BooksBarbecue
Back Parachutes
Chapters (93)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Forty-Six
  49. Forty-Seven
  50. Forty-Eight
  51. Forty-Nine
  52. Fifty
  53. Fifty-One
  54. Fifty-Two
  55. Fifty-Three
  56. Fifty-Four
  57. Fifty-Five
  58. Fifty-Six
  59. Fifty-Seven
  60. Fifty-Eight
  61. Fifty-Nine
  62. Sixty
  63. Sixty-One
  64. Sixty-Two
  65. Sixty-Three
  66. Sixty-Four
  67. Sixty-Five
  68. Sixty-Six
  69. Sixty-Seven
  70. Sixty-Eight
  71. Sixty-Nine
  72. Seventy
  73. Seventy-One
  74. Seventy-Two
  75. Seventy-Three
  76. Seventy-Four
  77. Seventy-Five
  78. Seventy-Six
  79. Seventy-Seven
  80. Seventy-Eight
  81. Seventy-Nine
  82. Eighty
  83. Eighty-One
  84. Eighty-Two
  85. Eighty-Three
  86. Eighty-Four
  87. Eighty-Five
  88. Author’s Note
  89. Acknowledgments
  90. About the Author
  91. Books by Kelly Yang
  92. Back Ad
  93. About the Publisher

I retreat back to the living room and watch her from the couch. When the last of the boxes has been moved out, Claire looks around the house one last time. I hope she’ll say goodbye and leave a note for my mom, but she just takes the house key off from her furry rabbit keychain and places it on top of the coffee table. And leaves without a word. No forwarding address. No nothing. Just walks out as hastily as she had arrived.

I throw my head back against the couch, head throbbing. I listen to the silence of the empty house. The hum of the refrigerator. The drip of the faucet. I tell myself I should be happy. No more having to wash her plates or step on her contacts on the floor. Or waiting around for the bathroom while she runs the hot water for an hour to steam her face. Instead, I wrestle with a splitting headache that lasts for hours.

When I wake up on the couch hours later, my headache is mostly gone but an eeriness clings to every surface of the house like a sticky film. I reach for my phone to call Ming. There’s a message from Xander the real estate agent asking me whether I’m still interested in looking at houses.

I think back to what he said about Li Incorporated. I grab my laptop and pull up their website. I open another tab to google their founder. I don’t find much on their website, but Google spits out a picture of their founder, Vincent Li, standing next to his wife and son— Wait a minute, is that . . . ? I zoom in on the image to get a closer look at his son when the home phone rings.

“Hello?” I answer distractedly.

“Hey, I need to speak to Claire.” The voice gets my attention. It’s Jay. I put down my laptop.

“She moved out,” I tell him.

“What do you mean she moved out?” Jay asks.

“She moved out,” I repeat. I gaze at her empty room. All that’s left of her is the faint stain on the carpet where she threw up that first night.

“Where’d she move to?” Jay asks. Suddenly his voice takes on an entirely different tone. “Is she with that white boy?”

“No!” I exclaim. Then it occurs to me, Jay knows about Zach.

“If you see Claire, tell her that I need to talk to her,” Jay says.

“Wait, before you hang up!” I open my laptop back up. “Is your dad by any chance Vincent Li? Does he own Li Incorporated?”

There’s a pause on the phone. “Yeah, why?”

Oh. My. God.

“Nothing,” I say to Jay.

Sixty-Nine

Claire