Jenna Chen has spent her life in the shadow of her flawless cousin. Jessica Chen is so smart she gets the top score on every test. Jessica Chen is so beautiful people stop in the hallway to stare at her. Jessica Chen is so perfect she got into Harvard.
And Jenna Chen will only ever be a disappointment.
So when Jenna makes a desperate wish to become her cousin, the last thing she expects is for it to come true—literally. All of a sudden she gets to live the life she’s always dreamed of . . . but being the model student at cutthroat Havenwood Private Academy isn’t quite what she’d imagined. Worse, people seem to be forgetting that someone named Jenna Chen ever existed. But isn’t it worth trading it all away—her artistic talent, her childhood home, even the hope of golden boy Aaron Cai loving her back—to be Jessica Chen?
One
I’ve always had this theory that if I want something badly enough, the universe will make sure to keep it just out of my reach—either out of boredom or cruelty, like an invisible hand dangling stars on a string.
Sometimes the universe will be creative with its tricks too. Take, for instance, that morning a snowstorm appeared out of no- where. It never even snows in our part of town, and the sky had been an especially vivid acrylic blue, the sun fat and golden and rising over the tufted treetops. But I’d left all my notes in the classroom at Saturday Chinese school, and I desperately needed them for Havenwood’s monthly language test on Monday—I still couldn’t remember half the phrases we’d been taught, which ones meant “this floating life” and which ones meant “the flow of years like water” and “to dream of becoming a butterfly.” If I didn’t have my notes, I would fail.
And if I failed, I would have to tell my parents. Watch them try
to hide their disappointment.
So I’d rushed down to the car, my chest tight, my heart thrumming with urgency, when, as if summoned by a curse, the clouds
had flocked together overhead like wild dark birds, and the temperature had plummeted. The snow had fallen fast, in a mad flurry, quickly sweeping across the town and blanketing the elm trees and blocking off the roads. Chinese school ended up being closed for the entire weekend—something I hadn’t known was possible, considering that it never closed, not even during Christmas and New Year’s or when one of the buildings caught fire—and I learned to never expect any help from the universe.
But I still can’t stop myself from hoping it’ll be different this time around. Maybe a miracle will happen. Maybe the universe will be kind for once, and when I reach up, the stars will fall into my palms.
Maybe . . .
I lean my head back against my locked bedroom door and draw in a deep, rattling breath. Another. Another. It doesn’t work; the terrible tingling sensation in my fingers only spreads down to my feet, mutates into a violent trembling. My laptop is open and laid out on the floor below, the screen staring back at me like a beckoning, the time blinking in the corner.
4:59 p.m.
One minute until the email from Harvard arrives. Until I can know for certain if I was accepted or not. If I’m good enough or not. One minute until my life changes for better or worse, every passing second stirring up the wasps in my belly.
I can almost imagine it playing out like a scene from a movie. The beautiful, life-changing ding of my notifications, the words I’ve been dreaming of unfurling before me in concrete black-and-white Congratulations, Jenna Chen, I am delighted to inform you—the way my parents will beam and beam when I run downstairs and tell them, just before we head over to my auntie and uncle’s house, where they’ll finally get to brag about me. That’s how it always goes in those Harvard acceptance reaction videos, and I’ve watched every single one of them, half salivating, my wanting overtaking every cell in my body, pressing down hard on my chest like a physical sickness.
But then I imagine thousands of anxious high schoolers spread out across the world in this exact moment, all making the exact same wish, all staring at their laptops, waiting for the same email to come in. People like my cousin Jessica Chen: people smarter and cooler and objectively better than I am. People who’ve been pre- paring for this moment since before they could walk, who haven’t already been rejected by all the other Ivy Leagues they’ve applied to so far. The very thought makes me claustrophobic, makes doubt chew a ragged hole through my gut.
Ding!
I jump at the alert. It’s louder than I imagined, the sound harsher.
One new email.
My heart lurches into my throat. This is it—oh god, it’s here, it’s really happening. I’m going to throw up.
I brace myself, all my muscles tensed as if for a boxing match. My fingers are shaking so hard that I have to click the email four times before it loads onto the screen. There’s something about the moment, all the buildup before it, that feels almost anticlimactic. The air doesn’t change. The ground doesn’t shift beneath my feet.
Just a quick, simple action, a blink, and there it is: a few pixels on my laptop that’ll determine the entire trajectory of my life.
At first I’m too nervous to even absorb anything, can only gape at the wall of text, the Harvard logo splashed across the bottom like a bright bloodstain.
Then the words creep into my vision:
I am very sorry to inform you that we cannot offer you admission I wish that a different decision had been possible. . . . Receiving our final decision now will be helpful . . . as you make your college plans. . . .
I read it, read it all over again, and my gut sinks down to my feet. Time seems to warp around me, trapping me within it like an insect in amber. Distantly, I can still hear Mom and Dad moving downstairs, the sharp rattle of car keys, the clack of shoes, their muted bickering over how many wontons to bring with them to the gathering at Auntie’s place. But they might as well be thousands of miles away.
I pick my way through the rest of the email, as if there might be some other piece of information I’d missed, some final thread of hope. But all I see is further confirmation of what I’ve always known, deep down in the core of me.
In recent years faced with increasingly difficult
decisions In addition, most candidates present strong
personal and extracurricular credentials . . .
I’m simply not that good.
Not in academics. Not in extracurriculars. Not as a student, or a daughter, or a human. It doesn’t matter if I crammed my brain to the point of breaking with formulas and dates, threw myself into my classes, painted until the skin on my hands blistered and split open. Here is incontrovertible proof. Something in me is missing. Lacking.
“Jenna! Are you ready to go?” Mom always sounds like she’s
yelling from across a crowded marketplace. I startle at her voice, then, stomach churning, slam my laptop shut. Wipe roughly at my eyes. Ignore the dangerous ache building at the back of my throat. “I already told your uncle and auntie we’ve left the house.”
A recent memory resurfaces: my mom resting her chin against my shoulder as she watched me send my applications off, one by one, exhaling alongside the whoosh of every email. Later, she had spent hours in the kitchen making eight-treasure rice, adding in so many extra red dates and nuts the top layer was almost completely covered. To celebrate all your hard work, she’d said, smiling. It’s going to pay off, I can feel it. We’ll have a bigger celebration once you get in.
“Jenna? Did you hear me?”
The wasps inside me grow louder, their buzzing incessant. “I—I’m ready,” I call back, even as I reach for my coat as slowly
as possible, comb my hair back strand by messy strand, take the stairs one step at a time, delaying the inevitable.
How am I supposed to confess to my parents that everything they’ve done for me—leaving behind their old lives, moving across the world, spending what should’ve been vacation money on over- priced textbooks, waking up at dawn to drive me to tutoring centers, all so I could have a better education—was for nothing?
