This Time It’s Real

Back home, hidden away in my bedroom, I create a brand-new PowerPoint titled A Step-by-Step Guide on Getting Over an Unwanted Crush.

I’ve spent the remaining school day compiling articles and advice columns and every resource out there on how to do this, scrapping all the bullshit tips like “just give it time” or “accept your feelings” and tailoring the information to my own situation. All I really need now is to follow through with it.

So, Step One: Look for Things to Hate about Him.

This should be easy enough. I crack my knuckles and spread my fingers over my keyboard. Things to hate … There are a number of anti-fan forums up and running, populated by people who absolutely loathe Caz Song: a perfect place to find inspiration. Still, I feel weirdly guilty going on them, as if I’m somehow engaging in an act of treason.

Then I read a few of the hate comments:

@fionaxia: Caz Song is so fake it creeps me out. You just know that it’s all a persona created by his company to win over brainless teenage girls. Does he even have an actual personality?

@phoebe_bear: let’s be real: if Caz Song weren’t born with a pretty face, he’d be a nobody. His acting is just okay. So many people are 1000x more deserving of what he has.

@stanxiaozhaninstead: A former fan here (don’t judge). Used to love him until he changed his hair. Wish he’d dye it again; now he looks too feminine.

@cazno1hater: I have this theory that Caz has hooked up with at least two major players in the entertainment industry. There’s literally no other explanation why he’d keep getting these big drama opportunities.

Next thing I know, I’m clenching my teeth so hard they hurt and creating an account under a fake name and replying: Caz Song is FAR more talented than you’ll ever be. You have no idea how hard he’s worked, you pathetic little—

Okay, so maybe the first step wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped. Whatever. I turn my attention to Step Two instead: Develop a Crush on Someone Else.

Over the next couple weeks, I force myself to admire photos of other celebrities every morning. Gong Jun. Deng Lun. Yi Yang Qian Xi. Jungkook. They’re all very attractive. I know this objectively. Yet my pulse stays the same no matter how long I stare at them, willing myself to just feel something. But I feel nothing, not until I get to school and catch sight of Caz laughing with his friends, where my pulse promptly skyrockets and my stomach somersaults ten times over.

Desperate by this point, I move on to Step Three: Observe Him More Closely. The apparent logic behind this is that crushes are like mirages; they don’t hold well under intense scrutiny. So I observe Caz Song, searching for flaws, a crack in the fantasy. At school, and during our chemistry training sessions while we explore the city and memorize as much of each other’s backgrounds as possible. In late November and early December, when Caz takes me out to eat lamb kebabs, sweet potatoes in foil, sugar-roasted chestnuts fragrant enough to make your mouth water from yards away. On the first day of winter, when Caz brings me to this place that sells thick sesame-coated bings the size of my face.

The whole time, I watch him—

And I notice all the wrong things.

Like how he’s always the first to clean up and throw our trash away without saying a word. How he gets cold easily, his cheeks flushing in the faintest breeze, but refuses to wear extra layers if he doesn’t think it looks good, which somehow isn’t nearly as irritating as it should be. How he never loses his patience when I can’t decide on my order, and never laughs at me when I ask silly questions about how the food is cooked.

Today, he introduces me to a handmade noodle stall near Houhai Lake, and the feeling is still there, curled up snugly against my ribs. The cursed, stubborn crush I can’t get rid of.

It’s supposed to snow later. This is what I’m thinking about on our ride back. How it’ll snow, and how secretly excited I am to see it, to feel it on my skin. I’ve forgotten what Beijing in the snow looks like. I hope it’s beautiful.

We’ve almost reached our compound when I notice that my right wrist is bare. It takes me another few seconds to realize why, exactly, the sight is so odd—

The bracelet.

The bracelet is gone.

“No,” I whisper, my voice buried beneath the rumble of the engine.

The motorcycle is moving too fast for me to stop and search for a short piece of string, but I try anyway, scanning my jean pockets, my sleeves, hoping against threadbare hope that it might’ve only gotten tangled in the fabric, in the wind, in my hair.

But there’s nothing.

Which means it must’ve fallen off somewhere along the ride, anywhere between the noodle stall and here. Maybe even earlier than that, when we were eating by the frozen lake banks, blowing warm air into our hands—

“Is something wrong?” Caz calls back to me, catching my eye in the side-view mirror.

“I—” The thought of brushing it aside, of simply acting like everything is fine and going home and grieving this loss alone, flits through my mind. It’s only an old bracelet anyway. And though I’ve kept mine ever since Zoe gave it to me, if I really think about it, I haven’t seen her wear hers in a while. Months, even. But what I say is “Can you let me down? There—there’s something I need to find.”

