the door, before she answers. “Because I didn’t want to get my hopes up,” she says softly. “I felt like if I said anything, that would be, I don’t know, like bad luck. You’re not mad at me for not saying anything, are you? I can’t stand it if you’re mad at me, Jess. Please don’t be mad. It made me so much less nervous that you were there too.”

  My head is starting to throb. “It’s okay.” I swallow. “I’m not mad.”

  LAST SPRING, WHEN I TOLD MY PARENTS I GOT INTO THE Pearson Brooke Arts Exchange Program, they initially didn’t want me to go. They thought it would take time away from my science classes—even though I consistently get Cs in them. My high school art teacher, Ms. Cooper-Lewis, had to meet with them to explain why I should be allowed to go. She showed them a portfolio of my illustrations—comics, mostly, from my Kestrel series—but my parents didn’t understand why my pictures were any good. They thought it was kid stuff. It wasn’t until Ms. Cooper-Lewis explained that the Pearson Brooke
Arts Exchange Program might help me get into college that they relented.

  Today, on the first day of the program, the director (“Call me Kim”) takes us on a tour of Pearson Brooke Academy. It has a campus. A real one, with a quad like you see in pictures of colleges: a big green square of grass crisscrossed by brick paths and surrounded by colonial brick buildings that make the place look like a mini Harvard. One of the buildings even has a white cupola with a gold bell in it. West Bedford High was built in the seventies and looks like a blocky, concrete prison, with thin rectangular windows up high to let in light but prevent us from seeing out. West Bed doesn’t have a cupola, but it does have a thing that looks like a watchtower that looms over the front entrance of the school.

  “The Pearson Brooke Arts Center will be your home when you visit here,” Kim says, gesturing to the two-story brick building with tall multipaned windows in front of us. “But before we go inside, I want to show you around the rest of the campus. I’m saving the best for last!” Kim beams, and like a bunch of brownnosers, we smile back nervously.

  There are six of us, but I only know one other student, Samantha Green, who’s also a junior. She makes weird sculptures out of empty cans and wires that Ms. Cooper-Lewis, our art teacher, apparently thinks are amazing. The other students on the program are sophomores and one freshman. We’ve been paired up with Peebs who are supposed to be our “Brooke buddies,” as if we’re still in kindergarten. Mine is a Korean girl named Emily Soon, who seems to alternate between checking out mentally and being annoyed that she’s here. She plays the violin. I wonder if they matched us randomly or if Kim or Ms. Cooper-Lewis had some reason for sticking us together. I bet it’s because we’re both Asian. Ms. Cooper-Lewis is always suggesting that I draw Asian people, which only makes me want to never draw Asian people.

  As Kim leads us around the quad, Emily walks next to me but makes sure to avoid looking at me or initiating any conversation. Kim tells us about each of the buildings as we pass them, but I barely pay attention. I’m not going to any English classes or chemistry labs, so it makes no difference to me. All around the campus, big trees dot the landscape, their leaves edging into orange and yellow. Some Peebs lounge on the grass beneath the biggest tree in the quad, laptops and books open. They glance at us as we walk past, a parade of mismatched duos, and I wonder what they think of the arts exchange program—if they even think about it.

  We follow Kim down one of the paths that angle diagonally out of the quad, skirting around a building that looks like a courthouse. “This is Jackson Library,” Kim says. “There’s a wonderful art collection there, and your Brooke buddy can take you inside if you’d like to see it.” Behind the library the brick path curves toward a building that’s so modern it’s jarring after the stuck-in-colonial-New-England look of the rest of the campus. It’s got a giant glass atrium-like thing in front and an angled roof that juts into the sky like the wing of a downed airplane.

  “This is Cooper Commons,” Kim says. “There’s a café inside, and you’re always welcome to stop in and grab a cup of coffee or tea while you’re on campus. Your Brooke buddy has a special meal voucher on their card that they can share with you, so it’s all part of the program and you don’t have to worry about the cost.”

  Kim beams again, and I wonder how she can say this stuff without cringing. We don’t respond, and maybe our silence flusters her, because she gets a bit pink in the face and says, “All right, let’s move on.”

  Past Cooper Commons is the athletic center, a sprawling building that looks like it was added on to over decades, resulting in a bulky collection of boxes that don’t quite match. Pristine practice fields stretch from the athletic center to a line of trees that must be Ellicott Park. I’ve never seen this side of it before, and I’m kind of surprised that it looks pretty much the same as it does in my neighborhood. Somehow I expected it to be as manicured as the grass, but the oak and pine trees are still trees, as wild as they can be in the tiny strip of woods they’re confined to.

