Throughout dinner, as the Wangs asked me more about my parents and brother, Jing-Jing’s plastic smile slowly faded. At one point I tried to brush her hand with mine, but she pulled away. Not wanting to push it, I gave her space, but a knot slowly formed in my throat.

Jing-Jing didn’t eat much, which was out of the ordinary. I missed her enthusiastic bites that, since Mrs. Wang was always scrutinizing her, felt like subtle F-Us to her mother and maybe even the rest of society (not to be dramatic).

I tried several times to loop her into the conversation (even finding a way to bring up her favorite economics professor), but she was as listless as the two-day-old pie on the counter.

After dinner, she excused herself to bed, claiming she had a headache. And unlike before, when I could tell she was constantly thinking about how to use every second of this weekend to accomplish our mission, she didn’t seem to care that her already-paid-for time was going to waste.

I thought about going after her, trying to be a friend again, but… not your prerogative, Operative.

Chloe CHAPTER 16 PRETENDING

I hugged my dad extra tight when saying good night—did he notice? Did my mother?

My father was eleven years older than my mother, which had never felt that significant, but then again, it still wasn’t, because sickness didn’t discriminate. I tried to step further and further back into my memories, one visit home at a time, trying to pinpoint when their words or actions had first started to change.

But then I realized we didn’t talk much. Didn’t do much. It was just stifling silence all the time, the constant urge to shove food, water, anything in my mouth just for something to fucking do. Andrew’s presence had shifted that, which should have made me feel better about the money I’d spent, but for some reason it only irked me. Why did it take this actor to improve our family dynamic, and was it even real given that he wasn’t? Were we all pretending, putting on a better face to fool everyone around us, even our family? I guess I’d been doing that my whole life, with Jing-Jing. Did anyone else go by two names and feel like that separated who they were? Did Andrew’s other clients?

I considered getting a midnight snack—I hadn’t eaten enough at dinner, and I was starving—but instead of going downstairs for mooncakes, I scrounged in my room until I found three very expired granola bars from my high school days, stashed in my drawers for whenever Frankenbāo appeared.

They tasted as shitty as I felt.

Drew

She didn’t come downstairs that night.

Chloe CHAPTER 17 OFF THE CLOCK

November 29

As I said good-bye to my parents early Sunday morning, I blinked rapidly to hold back tears.