By the time we pull into my uncle’s driveway, I still haven’t figured out how to tell them.
Maybe, I muse to myself, my head resting against the fogged-up car window, it would be better if I burst into tears. Told them through hysterical sobs. Maybe then they would at least feel sorry for me, and spend most of their energy consoling me, instead of scolding me, or wondering where they went wrong. But they’ve already been understanding enough. That’s the thing. Each time a new rejection letter from Yale or UPenn or Brown popped up in my inbox, or in our mail, they’d be the first to squeeze my shoulders and say, It’s fine, we’re still waiting to hear back from the others. Except I’d seen for myself the growing concern in their eyes, how it’d spread over their aging features like a shadow; I bet Jessica’s parents had never looked at her like that before in her life.
Besides, what could my parents say this time around? There are no good schools left. The only ones we haven’t heard back from yet are my safety schools, the kinds of schools I was embarrassed to even be applying to. Of course Jessica hadn’t applied for any safety schools at all, because she didn’t need them. Her getting into the Ivies was already a foregone conclusion, a fate carved into stone for her probably since she was still in the womb. She’s just that good. That unreasonably, unfathomably perfect.
And I can never be her.
It’s such a suffocating thought—that everything I will ever feel and know and accomplish must begin and end with my own mind. “It’s so beautiful,” Mom remarks as she steps out of the car, taking in the full view of Uncle’s house. She makes the same comment
every time we come here, and every time, it’s true. I climb out after her and stare down the wide, windswept driveway, lined with magnolia trees, their petals flushed pink and smooth as wax, their slender branches reaching up toward the vast late-afternoon sky. And beyond that, the three-story house rises like a white-painted castle, with its massive floor-to-ceiling windows and ivy-crawled walls and marble balustrade balconies. It’s the kind of house that comes with its own name, dated back to the pre-WWI days and stamped in gold over the front door for all guests to see: Magnolia Cottage.
Once, when our mutual friend Leela Patel had come over for a study date with the two of us, she’d raised her brows, both her jaw and her bag dropping to her feet. “That’s your house, Jessica?” When Jessica nodded, with her signature small, humble smile, Leela had whistled. “Damn. I always thought a bunch of rich white people lived here.”
We’d all cracked up laughing, not because it was that funny, but because it was so accurate. My uncle and auntie might have moved over to America from Tianjin just three years before my parents did, but they seem to fit in better than we ever could. Every day, while my dad drives across town at dawn to set up air conditioners and inspect switchboards and my mom balances on her too-tight heels behind a reception desk, Jessica’s parents list off tasks to their assistants and close seven-figure deals from inside their spacious private offices. In the summers, when we budget for a two-day road trip to the closest beach, Jessica’s family flies business class to a luxurious resort in Italy. Jessica’s parents have everything: their lavish house and massive garden and high-end clothes. And they have Jessica.
My parents? All they have is me.
I swallow the bitter thought like poison and hurry to help Mom with the wontons. She’s packed five whole Tupperwares of them, all freshly wrapped and uncooked and stuffed with our special pork-and-shrimp filling.
“Is . . . there a festival going on that I don’t know about?” I ask, surveying the food.
She flicks my forehead lightly, then fiddles with her fake Chanel scarf. It’s the one she always wears when she’s meeting Dad’s side of the family. “Shush. You can’t expect us to show up at your uncle and auntie’s house empty-handed, can you? They’re already too kind to us, hosting these gatherings every time.”
Neither of us says the obvious—that the only reason my uncle and auntie always host is because our house is way too small to fit all of us, what with its one-and-a-half bathrooms and living- room-slash-kitchen. Even the dining table Dad dragged home from a garage sale a few years ago is only made for four people at most.
“I told you not to pack so many,” Dad mutters as he follows us down the driveway, the gravel crunching beneath his old sneakers. “Nobody’s going to finish all of that. And they’re already prepar- ing hot pot.”
“Better to bring too much than too little,” Mom returns. “Then we should’ve brought the apples from our backyard. Add
more variety—”
“Apples? Do you want them to think we’re cheap? Besides, some people don’t even like them.”
Dad looks so affronted you’d think he’d invented the fruit him- self. “Everyone loves apples—”
We’ve reached the front door now. When it swings open,
revealing my smiling uncle and auntie, I watch my parents pause mid-bickering and switch to bright smiles, the whole thing quick and subtle as a magic trick.
“It’s so good to see you!” Mom greets, passing the wontons for- ward. “We made some extra ones, and thought we’d share them with you.”
“Aiya, you’re too polite.” Auntie makes a big fuss of tutting and shaking her head while Uncle fetches the slippers. It’s what she tells Mom every visit; sometimes I swear all the adults are following some kind of secret rulebook on social etiquette. “I keep telling you, you don’t have to bring anything. We’re all family here.”
“It’s because we’re family that we should all share,” Mom insists. Another all-too-familiar line, followed by the even more famil- iar “By the way, you look so skinny. Have you been eating well lately?”
I tighten my grip on the wonton containers, dreading the mo- ment they finish running through the pleasantries and turn their attention to me. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep pretend- ing everything’s fine when I’m one wrong question away from breaking down. And I can’t imagine anything more mortifying than breaking down over my Harvard rejection at my Harvard- bound cousin’s house.
“Jenna!” Uncle greets me first, waving me into the warmth of the living room. As different as he is from Dad, I’ve always liked him; he smiles more than he laughs, seems to know something about everything, and unlike most grown-ups, he never treats me like a little kid. But today, I just want to get away from him. From all of them. “How have your studies been?”
“Oh, not bad,” I say, hoping he can’t hear the catch in my voice. “You’re being modest,” he says, nodding sagely. “I’m sure your grades are excellent.”
They’re not. Harvard doesn’t seem to think so, anyway.
But before he can pursue the topic, Jessica appears beside him like a living saint. An enviably accomplished saint dressed in arctic- blue cashmere and a perfect plaid skirt. From afar, Jessica and I look so similar that we could easily be confused for each other, and at school, we often are. But one day I overheard a girl in our history class comment, in this flat, blunt way that meant she was being totally honest, that I look like the dollar-store version of Jessica Chen.
Ever since then, I haven’t been able to stop seeing it. Obsessing over it. Whereas Jessica’s hair is black and glossy, like something out of a shampoo ad, mine is dull and deep brown; whereas her complexion is Chinese-beauty-pageant smooth, mine is sickly looking, even after layers of foundation. She’s also taller in a supermodel way, with the long neck of a ballerina and the posture of a princess. “Oh my god, hey.” She beams at me, all her straight white teeth flashing. She’s never had to wear braces either, never had to suffer to make them the way they are; her teeth are just like that, which pretty much sums my cousin up. Jessica Chen has always been a natural. She was born the best, while I’ve spent my entire life trying to just be good, and I’ve failed at even that.
