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My god, she’s right, Aimes thinks. How could Aimes not even have thought of the possibility that whoever did this might still be here, watching this whole time?
“Oh!” Vera says, and now, finally, she sounds scared. They all look around frantically. Vera pushes Julia away. “You go home right now. I won’t go back to your place, put you in danger. You lock all the door and window.”
“But what about you?” Julia says.
“I’ll stay with her.” It’s only when Vera and Julia look at Aimes that she realizes what she just said. Why had she said that? Argh! Take it back, quick! Except when Aimes thinks of Vera all alone in her little house, scared and confused and still drunk, she can’t bear to take it back. “I’ll stay with you here. I’ll make sure the doors and windows are all secured.”
“I don’t like this,” Julia says. “Maybe I should call Oliver or Riki to come stay with you.”
“Don’t be silly,” Vera says. “Why you are so drama? Riki has Adi, he cannot come stay with me, and Oliver snore. So loudly too. No, Aimes will stay with me.”
Julia looks like she’s about to argue, but then she thinks better of it. With a sigh, she pulls Vera into another hug. “Okay, but be careful. And call me first thing in the morning.” She pauses, then says, “Actually, don’t. Because you wake up at four thirty. I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”
“Okay, okay, stop worrying. You go home now. Sorry I make you come out here for nothing.”
“It’s not for nothing. And you need to call Selena and tell her about this, otherwise I will.”
Vera shakes her head as Julia drives off, then she says, “All right, we go in now.” She stops. Aimes can practically hear the cogs clacking in her head. She rummages through her bag and takes out something. “Szechuan pepper spray. In case vandal waiting inside my shop.”
“Oh my god,” Aimes moans. Then stops abruptly when something hard is placed in her hand. She looks down to see a box cutter. “What the hell? Where did you get this? Was this inside your bag the whole time? Do you walk around with a box cutter?”
“I am helpless old lady, I need to protect myself.”
“For the last time, you are not old.” Still, Aimes can hardly complain about the box cutter now, can she? So she holds it tightly as they approach the teahouse. Vera unlocks the front door.Still locked, Aimes thinks. That’s a good sign. Guilt overcomes Aimes, and she taps Vera’s shoulder and indicates for her to get behind her. Aimes opens the door carefully and steps inside. Should she go, “Hello”? But if there is indeed someone lurking in here, then they’d know that she’s here. Well, they would know she’s here anyway because she just opened the front door. Oh my god, why is this so much harder than it looks in the movies? She should’ve kicked down the door and shouted, “Hands up!”
When was the last time Aimes had been this fearful? She’s been scared plenty of times before, but she’s pretty sure she hasn’t felt fear like this ever. It’s a different kind of feeling, something shaved down to the bone, something to do with pure survival. Her blood roars in her ears as she creeps into the teahouse, jumping at the slightest noise. She swings the box cutter left and right, just in case, then, finding the shop clear, starts climbing up the stairs. Her heart is not so much thumping as it is whirring, going at such a high speed that it’s basically a constant whine. Aimes creeps into the living room, trying, and failing, to control her breathing. In every corner she thinks she sees a dark crouched figure. She stabs the air menacingly, then nearly jumps out of her skin when the lights come on.
Vera stands by the light switch, looking sheepish. “Sorry, I thought maybe turning on light will help. You want me to turn off again? You look like you having such fun.”
“I’m not having fun,” Aimes cries. This is too much. All of it.The party, that glamorous crowd, the red paint. The adrenaline rushes out of her, leaving her shaky and empty. The box cutter slides out of her hand, and Aimes slumps to the floor. “It’s all my fault.”
“Oh, Aimes, what is it?” Vera rushes to her side.
“This, what happened to your shop, I think it’s my fault.”
“No, you were there with me the whole night, how can be your fault? You so silly.”
“I didn’t do it,” Aimes wails. “But I think someone did because of what I did to Xan.”
“Oh, my dear girl. What you do to Xander? You hurt him?”
Aimes opens her mouth to say no, to cover everything up with yet more lies, but what ends up coming out is the truth. “Yes, I did.” Sobs wrack her body. “He came to me for help, and I turned him away.”
“Why?” Vera’s voice is gentle, and Aimes can’t stand it because she doesn’t deserve gentleness, she deserves cruel judgment.
“Because he wasn’t even my real boyfriend!” Aimes cries. And there it is. The ugly truth. Aimes is nothing but a fake. How laughable that Vera had thought she needed to teach Aimes to fake it till she makes it, when literally nothing in Aimes’s life is real.
“Oh, my dear, I think you need to start from beginning,” Vera says. “You sit down. Come. Give me box cutter. I will make you tea.”
Aimes lets Vera lead her to the sofa. She curls up on it, shaking and crying, while Vera bustles into the kitchen and gets a kettle going. Time passes, and a steaming mug of milky tea is placed in Aimes’s hands. She takes a sip, and it is magical, rich and sweet and hot. Despite everything, Aimes calms down, just a little.
Vera sits down next to her and pats her on the arm. “Okay, now you better tell me from the start.”
And so she does.
•••
Aimes has always been good at most things. When she was little, she was a natural at everything she tried her hand at—piano, tennis, math. “She’s a natural,” her teachers would say, and she would beam with pride and chug along merrily. She only ever had to do the bare minimum to get good grades. Life was good. Life was easy.