You’re still a kid, you know.
The back of my neck prickles. Something sharp and hard lodges in my throat, like a shard of bone, even though the pork ribs on my tray are still untouched. I give up trying to eat.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
Mr. Chen had said my Macbeth essay was one of the most well-written essays he’d read in years, which is the kind of praise I usually live for, lap up like a starved dog, but he hadn’t looked impressed at all.
Only concerned.
“Alice! Hey, girl!”
I jerk my head up and spot Rainie making a beeline for me from the other end of the cafeteria table, a wide grin on her face. Her glossy hair has been tied up in a high ponytail, and it bounces elegantly over her shoulders as she sits down beside me. Another thing I wasn’t expecting to happen today.
“So. What class is next?” she asks cheerily.
“You have art for fifth period,” I inform her, thinking this must be why she came here. Since I’ve long fallen into the habit of memorizing Henry’s timetable every school year, I know pretty much everyone’s class schedules by heart. But she just shakes her head and laughs.
“Oh my god, Alice,” she says, in that fond, exasperated tone people tend to use around close relatives. “Girl. I know what my class is. I’m asking about yours.”
I blink at her. “Um... I have a spare period. Why?”
“Because. I’m trying to be your friend.” She makes this sound like it’s the most natural and obvious thing in the world, when I could easily name at least two thousand other reasons for someone of her social standing to seek out someone like me. But as she continues smiling, not budging from her seat, I realize that more people have been approaching me lately, sometimes waving in the corridors or striking up conversations out of the blue.
I guess hanging around Henry and Chanel so much in public is the real-life equivalent of getting the verified check mark on social media: it sends a clear signal to the world that you’re someone worth paying attention to.
Or maybe it’s also because of Beijing Ghost. Even if no one here knows I’m the one behind the app, I’ve still spent these past months learning about all their secrets, their greatest fears and desires and insecurities, from Rainie’s photos to Evie’s test scores. Maybe that’s the kind of thing you feel, instinctively, that draws people together like an invisible string, even if they’re not aware of the full truth.
In theory, this should make me proud. This is what I’ve always wanted, after all: to be noticed, to be approached. But just like Mr. Chen’s remark, it somehow feels wrong.
If Rainie notices my mini existential crisis, the way I’m gripping my chopsticks too tight, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she leans back and starts scrolling through what has to be at least a hundred new notifications on her phone, pausing and rolling her thick-lashed eyes when she gets to the latest one.