  Kim takes us down a path that skirts the edge of a hockey field, where two packs of girls dressed in blue and red smocks are chasing after a small neon-orange ball, hockey sticks at the ready. There’s a brief commotion as one of the West Bed kids asks to use the bathroom, and Kim announces that she’ll take anyone who needs to go. She and a couple of other students head back to the Commons while the rest of us wait by the hockey field. The two teams are all wearing short purple-and-gold skirts, which are the Pearson Brooke colors. Two girls—one in a red smock, one in blue—are fighting over the ball as their teammates try to keep up. Their hockey sticks smack together, the repeated crack of wood against wood ringing through the air. Red’s black braid flies up as she gets the better of her opponent, swiping the ball away from her with a swerve to her right. She streaks out behind the ball, driving it toward the goal near us, while Blue runs after her and their teammates shout at them to shoot or block. As the two of them barrel down the field, coming closer to us, I recognize Red. It’s Margot.

  Blue, who has been sprinting, her brown ponytail flying, catches up to her and tries to steal the ball, but Margot sidesteps. I don’t know anything about hockey but it seems like the game suddenly gets serious, because Blue won’t give up. She darts closer to Margot, and their sticks tangle, once again battling for control of the ball. Their teammates yell at them, and from across the field an older woman starts jogging toward the melee. She must be their coach, because she’s shouting at them to stop and has a whistle around her neck, but she’s too far away. Margot and Blue are now in each other’s faces, and Margot looks ferocious, more focused on getting in Blue’s way than getting the ball. Blue shouts at her, and Margot’s lips briefly part over her yellow mouth guard as she smashes her hockey stick against Blue’s shins, tripping her. Blue goes flying, face-planting on the grass with a yelp.

  The coach, who is gaining on them, blows her whistle and waves her arms frantically. Margot halts, her chest heaving, and it’s as if she’d pulled a mask over her face because all of a sudden she looks completely calm. She drops her stick on the ground and readjusts her headband while her teammates crowd around her.

  “She just tripped her,” I say incredulously.

  “Yep,” Emily says. She’s standing beside me, her eyes on the field and her arms crossed.

  “You know her?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Not anymore.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The coach reaches Blue, who rolls onto her back. Her face is smeared with red from her nose to her chin. The girls swarm around them, blocking her from our view. Margot still stands in the midst of her own group, unmoving.

  Emily says, “We used to be friends.”

  I look at Emily, who glares across the field at Margot. I want to ask what happened, but Kim and the others have returned from their trip to the bathroom.

  “Let’s continue our tour,” Kim calls cheerily. “I want to make sure we have plenty of time at the arts center today.”

  As Kim leads us down the path, I glance back at the hockey field one more time. Two girls help Blue onto her feet, and the blood on her face has dripped onto the neck of her shirt. The coach approaches Margot, whose teammates fan out behind her like a peacock’s tail.

  “You two need to knock it off,” the coach is saying, her voice carrying toward us on the strength of her irritation.

  The way Margot and Blue are looking at each other, it’s obvious that there’s some history between them that’s being played out on the field. Blue wipes the blood off her face with her right hand and smears it on the front of her shirt. Margot’s nose wrinkles, as if she smelled something rotten, and she turns away.

  IT ALWAYS SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A PARKING SPACE in Boston’s Chinatown, and Friday night is probably the worst time ever. Dad inches down the narrow streets while Mom keeps pointing out spots that turn out to be driveways or too short for our long Suba
ru. Beside me on the backseat, my little sister, Jamie, twists a string bracelet around on her wrist and looks bored.

  “Over there!” Mom says.

  “No, it’s too small,” Dad objects.

  Mom says in Chinese, “Not that one, the one down the street on your left.”

  “I have to turn around then,” he responds. “There’s too much traffic.”

  The stopping and starting is making me carsick. I roll down the window to take a breath of fresh air, but it smells like a nauseating combination of roast pork and fish bones left to rot in the garbage. It’s better than the warm, close air inside the car, though, so I lean toward the open window and try to breathe.

  “I wish your brother didn’t have to do this dinner on Friday night,” Dad says.

  “It’s the only time he has,” Mom says, then adds something I don’t fully understand but has something to do with her brother’s new girlfriend. Uncle Dennis invited us to meet this new girlfriend tonight at Ocean Garden Restaurant in Chinatown. I didn’t want to go because normally I hang out with Angie, but Mom gave me no choice. Of course, my brother, Justin, didn’t have to go. He said he had to study, which is bullshit because MIT’s fall semester started only two weeks ago and he can’t have any tests yet. Ever since he started college last year, he hardly ever comes home anymore. I don’t blame him. The minute I get out, I’m not coming back either.

  I pull out my phone and send a text to Angie. Kill me now we’re not even at dinner yet and I can’t wait to leave

  Finally Dad finds a spot, and as he turns off the car, Mom says in Chinese, “We pay for dinner. He doesn’t have the money.”

  “And we do?” Dad says, but he doesn’t give Mom a chance to respond and gets out of the car.