I chew down on my tongue until it’s numb and force myself to beam back. “Hi.”
“Guess who’s here.”
Something about the way she says it, how she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, sends a jolt of unease through me.
“Huh? Who?” I crane my neck and scan the room, but all I can make out is the usual casual display of wealth: the chandeliers glit- tering above the plush couches, the gleaming Yamaha piano set in the corner for every visitor to listen to her play “River Flows in You,” the gold-framed abstract paintings adorning the walls, the patterned porcelain vases and decade-old yellow wine stacked on the bookshelf, beside rows upon rows of trophies. All Jessica’s, of course, for everything from advanced algebra to badminton to cello.
Then a boy our age steps out from behind the shelf with quiet, unfathomable grace, and my stomach flips.
I almost don’t recognize him right away. His hair’s grown lon- ger, the thick, dark strands curled beautifully around his head like a crown, his jaw sharper, his shoulders broader than they were a year ago. But that self-assured expression arranged on his face is exactly as I remember it. So is the not-quite smile playing across his lips as he meets my gaze. It doesn’t matter that I blocked him on every single social media platform when he left for his fancy medical youth program in Paris on a full scholarship, that I tuned my parents out every time they brought up “Mr. Cai’s talented son.” He might as well be engraved in my memory, etched into my mind, every part of me. I remember it all.
The shock of seeing him here in Jessica’s living room—lovely and real and unexpected—today, of all days, feels like a punch in the face. My skin burns, and it takes an impossible degree of self- restraint not to flee in the opposite direction.
“Aaron Cai,” Jessica says unnecessarily, gesturing between the two of us as though it’s our first time meeting, when I’ve known him all my life. His father is best friends with my dad, and my family had invited them to move closer to us, after his mother passed and his father stopped cleaning, stopped cooking, stopped almost everything. I can’t even imagine a world where I don’t know him, where I wouldn’t pass him ready-made lunches before school, where the three of us didn’t spend our childhood summers hanging around on Jessica’s porch together, sharing chocolate pies and star- ing at the stars when darkness fell.
“You haven’t changed much,” Aaron says, stopping a foot away. The heat in my skin rises. I know he probably doesn’t mean it like an insult, but after our last mortifying exchange, I’d made it a mission to change myself. To metamorphize into someone gorgeous and glamorous and inimitable. Sometimes at night, I’d envision our next meeting. How his eyes would widen at the sight of me. How he’d eat his words, regret everything.
But today is starting to feel like a cruel lesson in the difference between imagination and real life.
“Neither have you,” I reply, though when it comes to him, this is a compliment. When you’re so widely known and loved, so soaked in glory you’re swimming in it, all you have to worry about is maintenance, not metamorphosis.
“Aaron finished his program early,” Jessica explains. “He’s going to spend the rest of his senior year back here with us. Isn’t that great?”
“Oh” is all I can think to say.
Aaron hesitates, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single pen. “As promised,” he says, holding it up to me.
I freeze. The pen is intricately designed, plated in rose gold, with a delicate flower charm dangling from the end, the petals carved out of crystals. He remembered. My throat burns with the knowl- edge, every moment from our past coalescing into the present. We were only twelve when he made the promise. He and Jessica had been selected to attend a math tournament in New York, and even though I’d tried to act like I didn’t care that I hadn’t even been considered for it, he must have seen the disappointment on my face.
I’ll bring something back for you, he’d said, smiling, tugging lightly at my hair. What do you want?
Nothing, I’d mumbled.
He’d cast me a knowing look. You always want something.
I wanted to go with him. I wanted to be on his team. I wanted to be smart like him and Jessica.
How about a new paint set? he’d suggested. You’ve been drawing a lot, haven’t you? A good artist needs good supplies.
That was the first time anyone had ever acknowledged that I was good at something, and so casually too, like it was obvious.
Warmth curled inside my chest. I have enough paints—I just want a pen, I had told him. It was a small lie. My paints had almost run out, but a pen seemed like a much simpler and cheaper option, something he could find without trouble. I can use it for my sketches. But when he returned, he gave me one of the fanciest fountain pens I’d ever seen, the kind a queen might use to sign her letters. From then on, every time he had to leave for a competition or debating camp or a school excursion, he would come back with a new pen just for me.
As I take the gift from him now, I’m tempted to laugh at myself. An entire fortress, built painstakingly over the year in his absence, threatening to crumble at the light touch of a pen. Zhen mei chuxi. The familiar phrase of disdain echoes inside my head. It’s what my mom would say whenever I was being slightly pathetic, like when I’d beg her to buy ice cream for me at the mall, or when I’d cry over a tiny scratch on my hand. “I . . . thank you, Cai Anran,” I say, his Chinese name falling a little too easily from my lips.
“You really didn’t need to bring so many presents for all of us,” Jessica adds.
It’s only then that I notice the boxes of dark chocolate and bottles of fish oil supplements laid out on the couch. My stom- ach sinks. He’d remembered his promise, but I had forgotten that Aaron Cai has a dangerous way of making everyone feel special.
I can sense Aaron’s gaze on me when he says, “It’s no big deal. Both your parents and Jenna’s parents have been so nice to me—I mean, you’re even letting me impose on your family dinner.”
“Are you kidding? The more people the better, especially for hot pot.” Jessica shakes her dark, glossy hair out as she laughs.
I breathe through the wire coiling around my ribs, feeling the same way I had the morning they left for the math tournament, my feet rooted to the spot, my eyes following their tall, graceful, receding figures to the bus, the distance between us drawing wider and wider. They’ve always looked like they belong next to each other.
Then Jessica whirls toward me, her skirt fanning out in a perfect circle. “Oh! We prepared that extra spicy sauce you like. I asked Ma and Ba to put it in a separate pot for you, though, since Aaron wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
Another thing about my cousin: she’s as naturally kind as she is talented. Sometimes—and I know it’s awful—I almost wish she were a terrible person. Someone undeserving of her success. Some- one I could hate without feeling like the villain.
I tuck the pen away and follow silently after her to the dining room, where all the adults have congregated too, their conversa- tion traveling down the well-trodden routes of real estate prices and our school’s extracurricular activities. Good. So long as they don’t turn their attention to college applications, I might be able to survive this evening.
The hot pot has already been set out on the long glass table, the rich, spice-infused water close to bubbling over, plates of thinly sliced raw lamb and beef and lotus root squeezed around it. Aaron slides into the seat next to Jessica, across from me. I try not to stare at him through the soft, rising steam. Try not to take account of everything both new and familiar about him. New: the way he rests his chin on the back of one hand. Familiar: the way he holds his chopsticks too close to the ends and discreetly picks all the chopped scallions out of his bowl.
