Chapter 2

I needed my best friend. There were too many things floating around in my head, crashing against each other like bumper cars at the state fair. Chaeng was the one person I could trust to help me sort through everything. In addition to trying to stay motivated for school even though I'd already gotten into college, getting used to being out, and all the little personal stuff I had to juggle, I now had Jennie Kim on my mind. And not in the way she had been on my mind before: a rainbow-colored dream where she had held my hand and given me kisses as we walked the streets of Paris searching for the perfect pastry, my fantasy always coming to an inevitable end when I would wake up to a few seconds of disappointment that it all wasn’t real.

Now it was all too real. Jennie Kim was talking to me, giving me smiles, asking me for favors in real life. It was a long way from Parisian strolls, but it was still more than I had ever thought I would have with her. And what if, by some weird cosmic alignment of the stars, she wanted more? What if she was flirting with me? What would I do?

I was not sure about the answer to that. I would have liked to think I would be brave and bold and meet any attraction head-on, but what was more likely was that I would run and avoid and hide in my room until college started. But how could I live the rest of my life knowing that I’d had a chance with Jennie Kim but had passed on it because I was afraid? That was what it would come down to. Fear.

 

Of rejection, of heartbreak, of what other people would think.

Though I was probably way off. More likely there was no flirting going on, and all my interactions with Jennie today had just been a coincidence.

 

 

I was home now, sitting in my room. I barely remembered the rest of the day, or even how I’d gotten home from school. Everything after I handed Jennie my notes was a fog. Did I go to my other classes? No idea. Did I drive home with my sister? Did she catch a ride with someone else? Was she walking along the side of the road, cursing me for leaving her behind? Any of those things could have happened and I'd have no clue. My mind was trying to make sense of what had happened today, and it was having trouble processing it all.

 

 

I needed to talk to Chaeng. Park Chaeyoung and I had been friends ever since her mom had moved her and her younger brother Jeong Woo to our town in the ninth grade. That had been a tough time for both of us, Chaeng coming to a school where all of us had been together since kindergarten, and me slowly (very, very slowly, in fact) realizing that while the girls were gushing over the football players in their jerseys during game day, I was sneaking peeks at the cheerleaders in their uniforms. Those short skirts had played a large part in my ual awakening.

 

 

Chaeng and I had solidified our friendship during junior varsity volleyball try-outs. To this day, I don’t remember the reason I had tried out for volleyball. I had never been athletic. I was actually pretty lazy. I had asked my mom later why I’d wanted to play volleyball, and she had said she’d wondered that herself.

 

 

At least Chaeng had had a reason. She’d been trying to make friends at a new school and had gone out for what seemed to be the easiest sport in which to meet people. What she hadn’t known was that our school was known for its sports programs. Everyone was super competitive, and they had been training since the womb to get on one of the sports teams. And the parents were scary supportive, since athletic scholarships to universities were at stake.

 

 

We’d been by far the worst two players on the court, so Chaeng and I had been the first ones cut. As we’d stood away from the rest of the team, silently gathering up our things in relieved shame, she’d asked in a whisper whether I wanted to go get a cheeseburger. She must have sensed a kindred spirit. I had quickly agreed, and we’d bonded over our shared failures and greasy fast food.

 

 

I unlocked my phone and opened the messaging app. Chaeng's name wasn't there, but Princess Bananahammock was. Too many Friends reruns a few months ago had led to my best friend commandeering my phone and changing some settings. My sister Sorn was now Regina Falange, and I had never loved Chaeng more.

 

 

I pressed on Princess Bananahammock and started typing…

Me: something happened today

 

It was only a few seconds before she replied. Chaeng was probably at home, babysitting her little brother. She picked him up from after-school care when she was done for the day and watched him until their mom came home from work. Chaeng liked the arrangement since it meant she couldn't stay after school for clubs or sports. The volleyball disaster and her general apathy had soured her on extracurriculars.

 

PB: let me guess

PB: ok I give up

PB: TELL ME!!!!!!!

 

Thank goodness she was also impatient, because I didn't think I could take any guessing games today.

Me: Jennie Kim talked to me

Me: and she borrowed my notes

Me: and our fingers almost touched

Me: it was the best moment of my life

 

That last one was probably an exaggeration, but in that moment it felt like the truth.