Caz doesn’t question me; he presses down on the brakes at once, easing us into a smooth stop by the sidewalk. As soon as the motorcycle starts to tilt dangerously, no longer suspended by its former momentum, he leaps off and straightens the vehicle and helps me to my feet.

When I’m safe on the ground, he asks, “What do you need to find?”

“My bracelet. It’s blue and kind of thin and—” I fumble around for a more specific description. My mind feels both numb and too full, crowded with a thousand different competing thoughts, none of them helpful. Deep down, I’m already starting to suspect that I might never see my bracelet again. “I—I wear it a lot—”

“I know which one it is.” Caz is looking past me now, in the direction of the city we just rode back from. Then his gaze locks on mine, and I expect to see some hint of impatience, or at least confusion over why I’m making such a big deal over a small thing. But he simply asks, “How long has it been missing?”

My throat tightens. “I only noticed a few moments ago, but … it could be hours since I lost it. It could be anywhere.”

“I doubt it.” His expression is thoughtful now. “I saw you wearing it when we were ordering the noodles, so you probably just dropped it on the way home. It can’t be too far.”

As he speaks, he’s already sliding one leg back over the motorcycle seat and gesturing for me to climb on after him.

I hesitate.

“What are you doing?”

“We can retrace our route back to the stall,” he says, raising his voice to be heard as he restarts the engine, the now-familiar hum sending small tremors through the pavement. “I’ll go slow, so just keep your eyes out for it, okay?”

I feel a frisson of panic, and not just over the bracelet. He’s being too kind, too thoughtful. Too likable. If I let him help me, trust him with this, then my crush will surely grow malignant. No amount of well-researched PowerPoints and pretty photos of Gong Jun’s face will ever let me get rid of it.

But it’s getting colder, and he’s waiting for me still, and even I’m not so unrealistic as to imagine I could track down the bracelet by myself on foot.

“Okay,” I say slowly, climbing on and wrapping my arms around his waist. The second I do, something inside me snaps into place, as if this one small action has already sealed my fate.

“Hold on tighter,” he warns. “It’s dangerous, riding around in the snow.”

Tentatively, I lean closer, until I can feel the heat of his skin despite the cold.

“Tighter.”

“What?” My face flushes. “I’m already—”

He makes a small sound like a sigh and grabs my wrists, pulling them higher so they’re locked just over his taut stomach, my entire upper body pressed snugly against his. “I don’t want to be legally responsible for any accidents,” he says over the hum of the engine.

The search begins. I scan the roads up and down, squint through the wind, staring at every gutter and crack in the pavement and upturned leaf we pass until my vision starts to blur.

Still nothing.

Above us, the sky is a pure, hushed white, a blank canvas, stretching on and on for every inch of ground we cover, until the first snowflake breaks free from the nothingness and tumbles down to earth. More follow. Soft, fat flakes of cold. I thought I’d forgotten this, but the sensation of the ice catching in my lashes and melting on the plastic of my black puffer jacket is oddly familiar, like an old friend.

No bracelet, though.

The snow adds a ticking clock; it’ll be impossible to find anything once the ground is lost in white. And we’re running out of time.

But just when I’m about to give up and ask for Caz to turn back around—I see it.

A glimpse of blue in my peripheral vision, lying just off the side of the road.

My breath catches, hope inflating my lungs.

“Stop!” I call. “It’s there—I think it’s there.”

As soon as Caz cuts the engine, I’m running. The street is more ice than concrete by now, and twice my feet slip, my weight tipping precariously forward before I steady myself, run faster. My fingers close over the thin string just as it’s pulled upward by a faint breeze.

Relief floods through my veins like morphine, dulling the edges of my panic until my heartbeat returns to normal again. I breathe out, grip the slightly damp bracelet to my chest. It’s there. Still there.

“You found it?”

Caz walks over to me, and I nod once, embarrassed now that the immediacy of the situation has melted away. I mean, what kind of person makes such a fuss over a piece of string?

He’s probably thinking that exact question, because he stares at the bracelet, then up at me, and says, “You wear that a lot.”

I nod again, knowing he’s searching for an explanation and unsure whether I should give it to him. How much of my heart I can afford to reveal. But what he’s done—without hesitation, seemingly without expectation of anything in return—I feel myself sway. Maybe it’s okay. Maybe I can trust him, just a little. “It’s a friendship bracelet. From Zoe.” My best friend is what I mean to add, but something glues my jaw shut, freezes the familiar words in my throat.

Just the other night, when I was drafting a blog post, I’d gone to listen to our Spotify playlist, only to find that the name had been changed from “zoe + eliza g8 hits” to “recs for divya.” Which, rationally speaking, is a small thing. Insignificant. But aren’t small things exactly what friendships are made up of? Frayed string bracelets and late-night texts and compilations of your favorite songs?