Then his gaze catches on mine.
Get a grip, I will myself, quickly turning my head away, my cheeks burning. He’s going to think you still like him, and you don’t need to give him a reason to reject you all over again. Especially not when I’m still reeling from the last time I saw him, an entire year ago.
Once the meat has been thrown into the pot and the ground sesame sauce has been passed around, Auntie sits up straighter in her chair and clears her throat.
“Since everyone’s here,” she begins, shooting a not-so-subtle look at Uncle, then Jessica, who just smiles down at the table. “I feel like it’s a great time to share some super exciting news. We found out just minutes before you arrived, and, well . . .”
Even before she says it, I know. My skin tingles, and my breath clogs in my throat, my ribs caving in, bracing for the blow.
“Jessica got into Harvard!” The words come tumbling out in an excited rush, and my sensible, ever-composed aunt actually lets out a little squeal at the end, like a schoolgirl at her first concert. I’ve never seen her so excited. I’ve never seen my uncle so excited either—his complexion is as red as his wine, and he’s gazing over at Jessica with such fierce, obvious pride it seems to form a warm halo around them, encompassing their side of the family. The good side.
While I remain sitting, my fingers cold and numb, everyone else reacts.
“Wow, that—that’s incredible,” Mom gushes, reaching out to ruffle Jessica’s hair. “Of course, it’s not surprising at all—if any- one’s getting into Harvard, it’s our Jessica.”
Dad gives my uncle a heavy pat on the back. “Congratulations, congratulations. Your job is done, then. Now you can just wait to reap all the rewards of having a successful daughter.”
My aunt is grinning so wide I’m scared her face will split into two. “I can’t take all the credit—Jessica has always been so inde- pendent, so hardworking, so brilliant. We’ve never had to worry about her future.”
I swallow, and it’s as painful as swallowing glass. All my parents have ever done is worry about me.
“Don’t go bragging now,” my uncle is saying, but his grin is just as wide, his happiness like the sun, too bright to stare at without your eyes watering.
And there’s Jessica, sitting comfortably in all the attention like an empress on her rightful throne. It feels like watching the secret movie in my head playing out in real time, except all the roles have been recast. Instead of Mom and Dad pulling me into a bone- crushing hug, gloating about how smart I am, how successful I’ll be, while the others watch on in admiration and joy and envy, it’s Auntie and Uncle. And instead of me absorbing their compliments, drinking in the euphoria of this moment, it’s Jessica.
It’s always Jessica.
The moment stretches on long enough to dredge up other mem- ories too, the ones I’ve worked so hard to bury. Like when I ran home and excitedly told my parents I’d gotten eighty-five percent on our end-of-year exams, only to discover later that Jessica had scored full marks. Or when both Jessica and I entered the school’s essay contest, and she’d come in first place, while I came in third, despite preparing for months. Or when the principal wanted some- one to make a speech on behalf of the school at orientation, and only picked me after Jessica declined, because she’d be busy attend- ing some prestigious awards ceremony with Aaron.
But I should be happy for her. Or I want to be happy for her. “That’s amazing news,” I tell Jessica, the muscles in my cheeks
locked into place. “Seriously. I—I’m so happy for you.”
“It’s hardly news at all,” Aaron says to her. “The three of us have been talking about this since we were kids. If you didn’t get into Harvard, that would be news.”
My whole face stings as if I’ve just been slapped. I do my best to keep quiet, keep smiling, keep acting like I’m just overjoyed about everything, but I can feel Aaron’s attention on me.
“What was our elaborate plan again?” Jessica says. “Me and Jenna heading off to Harvard together, and you flying in from Yale to see us every weekend on your private jet—that part might have been a tad unrealistic, but everything else might actually work out ”
This is exactly what I’ve been dreading.
Please don’t, I beg inside my head. Please don’t ask me about Har- vard. But of course there’s nobody around to answer my prayers.
Just when I’m considering how convincingly and elegantly I could fake-faint on the spot to escape the conversation, my uncle turns toward me. It almost seems to happen in slow motion, like the climactic scene from a horror movie, the air around us as still as death. “That reminds me,” he says, snapping his fingers. In my head, the violins from the imaginary horror movie soundtrack screech to a crescendo. “Jenna . . . you must have received the email too today.”
I feel, more than see, the effect of his words. The invisible dots connecting in my parents’ heads. The sudden pressure in the atmo- sphere. The weight of their expectations thrust onto my shoulders. I lick my dry lips, stare at my chopsticks, and feel a kind of crush- ing inferiority that’s like being buried under stone. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t speak.
“Jenna?” Mom peers at me, and the hope in her eyes makes everything so much worse. She still believes in me. “Did you check your emails today?”
“You should check it now,” Auntie says, mistaking my silence for a no. “While we’re all here to celebrate. Oh my god, can you imagine? Jenna and Jessica both going to Harvard . . .”
My heart squeezes. I can’t stand this. Not their faith, not my shame.
“You heard your aunt. Check your emails now,” my dad tells me, rising from his seat so enthusiastically he bumps his leg against the edge of the table. He looks like he’s one moment away from grabbing my phone and checking my inbox himself. I can see the future he wants for me projected vividly across his face.
I clench my fingers together in my lap, so overwhelmed I can’t even think of a way out. I’m trapped.
“Oh, someone should film this!” Auntie says, while Jessica smiles encouragingly. I’m scared to even glance in Aaron’s direction, to guess what he’s thinking. “Let me get the camera—we’d forgotten to film Jessica’s reaction earlier, but we can do it for Jenna It’s such a special memory—”
“Aiya, save the trouble,” Uncle interrupts. “I’m sure they’re more eager to know the results. Jenna, go ahead. Read what Har- vard said.”
“Go on,” my mom urges.
But I don’t reach for my phone. My hands are frozen. Dad frowns. “Why aren’t you—”
“I, um, already checked my emails,” I croak out.
“And?” my aunt prompts, the way people do when they’re pre- pared to celebrate good news but want to give you the opportunity to announce it.
The words won’t leave my tongue. I can’t bring myself to say it, to physically voice my failures, so I just shake my head.
Silence.
Everyone stares at me; nobody speaks. There’s only the water boiling in the pot between us, all the white foam and ginger bits and spring onions bubbling up to the surface. I watch as the sliced lamb turns from a raw, tender pink to brown. It’ll be overcooked soon, grow too hard to swallow, but no one fetches it out.