Chaeng knew about my crush on Jennie Kim. Right after I had semi accidentally come out, she’d shown up at my house with an overnight bag and pulled out the spare bedding for a sleepover. I think it had been her way to show that things weren’t going to change between us just because everyone knew I liked girls. One of the fears that I’d had about coming out was how people would react. I was so stupid for thinking Chaeng would treat me any differently; she was the best. So we’d sat and talked and watched ten minutes of fifteen different movies on Netflix, and at one point Chaeng had asked me who I thought the prettiest girl in school was. And before I could think about it, I’d said, “Jennie Kim, of course.”

 

 

This had just gotten Chaeng fired up, and she’d asked me probably a hundred questions that night about Jennie and girls in general. I’d answered all her questions, except for the ones that had made me blush. Instead, I’d hit her with a pillow for asking them in the first place.

 

 

So Chaeng knew how I thought Jennie was basically perfection, and because she was an awesome best friend, she had hardly ever brought up Jennie since that night. I think she knew that I was self-conscious about talking about my crush, and so she hadn’t pushed.

 

 

But now I was voluntarily bringing up the subject for further discussion. During those few minutes it took for Chaeng to answer my last text, I pictured her jumping around her room, making that weird high-pitched noise she always made when she was excited about something. I’d seen her do it a dozen times before when a boy she liked acknowledged her or looked extra cute that day. Truthfully, I’d always thought it was silly, the way she reacted to the smallest thing her crush did. But now that it was happening to me, I totally understood where she was coming from. It was both nerve-racking and exhilarating when the person you dreamed of sweeping you away to a private island getaway actually knew your name.

 

 

PB: I AM COMING OVER!!!

 

 

I was texting to ask if she was going to bring Jeong Woo over too—I hoped she didn’t leave him by himself in her rush to get over here, he was only seven years old—when she said: right after I drop Jeong Woo off at a friends house

 

 

I grinned. Okay, that mind melding was a little creepy, but I was glad that Jeong Woo was going to be taken care of. I loved that little guy. He had an old soul to go with his old-man name. While Chaeng could be a little excitable, Jeong Woo was that rare kid who was almost always calm. I’d never seen him throw a tantrum, and I’d been at their house a lot over the years.

 

 

I usually didn’t mind if Chaeng brought him over, but I was glad he had gone to a friend’s house. Chaeng and I probably needed a few hours of best-friend time to get through all my Jennie Kim-related anxieties.

 

 

On the surface, it seemed like the best thing that had ever happened to me, but my pounding heart and nervous stomach were telling me otherwise. Was Jennie potentially flirting with me really a problem?

 

 

I went downstairs with the idea of watching some TV in the living room while I waited for Chaeng to show up, but the sound of my parents making dinner led me to detour to the kitchen instead. Sometimes they liked to cook together, which meant my mom telling my dad he wasn't cutting the vegetables correctly, while my dad said my mom was ruining the meat with too much seasoning. They seemed to get upset, but I thought they secretly liked the bickering. Everyone’s relationship was different, though I didn’t know that personally, since I’d never been in a relationship before.

 

 

Could Jennie Kim be my first relationship?

 

I slapped my hands to the sides of my head and let out a frustrated groan as I entered the kitchen. Did all my thoughts have to go to Jennie Kim? Couldn’t I have one whole Jennie Kim-free minute?

 

 

Over the chopping of the carrots, I heard my mom say, “That’s not a good sound. The world getting you down, sweetheart?” I threw myself onto one of the stools at the breakfast nook. I felt I was entitled to act like a petulant teenager today—it had been that rough—so I buried my face in my arms across the table. “I hate everything and nothing makes any sense. I can’t wait until I’m not a teenager anymore.”

 

 

My muffled voice must have carried. My dad stopped his chopping, and I could hear a smile when he spoke. “Sorry to disappoint, Lisa, but if you’re waiting for your twenties to make sense, you’ll be extremely disappointed. It’s the thirties where life begins to really get settled.”

 

 

“Late thirties,” my mom chimed in. She was stirring something at the stove, and the smells of garlic and cumin made my stomach rumble. At least my appetite hadn’t deserted me during my time of internal turmoil. I