This Time it's Real

FOR ALL THE CYNICS WHO SECRETLY STILL BELIEVE IN LOVE Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Acknowledgments About The Author CHAPTER ONE I’m about to change into my school uniform when I notice the man floating outside my bedroom window. No, floating isn’t the right word, I realize as I step closer, my plaid skirt still crumpled in one hand, my pulse racing in my ears. He’s dangling. His whole body is suspended by two metal wires that look dangerously thin, considering how we’re on the twenty-eighth floor and the summer wind’s been blowing extra hard since noon, kicking up dust and leaves like a mini tornado. I shake my head, bewildered as to why anyone would put themselves in such a position. What is this—some kind of new extreme sport? A gang initiation? A midlife crisis? The man catches me staring and gives me a cheerful little wave, as if he isn’t one faulty wire or loose knot or particularly aggressive bird away from plummeting down the side of the building. Then, still ever-so-casual, he pulls out a wet cloth from his pocket and starts scrubbing the glass between us, leaving trails of white foam everywhere. Right. Of course. My cheeks heat. I’ve been away from China for so long that I completely forgot this is how apartment windows are cleaned—the same way I forgot how the subway lines work, or how you’re not supposed to flush toilet paper, or how you can only bargain at certain types of stores without coming across as broke or stingy. Then there are all the things that have changed in the twelve years that my family and I were overseas, the things I never had the chance to learn in the first place. Like how people here apparently just don’t use cash anymore. I’m not kidding. When I tried to hand a waitress an old one hundred yuan note the other week, she’d gaped at me as though I’d time-traveled straight from the seventeenth century. “Uh, hello? Eliza? Are you still there?” I almost trip over my bed corner in my haste to get to my laptop, which has been propped up on two cardboard boxes labeled ELIZA’S NOT VERY IMPORTANT STUFF—boxes I haven’t gotten around to unpacking yet, unlike my VERY IMPORTANT STUFF box. Ma thinks I could afford to be a bit more specific with my labels, but you can’t say I don’t have my own system. “Eli-za?” Zoe’s voice—achingly familiar even through the screen—grows louder. “I’m here, I’m here,” I call back. “Oh, good, because literally all I can see is a bare wall. Speaking of which . . . girl, are you ever going to decorate your room? You’ve been there for, like, three months and it looks like a hotel. I mean, a nice hotel, sure, but—” “It’s a deliberate artistic choice, okay? You know, minimalism and all that.” She snorts. I’m a good bullshitter, but Zoe happens to have a great bullshit detector. “Is it, though? Is it really?” “Maybe,” I lie, turning the laptop toward me. One side of the screen has been taken up by a personal essay for my English class and about a billion tabs on “how to write a kiss scene” for research purposes; on the other side is my best friend’s beautiful, grinning face. Zoe Sato-Meyer’s sitting in her kitchen, her favorite tweed jacket draped around her narrow frame, her dark waves smoothed back into a high ponytail and haloed by the overhead lights like a very stylish seventeen-year-old angel. The pitch-black windows behind her—and the bowl of steaming instant noodles on the counter (her idea of a bedtime snack)—are the only clue it’s some ungodly hour of the night in LA right now. “Oh my god.” Her eyes cut to my worn polka-dot sweatshirt as I adjust my laptop camera. “I can’t believe you still have that shirt. Didn’t you wear it in eighth grade or something?” “What? It’s comfortable,” I say, which is technically true. But I guess it’s also true that this ugly, fraying shirt is one of the only things that’s remained consistent throughout six different countries and twelve different schools. “Okay, okay.” Zoe holds up both hands in mock surrender. “You do you. But, like, still, shouldn’t you be changing? Unless you plan to wear that to your parent-teacher conferences . . .” My attention snaps back to the skirt in my grip, to the foreign-looking WESTBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BEIJING logo embroidered over the stiff, plasticky fabric. A knot forms in my stomach. “Yeah, no,” I mutter. “I should definitely be changing.” The window cleaner’s still here, so I yank the curtains closed—but not before I catch a glimpse of the sprawling apartment complex below. For a place called Bluelake, there’s very little that’s actually blue about the neat rows of buildings or curated gardens, but there is plenty of green: in the man-made lake at the heart of the compound and its adjoining lotus ponds, the spacious mini golf course and tennis courts by the parking lot, the lush grass lining the pebbled paths and maidenhair trees. When we first moved in, the whole area had reminded me of a fancy resort, which seems fitting. After all, it’s not like we’ll be staying here longer than a year. While I wriggle into my uniform, Zoe snaps her fingers and says, “Wait, you’re not getting out of this—tell me again why you’re writing about a nonexistent boyfriend for your essay?” “Not writing. Written,” I correct, pulling my shirt over my head. “I’ve already turned it in. And it’s not like I wanted to make up a story about my love life, but I didn’t know what else to