“Are you sure?” Dad asks, looking more disoriented than any- thing, as if convinced I’ve made a silly mistake. In an alternative universe where I had gotten in, he would’ve been the first person I told. My father, who never got a chance to complete his degree in China, who’s always fantasized about sending me off to an Ivy League. Who’s already told all his friends and colleagues I was applying to Harvard. Who would glance over at me when my mom was pressing another heated herbal pack to his aching back and sigh and say, So long as you study hard, you’ll be able to find a com- fortable job that doesn’t take such a toll on your body, do you understand? He sets his chopsticks down. “You didn’t get in? You were rejected?”
I manage to nod.
Another silence, even heavier this time. I catch Aaron’s eye across the table—an old habit, muscle memory—and instantly regret it. His gaze is dark, somber, a knife to the throat. It’s been a year since he looked at me like that.
“Well.” Auntie is the first to recover. She even smiles at me, though maybe I’m giving her too much credit. Maybe it’s a genuine smile, just one of relief: Thank god Jessica is my daughter, and not Jenna. “That’s all right. It’s just a school.”
“Yes, yes,” Uncle adds quickly. “The meat should be ready now.
Hurry up and eat.”
The second all the platters have been emptied, I slip out quietly through the back door.
Outside, in Jessica’s backyard, a cool breeze whips my cheeks, the petal-arched blackness creeping over the edges, blurring the boundary between the trimmed grass and the wilderness of the woods farther up ahead. When we were much younger, we used to imagine monsters living there. I would kill them, Aaron had said without hesitation. I would help them, Jessica had offered. I would learn from them, I had thought to myself. Even then, I felt I lacked some- thing: claws, speed, a hunter’s instinct. Now I breathe in, tasting the subdued sweetness of lavender, tipping my head to the dark sky. A few stray clouds drift over the full moon, the light scattering across the city. The stars are visible tonight, sharp as needlepoints and so lovely I’m tempted to paint them, despite knowing I could never get the colors right.
It’s cruel, really, how the world tends to present its most beau- tiful parts to you when you’re so profoundly sad. Like a crush who comes up to you in the moonlight and smiles at you each time you insist on moving on—just enough to keep you lingering, to make you wonder how good things could be. If only, if only.
The door creaks open again. I turn around as Aaron and Jessica walk over to join me.
“Hey, are you okay?” Jessica asks, sitting down on the back porch and swinging her legs over the side, her silky hair blowing across her face.
After a pause, I lower myself onto the cold wooden planks too, aware of Aaron stopping on my left. For the thousandth time, I wish he wasn’t here. I wish he had never come back. But that’s half a lie, because I’ve missed him too. Sometimes I missed him so much it’s embarrassing.
“I’m fine,” I say, trying at a laugh, though the sound dies half- way, dissolves into the frigid blue air. “I mean, I only applied as a joke. Harvard’s lucky to have you, though,” I tell her. “You must be thrilled.”
At this, she turns away, the shadows of an overgrown oak cloak- ing her face. “Yeah. I am. Thrilled.”
I glance back at the lit-up house, the vast Victorian-style structure looming larger than ever against the night sky. Through the thin screen doors, I can make out my parents’ silhouettes, both deep in conversation. Auntie’s rubbing slow, consoling circles over my mom’s back, while my dad has his head in his hands, as if ward- ing off a severe migraine. My chest tightens. Somehow I know they’re talking about me. My future. My failures.
“It’s really nice out here,” Aaron says, leaning back, both his hands propped against the wood. “I’ve missed this place.”
It is nice out here, in a way. A cicada chirps from a nearby tree, and the dew-damp grass bends beneath a breeze, and the air feels the way it does after fresh rain: cool and crisp and almost sweet with the scent of earth, ripe with possibility. If I were someone else, I would enjoy this moment, take it, rest my bones in it. But instead, scenes from that better, alternative universe keep unspool- ing in the back of my mind, one in which I’m laughing with Jessica, both of us giddy over the prospect of Harvard, one where I am whole, convinced at last of my worth.
Then Jessica nudges me, her voice breaking through my thoughts. “Oh my god—look!”
She’s pointing at something high above us, and I look up just in time to see it: an astonishing streak of silver, a bright needle of light piercing the sky’s black canvas, soaring over the tree skele- tons in the woods, over our heads, over everything. I’ve only ever seen shooting stars in movies before, never like this. It’s even more beautiful than I’d imagined.
“Quick, you guys,” Jessica says, clasping her hands together. “Make a wish.”
Aaron huffs out a soft, skeptical laugh and rolls his eyes, but follows suit after a beat.
I’m skeptical too. The universe has never listened to me before. Then again, I have nothing to lose; everything that could go wrong already has. So I squeeze my eyes shut, the light of stars flickering behind my eyelids. Goose bumps crawl down my arms as the quiet moment expands, takes on a strangely surreal quality, and I can’t shake the sensation that something or someone really is listening, shifting closer, their ear pressed against the wall of my thoughts.
My parents’ low, concerned voices drift through the cracks in the door behind me, and the cicadas stop singing, and the breeze picks up into a great, billowing wind, shaking the loose wooden boards like a haunting and slashing at my cheeks. The light also grows brighter, glowing a brilliant, pure silver, the kind of color that could belong to another world.
My stomach dips. I feel all of a sudden as if I’m standing on some high precipice, staring down at the sheer drop below. It’s like the moment before the fall, before gravity finds me, when everything is sheer potential, the air humming around me.
In the end, I don’t even have to decide what my wish is before making it.
I wish I was Jessica Chen.
Two
The drive back home is awfully quiet.
I can tell, from the way Mom and Dad look at each other when we enter the house, pause in our tiny kitchen, all but communicating through charades, that they’re working out some sort of script for this. Sure enough, Mom clears her throat and goes first, her voice careful, her words rehearsed.
“We know this might be disappointing news to everyone, Jenna, but it’s too late to do anything now. We can’t change the past; what’s important is for us to look ahead at our options. You still haven’t heard back from your safety schools ”
I nod along, just to show I’m listening. Just to stop myself from screaming. The dissonance of coming back to our house straight from Jessica’s semi-mansion is jarring. Here, the lights are dimmer, the colors duller, the furniture sparse rather than luxurious, and also completely mismatched, with a traditional Chinese-style chair sitting next to an old Victorian antique table. My dad’s work overalls have been draped over the chair to dry, and his toolbox has been crammed into the bottom of the bookshelf, under all the heavy volumes on financial planning and the award-winning nonfiction titles Dad only pretends to read because my uncle recommended them. A stack of dirty plates awaits us on the kitchen counter, neglected from last night, an unopened bag of goji berries lying beside it.
“I did tell you to sign up for the cross-country team,” Dad is saying, which earns him a pointed glare from Mom. He’s going off-script.
I lean against the kitchen counter. Try to swallow the bitter lump in my throat. “Cross-country?”
