Chapter 4

I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared straight ahead out the windshield. I had been looking at the same tree in the school's parking lot for a few minutes already, mapping out the branches and leaves. It was a good tree. It looked sturdy and healthy as far as I could tell, but then, I wasn't an arborist. Maybe that could be my major in college. Something else I'd been putting off, figuring out what I wanted to study when I got to the university. I had been so preoccupied with getting in that I hadn't thought about what I would do when I got there.

It was now the morning after Jennie Kim had blindsided me by initiating a conversation. She had no idea the stress she had put me through just by acknowledging my existence. The day had started normally for the first ten seconds after I woke up, but then everything from the day before had slammed into my consciousness, and I’d almost tried to fake sick so I didn't have to go to school. But by the time I had thought up a realistic illness, I was already up and out of bed and in the shower. My mind was saying, Stay in bed and pretend you have the whooping cough, but my body was on its own separate track with, Time to start your morning routine, let’s go! Mind over body was a horrible lie.

Sorn had rushed me out of the house, saying that she had a before school meeting she could not miss, so I was out the front door and driving before I knew it. I didn’t think it was safe for me to be driving so much while I was in a mental haze, but the short drive between my house and the high school was so familiar that I was probably okay. Hopefully.

As soon as I’d parked, Sorn had practically jumped out the car, but not before telling me to remember what we had talked about yesterday. I did not want to give her hope by acknowledging her, because as far as I was concerned, all that nonsense yesterday about me not being a good enough lesbian was trash. So she’d left, and that was how I’d ended up alone in my car, staring at trees and contemplating my future as an arborist.

A tap at the passenger-side window had me turning my head to the right, and my body jerked as if all my muscles had decided to spasm at the same time. Jennie Kim was looking in through the window and waving at me. There was no mistake this time, since I was the only one in the car. I stared at her for a few seconds before I was able to give a weak wave back. That must have been a sign for her, since she then opened my door and sat in the seat my sister had just vacated a few minutes ago.

This was surreal. Jennie Kim was in my car. It was just the two of us, alone, in my car in a practically deserted parking lot. Maybe I had gotten into a car crash on the way to school this morning and I was in a coma dreaming all this. At that moment, it seemed just as likely a possibility as actually having Jennie Kim invite herself to sit in my passenger seat.

“Good morning,” she said with a smile. It was crooked on one end. I had to stop noticing stuff like that if I was going to try to talk to her, which it appeared I had to do since she had started talking to me.

“Hi,” I responded. “How’s it going?”

What I really wanted to say was, What in the freak are you doing in my car? You are giving me a heart attack! My chest felt like someone was sitting on it, and I could feel the sweat rolling down my sides underneath my shirt. Weren’t those the classic signs of a heart attack?

I must’ve had a better poker face than I thought, because Jennie Kim kept on talking as if I wouldn’t be needing an AED anytime soon. “I’m great. I woke up early today and just felt like getting out of the house, so I came to school early with the idea that I’d get some studying in before classes. But I saw you sitting here and decided to come say hi. So, hi,” she said with another wave. It was the most adorable thing I had ever seen another human being do in my entire life.

I tried to smile but my face felt weird, as if I’d forgotten the basic mechanisms of moving my lip muscles up in the right direction. Was I having a now, with paralysis of the face? Jennie Kim was unwittingly becoming hazardous to my health.

She was talking again, saving me from the effort of stringing more than three words together while in her presence. It was good to know she was a benevolent goddess.

“I also wanted to give you back your notes. Thanks for letting me borrow them yesterday,” she said, bending over her backpack slightly and rooting around in it, presumably for the notes. This gave me a few seconds to just watch her perfect profile without seeming like too much of a creeper. Her hair was as nice and shiny as ever.

“No problem,” I whispered. It was all I could manage while Jennie Kim sat next to me, our arms almost touching. Being in such a small space alone made talking with her seem much more intimate than she’d probably intended.

She sat up and turned to face me suddenly. “Got it,” she said triumphantly. She was holding my notebook in her hand, but the only things I could focus on were her eyes. This close, I could tell they weren’t really black, but more of a dark brown sort of hazel mix. They were the type of eyes that changed color depending on the light or what she was wearing that day. In my car, they were more dark brown, but I was sure that in the bright sunlight they’d sparkle.

I took the notebook. “That’s great,” I said. “I’m glad the notes were useful. Sorry about my handwriting, most of the time no one else can read what I write.”

Without the notebook in her hands, she started playing with her fingers. “It wasn’t that bad. Though it did take me a little bit to figure out what all those arrows meant. You have a unique way of taking notes.”

My smile came a little easier this time. “Yeah, Chaeng hates when she has to read something that I’ve written down. She says it never makes any sense, but it makes sense to me when I’m writing. I understand better later when there are more than words written down. I’m surprised you were able to decipher my code so fast.”

Jennie Kim's fingers clenched for a second, then stilled. I was mesmerized by every little move she made, but I realized that staring down at her lap could be taken the wrong way. I lifted my eyes up and found she was already looking at me. Actually, she was looking at something right behind me. I turned my head a fraction to try to see if there was anything there, but I couldn’t make anything out.

"So," she started, "Chaeng's your best friend, right? I've seen you two together a lot, and you seem like you're close."

Not sure if that was a question or not, I started talking. "Yeah, best friends since freshman year. Turns out we both at volleyball, and we ended up bonding over our shared failure. Stuck together ever since."

"Cool," she said. But she said it in a distracted way, like she really wanted to be talking about something else. Maybe she’d had more trouble with the notes than she was letting on and didn't want to admit it? She should not have to worry about failing the next test just because I had lousy handwriting.

"If you need help with history, let me know. Maybe we could have a study session before the next test. Or review anything you're not sure of. I know it can be hard to catch up when you miss a class."

Her eyes got very wide for a second and she took a quick breath, like I had surprised her. I probably had. We hardly knew each other, and here I was inviting her to study together. I could be totally hopeless at history a