When you take those things away, what do you have left?

I don’t say any of this, of course, but Caz must see the hurt all over my face, because he asks quietly, “Do you miss her?”

I wrap my arms around my body. Exhale into the frigid air. “I miss a lot of people.”

And this, I think, is my ultimate fatal flaw. Missing people who don’t miss me back. Clinging on to strands of string that shouldn’t mean half as much as they do. It takes so little for me to love someone, yet so long for me to move on.

•    •    •

The snow has thickened by the time Caz parks his motorcycle outside the compound gates.

“Jie! Caz!”

I twist around, helmet still on, wobbling a little as my feet hit the ice-slicked pavement, and spot Emily moving toward us through the white haze. Her round cheeks are flushed pink from the cold, her messy braids tucked inside a polka-dot wool beanie, one umbrella raised over her head while another hangs from her swinging elbow.

“Hey, kid,” Caz calls as she draws closer. “What are you doing here?”

I expect Emily to tell him off for calling her kid, the way she always does with me, but instead her face breaks into a wide grin. Then, even more surprisingly, she reaches out and does this complex handshake-slash-high-five thing with him in complete sync.

“What … what was that?” I manage, rubbing a stray flake of snow from my eyes.

“Our secret handshake,” Emily says, then points behind her to our apartment in the background. “Also, we saw you guys riding back just now, so Ma told me to bring you an umbrella. You’re very welcome.”

But I don’t reach for the umbrella. “Since when do you two have a secret handshake?”

“I was invited over to her drama class a few times the other week to give them acting tips,” Caz explains while my little sister nods along fast and gazes up at him with clear adoration. “We came up with it during the breaks.”

“What?” I repeat, much sharper than I intended. Didn’t I tell him to leave my sister out of this?

Emily blinks at me, startled. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I just— You’re not supposed to …” But before I can figure out how to tell her off without telling her everything, Caz’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

“Eliza.” He’s holding his hand out to me, waiting, and for an embarrassing second, I think he’s about to show me a secret handshake too, or even pull me into a hug. But then he gestures to the helmet on my head.

“Oh. Sorry.” I fumble with the clasps, but my fingers are so numb from the cold that even after three tries, I still can’t get the helmet off.

Emily shoots Caz a pointed look. “Well? Aren’t you going to help her? Like, isn’t that what boyfriends are for?”

My skin heats. “Oh, no, that’s really not—”

“No, she’s right,” Caz offers, stepping forward, amusement tugging at one corner of his lips. Already slipping into his model-boyfriend role. I stay very still as he bends down so that we’re at eye level, his cool, slender fingers finding the straps beneath my chin, our breaths pluming the frozen gray air between us, flecks of snow caught in his oil-black lashes.

But it takes him too long, or maybe it’s simply too quiet here, with the compound’s paths empty save for the security guards, because my heart starts racing as though we ran all the way back home.

And suddenly it’s too real for me. His nearness, his gaze, his secret handshake with my little sister when they aren’t even meant to know each other. I might have accepted that I can’t help how I feel about him, that it might even be fine, so long as I never act on my feelings. But it’s no longer just my heart at stake. It’s Emily’s too.

I reel back so fast my hair catches on the clasp. I yank it off myself, ignoring the fresh sting of pain and Caz’s surprise.

“Thanks for the ride,” I babble, eager to escape. “And for—you know, all your help finding the bracelet. We should probably go home now—”

“Home?” Emily repeats. “What about Caz? Can he come with us?”

Panic jolts through me. “That’s—”

“Please? Pretty please?” she asks, turning her puppy-dog eyes on me. Damn it. The kid really knows what she’s doing. “We could introduce him to Ma; I bet she’s going to love him too. And we could even watch his dramas together. Oh my god—how cool would that be?”

No. Absolutely not. But the words are stuck in my throat, and to my horror, a scene unfurls in my mind of everything Emily is describing, tinted a soft gold at the edges like a dream sequence. Caz greeting my mother in the kitchen and sitting down on our couch, his arm draped around me while we turn on the TV—

To my surprise, Caz speaks up. “I’d really love that, kid, but … I actually have to head back to set this afternoon.” Even though he’s talking to Emily, his gaze is on me, a meaningful look in his eyes. He remembers, I realize. He remembers our conversation after the ti jianzi game: my worries, my warnings. “Maybe another time, okay?”

“Oh,” Emily says, wilting. And even though I shouldn’t, I feel an echo of disappointment too.

“Well, thanks again,” I tell Caz, taking Emily’s small, cold hand in mine and giving him an awkward wave with the other one. “And, uh, good luck with your shooting.” Then, instead of lingering like I want to, I take Emily back home, realizing as I do that it’s getting harder and harder to turn my back on Caz Song.