“It’s meaningless to talk about this now,” Mom says hastily, stepping between us. “Let’s not—”
“It could have helped you look more well-rounded,” Dad presses. “Maybe if you exercised more . . .”
Even though I’d been determined to keep my emotions in check, accept whatever they threw my way, this is so unreasonable that I can only stare at him. It seems to be a defining trait of many parents that they’ll pick one incredibly specific thing and treat it as the source or solution of all your problems. For my dad, it’s always been exercise. Have a fever? Too little exercise. In a foul mood? Go exercise. A bad acne flare-up? Not enough exercise. Existential crisis? Exercise will help. Find yourself kidnapped and stranded on a remote island? It could’ve been avoided if only you’d run a little more in your free time.
“Whatever,” I bite out, knowing there’s no way to reason with him, to explain that the issue isn’t my lack of participation in Havenwood’s sports teams. It’s that even if I did join the cross- country team and ran six hours a day until my legs failed and my lungs collapsed, I still wouldn’t be half as fast as Jessica, who moves with the athletic grace of a gazelle, who finishes entire marathons for fun, breaks records without effort. “I just . . . I don’t want to talk about this—”
“You can’t avoid the subject,” Dad says, his forehead scrunching. “We need to evaluate where you went wrong so you can improve in the future.”
“Could we please not?”
His frown deepens. “What kind of attitude is that? Just look at your cousin Jessica,” he says, shaking his head hard. “You two came from the same family, attend the same school, are the same age. She’s managed to get into Harvard—and what is it, five other Ivy Leagues? Maybe you should learn from her—”
“Laogong,” my mom interrupts him with a warning glance. “I don’t think that’s very fair—”
“Only children talk about fairness,” he persists, waving his hands about, his gestures increasingly agitated, the way they are whenever he goes into full lecture mode. “Do you think the world is a fair place? If you’re too weak, you’ll be eliminated. Look what happened to the Roman Empire—”
If I didn’t feel like crying, I’d probably laugh. “First you’re comparing me to Jessica, and now you’re comparing me to Rome?” He flings a Chinese phrase at me then, one of those four- character idioms I’m not cultured enough to understand, but the sentiment is clear.
I fix my eyes on the window behind him. Outside, the night sky is a somber violet, the silhouette of the Ethermist Mountains curving over the horizon. All the little houses are lined up one by one down our narrow street, made of the same cheap materials, with the same faded redbrick designs. From a distance it looks like the image of the idyllic suburban life, but instead of white picket fences and pretty lawns, we only have wild grass and dark cypress trees, tiny garages taken up by secondhand cars. Barely bourgeoisie, I always like to describe it in my head.
Not great. Not terrible. Just suffocatingly average.
We could have lived somewhere better. Somewhere with space to run around in the summer, with modern glass walls and large sunlit bedrooms. But my parents had insisted on staying here, where it costs more for less, so we could be closer to my school, thinking it would boost my chances of success. They’ve bet every- thing on me—their time and energy and savings—and this is what I have to show for it. Sunk costs. A failed investment.
“Dad. Please.” I take a deep breath. “Listen—”
“No, you listen first. I’m telling you that if you’d followed Jessica’s example—”
“I tried to.” I can barely form the words. I grip the counter, my nails digging into the stone. This feels like a murder scene, all my worst fears, my insecurities, sprawled out and bleeding over the tiles before me. “I tried, I swear. I’m always trying. But I—” My voice catches. “I’m just not that good.”
He doesn’t agree. But he doesn’t deny it either. His eyes are lined with some heavy, weary emotion. Disappointment, most likely.
The back of my throat aches. Don’t cry, don’t you dare cry. Not here.
So I leave without another word. Neither of them follows me as I scramble up the stairs, into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. Everything’s a blur. I blink, blink harder, catch my heart before it can fall out of my chest. Then, in the dark, deafening quiet, I stare around me.
My latest painting is still sitting in the center of the room, right where I left it. It’s the self-portrait I’d been working on earlier this morning, when I was trying to distract myself from college applications, trying not to let my hope consume me. I remember being proud of it, admiring the smooth blend of moss greens and cream whites and smoky pinks in the background, the sharp angles and shadows lining my nose and pursed lips, the bold black brush- strokes layering my hair. In it, my eyes are focused on some distant point beyond the frame, magnolias blooming from the edge of the painting, their petals brushing my cheek. I have one hand lifted, as if I’m waiting for something. Reaching for something.
But now, staring at the portrait, I feel a vicious stab of self-loathing.
I seize the closest acrylic tin and fling it at the canvas, watching the paint drip until my eyes are obscured and the portrait could be of anyone, any sad, nameless girl who yearns for the world. Then, with the violet paint still wet on my fingers, its sharp acid smell burning my nostrils, I bury myself in my blankets and wait for sleep to wash over me.
I wake the next morning with the sun in my eyes.
Strange, I think sleepily, blinking into the bright orange glare of the window. My bedroom is always dark, with its thick curtains and dull view of the brick house next to ours. Then I lift my arms to stretch, and the sense of strangeness digs deeper into my gut. The blankets draped over my stomach are too soft, too light, the pillows stacked higher than I’m used to. Even the air smells differ- ent when I inhale: it’s oddly sweet, like strawberries, some scent I know but can’t place.
I rub my eyes, hoping to wipe away the mist of confusion. But when I squint up at my raised hand, my skin appears . . . smoother. The spilled paint from yesterday is gone, even though acrylic takes ages to wash off. Then I notice something that throws me off-balance, makes everything in my head go fuzzy. There’s a birthmark between my fingers, no bigger than a coin and shaped like a flower.
That was never there before.
What the hell?
I sit up slowly, mind spinning, and the strangeness only grows. The sheets are printed with a pastel floral pattern. Definitely not the ones I slept in yesterday. Then the bedroom sharpens into focus, the details registering in pieces. A glass bookshelf close to toppling beneath the weight of medals and certificates and text- books. A schoolbag set neatly on a desk overlooking the gardens below, a shiny MacBook already placed within it. The Havenwood uniform hanging from the closet doors, the navy plaid skirt longer than mine, the front blazer pocket adorned with so many school badges there’s more gold and silver than actual fabric. I’ve seen those badges before, stared at them during long, monotonous assemblies, marveling at the way they gleamed beneath the spotlight.
Understanding slides into place, offset immediately by more confusion.
I’m in Jessica Chen’s room. But . . . how?
I try to recount yesterday’s events, searching for clues, an ex- planation. No, I’m certain I’d fallen asleep in my own bedroom. Did I sleepwalk? Except I’ve never sleepwalked once in my life. And Jessica’s house is at least a fifteen-minute drive from mine, too far to travel on foot in the dead of night. So then . . . then what? Maybe someone moved me here? But that doesn’t make sense either. I distinctly remember locking my bedroom door. The only way to unlock it is from the inside.
The creak of a cabinet closing downstairs sends my thoughts bolting like a startled hare in another direction. Would my aunt and uncle know that I’d slept in Jessica’s room? How am I supposed to explain this to them? The skin on my face feels stretched full with blood, panic, and mortification taking turns kicking my gut. Had I been so sad that I’d gotten drunk at some point last night? Is that why I don’t remember anything?
Out of habit, I reach for my phone on the bedside table. But the wallpaper that glows over the screen is a photo of Jessica from last year’s prom, flanked on both sides by Leela and Celine, her other best friend. All three of them look gorgeous—they were the only ones who had worn full-fledged gowns, and the only ones who would be admired instead of ridiculed for it—but Jessica is clearly the center of attention. She’s smiling straight at the camera, while the others are smiling at her.
I chew the flesh of my cheek, a third, ugly emotion squeezing its way through my insides. I had skipped prom, because all the dresses that I could afford looked awful, and all the dresses that looked good were too expensive. And because there was no point going, if Aaron wasn’t there.
“Focus. Find your phone first,” I whisper out loud— And freeze.
The words are my words; I’m aware of my lips moving in the shape of them. I can feel the vibrations in my throat. But the voice is not my voice. It’s higher, gentler, strange, and terribly familiar. I had heard it only yesterday.
A sudden bizarre thought grips me.
Impossible. This can’t actually be happening. Not by the laws of physics, or biology, or anything. But I let Jessica’s phone fall onto the bed—her phone, a voice inside my head notes with new signif- icance, her bed—and sprint into the adjoining bathroom, flinging open the doors. I crash to a halt before the mirror, my heart threat- ening to beat out of my rib cage, my eyes wide.
No, Jessica’s eyes. The person reflected in the mirror is Jessica Chen. Her glossy jet-black hair. Her long lashes and slender neck and perfectly proportioned body. And yet the expression on her face isn’t anything I’ve seen her show before—it’s raw bewilder- ment. Utter disbelief.
I’m not just in Jessica’s room. I am her.
“Jessica!” Auntie’s voice cuts through the air, and it takes me
another moment to pick my jaw up off the floor, to realize she’s technically calling me. Or the body I’m inhabiting.
I’m dreaming.
It’s the first possibility that pops into my mind. It must be a hyperrealistic dream of sorts. So instead of screaming, I stare at the single toothbrush propped up on the bathroom counter, hesitate, and search around for a spare, unused one instead, acting as I would after any sleepover. It helps that I’ve stayed at Jessica’s place plenty of times before, when my parents were too busy working late shifts and couldn’t pick me up, or when both our parents insisted on get- ting us together for a study session. Then I put on the uniform already laid out for me, noticing as I do that it’s free of wrinkles, and has the same faint strawberry scent as the sheets. That’s where I know it from. It’s Jessica’s signature scent.
“This can’t be real,” I mutter, watching the face in the mirror move as well. I run an agitated hand through her hair, but every strand falls perfectly back into place. Frowning, I repeat the motion with more force, and only end up creating a stunning windswept look, as if a magical beach breeze has fluffed out her hair.
Somehow, it’s this ridiculous, unfair detail that pushes aside my initial shock, making room for other possibilities. Maybe I’d inhaled too much of the paint fumes last night. Maybe I’m in a coma, and my damaged brain has decided to conjure up this entire fantasy, weaving the scenes together based on my preexisting knowledge of Jessica and her family. We’d studied something like this in our psychology class. Of course I’d forgotten most of the details as soon as I finished the end-of-semester test, but the general principles still applied.
I’m feeling a little calmer by the time I head downstairs for breakfast, Jessica’s phone in my pocket, her bag slung around my shoulders.
Whatever this is—dream or hallucination or simulation—I simply need to ride it out. Wait for it to pass, for me to wake up. Just because the world is vivid enough to seem real doesn’t mean it actually is.
Auntie gives me an odd look when I walk in, and my pulse quickens, certain that she’ll notice something off, that this will be the first glitch in my new fake reality. I wait for her to ask me what I’m doing in her house. But she only pats the back of my head. “Didn’t you sleep well last night? You’re never late in the morning.” “Oh . . . uh.” I clear my throat, the sound of Jessica’s voice still a shock to the system. “I guess I was just tired ”
“Well, hurry,” she chides, already moving away to inspect her appearance in the reflection of the wine cabinet. She’s all dressed up in a blazer and pencil skirt, her hair gelled back, her lipstick dark. “There are cakes in the fridge—I wasn’t sure which ones tasted best and they all looked so good, I just ended up buying one of everything.”
I stare at her. Having cake for breakfast seems like an impossi- ble concept. Mom would never entertain it. If exercise is my dad’s thing, then a healthy balanced diet is my mom’s. That meant a steady rotation of boiled eggs, steamed corn, soy milk, and home- made whole-meal mantou. Once every three months or so, we were allowed to buy white bread as a treat (or as a punishment, if you were to ask my mom, because of the damage the extra sugar would do to our bodies).
In disbelief, I make my way to the fridge—Jessica’s fridge, in her kitchen—unable to shove aside the unsettling sensation that I’m stealing from someone else’s house. I feel my eyes widen when I pull the door open. Inside, there are mini cakes of every kind and color imaginable, topped with slices of glistening strawberries, crushed cashews, brown sugar pearls, fresh mango, heavy dollops of cream. They’re so intricately decorated, so pleasing just to look at, that I almost feel guilty slicing into the mango cake, with its dotted white flowers and golden flakes.
At Jessica’s massive dining table, by the open, sunlit windows, I finish it slowly, savoring the frosting as it melts on my tongue.
“Oh, Jessica, before you go . . . ,” Auntie says, her bracelets jingling as she reaches into her Chanel handbag. Real Chanel, I’m sure. I remember Mom pointing it out to me once in an online catalog, this exact design, the kind of bag she covets but can’t afford. I had made it my goal to save up enough to buy her one as a surprise. “Here’s your lunch money.” Auntie extends a thick wad of cash to me.
I choke on my last bite of cake. “This is—” Through coughs, I take the money very gingerly, certain there’s been a mistake. “This is, like, seven hundred dollars.”
“Oh, sorry.” Auntie fishes around in her purse and retrieves another four hundred dollars, pressing it into my palms before I can react. “There. That should be enough. Now, hurry, your friends are waiting for you—and leave the plate,” she adds when I start to tidy up. “The cleaner will be here in an hour.”
Friends.
I step outside in a daze, the sun a warm balm on my cheeks, the cold morning air stinging my exposed fingers and knees. There’s a silver Mercedes parked in the driveway, all the windows rolled down, the paintwork so polished it looks brand-new, and I don’t know what surprises me more: the sight of it, or the two girls wait- ing inside it.
“Get in, babe,” Leela Patel yells, sticking her head out, her ponytail spilling over the side like a black stream of water. This, in itself, isn’t too different from what I’m familiar with. Leela and I have been friends ever since we were assigned to the same table in art class. We were both painters, both obnoxiously fascinated with the Romantic period, and both eager to be loved by everyone. But the thing about Leela is that she is loved by everyone. While I’ve always considered her my best friend, I doubt that I’m hers. I might not even rank in her top three. Those spots are reserved for special people like Jessica Chen and Celine Tan—who’s currently waving at me from the passenger’s seat, a half-bitten croissant held between her teeth.
My footsteps falter.
If this really is a dream, it’s a bizarre one.
Celine has always scared me. She’s been at Havenwood lon- ger than anyone, and she has a reputation as a poet, with a bunch of Pushcart Prize nominations and other prestigious awards to her name already. But while she could go on for pages and pages about how beautiful the moon is in midwinter until you’re moved to tears, I’ve also witnessed her verbally eviscerate people on the spot. Her features are the same: soft and sweet when she’s smiling, but hard as stone when she’s not, her blue eyeliner drawing out the intimidating angles of her face.
“If we end up running late for English, Old Keller’s going to kill me,” she grumbles between chews as I climb into the back seat. Then she brandishes another croissant in front of me. “Want one? It’s still warm.”
“Oh, I’m good, thank you,” I manage, trying to hide my shock. There’s no way Celine Tan would ever deign to offer me breakfast, which means neither of them have detected anything wrong. They all think I’m Jessica. “I’ve already eaten.”
“And we’re not going to be late,” Leela reassures her cheerily, pulling the car into reverse. “But maybe the teachers would be more lenient with you if you stopped swearing so much in class—” “Nah, fuck that.” Celine dusts the croissant crumbs off her tanned knees, lifts one long leg onto the seat. “My parents aren’t paying forty thousand a year for me to watch my tongue every- where I go. And swearing is therapeutic.” She glances back at me and wriggles her manicured brows. “You should try it sometime, Jessica.”
“Stop trying to drag our sweet, darling Jessica over to the dark side,” Leela says, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching out to shove Celine’s shoulder. The car lurches slightly, my stomach jolt- ing with the motion, but the two don’t seem to notice. “And not to, like, get caught up in the specifics, because you know I’m always on your side, babe—but you only pay twenty thousand a year.”
Only a Havenwood student would use the word “only” next to “twenty thousand.”
“That’s just because of my scholarship.” “Is there a difference?”
“Well, I’m trying to speak on behalf of the student body.” “Please.” Leela snorts. The car lurches again as she turns abruptly
onto the main road, and I grip the seat belt tighter. “As if most of us aren’t on academic scholarships.”
“Most of the smart ones,” Celine corrects, then considers it for a beat. “But fair. The others don’t count.”
I bite my tongue. I’m one of the others they’re talking about; I sat for the scholarship test the same year Jessica did, and failed it by two and a half points. One stupid algebra question, the number six mistaken for a zero, a variable overlooked—and my life marred irrevocably because of it, my parents forced to take up extra shifts, work that much harder for years and years without complaint.
But then Leela catches my eye in the rearview mirror and heaves a theatric sigh. “Of course Jessica has the least right to complain, what with her full scholarship and all.”
“I didn’t even realize they gave out full scholarships before Jessica,” Celine says, in a tone caught between admiration and envy, her smile sharp as cut glass. Nobody’s ever spoken to me like this before. Nobody’s ever looked at me as a threat. It feels better than it should. Then she adds, “Guess they make exceptions for the best.”
I suck in a silent breath on the word, play it over in my head like an incantation, warmth expanding inside my chest, spreading all the way down to my fingertips. Is this what it’s like for Jessica all the time?
“You look so pretty today,” Leela remarks, and for five terri- fying seconds, she spins around completely in the driver’s seat to study me. “Well, you always look pretty, but your hair is gorgeous like this. You should wear it down more. If you want,” she adds quickly, like she’s scared of saying the wrong thing. “You can pull off any hairstyle, really.”
I lift a hand to my hair, remembering suddenly how Jessica always ties it up in a high ponytail. “Really?” I ask.
They both nod along, with shocking enthusiasm.
“Oh yeah, for sure,” Celine says, tearing off the end of the crois- sant she’d offered me with her pearly white teeth. “You literally have the shiniest hair I’ve ever seen. What do you use to wash it again?”
Probably an expensive brand I couldn’t pronounce if I tried. “The tears of my admirers,” I reply. “It’s super organic.”
There’s a pause.
I tense, waiting for them to realize I’m not who they think I am, to scream “Imposter!” To demand that I bring the real Jessica Chen back. Maybe then this beautiful, unbelievable dream will end.
But they burst out laughing at a volume that feels kind of unwarranted.
“Oh my god,” Leela gasps, clutching her stomach. “You’re hilarious, Jessica.”
As the car speeds down the winding road at least five miles per hour over the limit, with Celine blasting some sad song I don’t know from her phone speakers and Leela singing along, my disori- entation thickens. There are the familiar, gloomy gray trees spread out on either side of us, with their soft watercolor washes of brown and green, the wild vegetation crawling toward the nebulous hori- zon; the warmer gray of the concrete pressed beneath the tires; the pale sunlight smudged against the windscreen; the mist-wreathed mountains rising and falling together. There’s Frankie’s Bakery, famous among the locals for its warm lattes and glazed cinnamon rolls in the fall; the crumbling marble statue of some dead saint standing alone on the corner of Evermore Avenue; the brooding black lake Tracey Davis once tossed her ex-boyfriend’s phone into, where one of the boys in our class stayed under for so long on a dare that his friends called an ambulance.
This is the town I’ve spent my entire life in, its streets and val-
leys as intimate to me as the lines of my hand, but now everything’s different. Because I’m here as Jessica Chen, with her best friends, and for the very first time, I feel like I’m one of them. Someone pretty and smart and talented and full of promise; someone the world bends around, rather than someone who bends to the world. It’s a dream, I remind myself, rolling down the window and let- ting the wind whip my hair from my face, the crisp air on my skin a counterpoint to what I keep repeating, over and over. It’s a dream.
It’s only a strange, vivid dream.
But I’m no longer sure I believe that.
Ann Liang is an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne. Born in Beijing, she grew up travelling back and forth between China and Australia, but somehow ended up with an American accent. When she isn’t stressing out over her college assignments or writing, she can be found making over-ambitious to-do lists, binge-watching dramas, and having profound conversations with her pet labradoodle about who’s a good dog. Ann is the author of If You Could See the Sun, This Time It’s Real, and I Hope This Doesn’t Find You.