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The rest of the school day passes like a perfect movie montage.

In history: the teacher asks a question about the Cold War, and everyone turns instinctively to me, waiting. Before, I could

give the correct answer and nobody would even acknowledge it. Now I don’t even have to raise my hand to speak. When I make

a joke, the whole class laughs. At the end, we play a game of trivia, and people keep trying to catch my eye from across the

room, begging silently for me to join their team.

In the corridors: a group of freshmen do a visible double-take and slow down before me, elbowing each other and whispering.

I can make out a few words, repeated over and over: “That’s her. Jessica Chen. Harvard. So successful. I wish...” I lift my chin higher and grin at them, and they flush, as if they’ve just been greeted by a celebrity. One of them stammers

out a compliment about my skirt, even though we’re all wearing the same uniform. I walk away to the sound of the others laughing.

“I can’t believe you just said that to Jessica Chen. That’s like, so embarrassing for you.”

On the lawn during lunch, after I spend forty dollars of the hundreds I have on a ridiculously overpriced salmon bagel and a pumpkin spice Frappuccino, Cathy Liu skips up to me. Her silver earrings sparkle in the midday brilliance, and a camera dangles from her wrist.

“Congratulations again, Jessica,” she says, waving at me first, then at Celine and Leela, who are already lying on the grass,

in almost the exact same positions as they were during the morning break.

Leela waves back. Celine just flicks a strand of hair from her face.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Cathy approach Jessica’s group. She’s always hanging around their desks after class, asking

Jessica about her grades, trailing after the three of them like an adoring puppy, perking up at the slightest sign of attention.

They’ve never insulted her, of course, or outright excluded her. But you could sense it in the atmosphere, the same inarticulable

feeling that made me keep my distance whenever Jessica was with her best friends, when she transformed from my cousin to the

girl everyone wanted. You wish you could be us, the air around them sang. But you can’t.

Except the impossible has happened: I am her. I take a slow sip of my Frappuccino, the creamy sweetness trickling down my throat, and wait for Cathy to speak.

“I’m actually here on behalf of the yearbook committee,” she says, fidgeting with the camera strap. “They’re doing a video

segment on the school’s star students and, well, obviously they wanted to interview you. Do you have, like, two minutes to spare?”

I flash her a dazzling smile. “Yeah, why not?”

“Oh my god, amazing, thank you.” She holds up the camera, and as the lens extends with a faint mechanical sound and focuses on me, I stand a little straighter, shoulders relaxed, chin up. For once, I feel no urge to check my appearance. I know I look beautiful. Even the way my shadow falls across the grass is striking, my profile as perfect as a doll’s.

“So, Jessica,” Cathy begins, “I’m sure you get this question all the time, but we’re dying to know—how do you balance everything

you have going on in your life? Do you ever even sleep ?”

I laugh breezily, like an immortal who’s just been asked about their secret to longevity. “I never really think of it in terms

of balance. There are just so many things I’m interested in, I feel like it’d be much harder if I were to pick only one thing

and devote all my time to that. People are always saying that you can’t do it all, but, well, why can’t you?” The fake answers

race each other out of my mouth. See how relatable I am? How passionate? How humble? “And in terms of sleep—rest assured that I definitely do sleep. It’s why I wake up refreshed every morning. Plus, I love

sleeping.”

Cathy nods hard. “Everything you said was just—wow. What an absolutely eloquent and inspiring response.”

Without any context, nobody could possibly guess that this was a straight-faced reaction to the phrase “I love sleeping . ”

“I’m glad you think so,” I say, taking another sip from my drink as a gentle breeze fluffs out my hair, even nature cooperating

with me. It’s so irresistibly fun playing this part, like when I would pretend to be a famous singer holding a concert in

my shower stall, or when I would deliver an imaginary Oscar acceptance speech from my bedroom.

“Now,” Cathy prompts, “what advice would you give to freshmen who might be feeling nervous about their studies?”

I wink at the camera. I don’t think I’ve ever winked before in my life; the one time I tried, someone thought my facial muscles

were spasming. But now it comes effortlessly, like everything else. “If I were to give any advice, I would say... copy

and paste is your friend.”

Cathy laughs even louder than I anticipated, a shrill, seesawing sound, the camera shaking with her shoulders.

“I’m just kidding, of course,” I say, laughing too. Jessica has the kind of laugh that’s instantly contagious, bubbling up

through my lips and filling the air. “But really, my advice would be to enjoy the process.” In my mind, I see a memory of

myself sobbing from sheer exhaustion at three in the morning because I hadn’t finished the English project that was due the

next day.

“Studying is important, but you can’t just coop yourself up in your house with your textbooks....”

Another memory: me lying face down on my bed, my dinner going cold on my desk, a mountain of practice papers stacked up beside

it.

“And, you know, don’t take things too seriously....”

Me, hunched over and typing into the search bar in the dark: “I don’t understand logarithms. Am I doomed?” Throwing my pen across the room when I still couldn’t solve the equation.

“That’s all there is to it.” I beam, the sun spilling over me. “Believe in yourself, and everything will work out.”

When the final bell sounds, I take the earliest bus from school in a daze, my head swimming. It already feels like an eternity has passed since I opened my eyes this morning.

How long will all of this last? How long until the spell breaks? A day? A week? I need answers. I need to go home—not Jessica’s

home, but my own. There has to be some kind of sign, evidence of what’s happening to me. And even through the haze of my euphoria,

there’s another, more crucial question that’s been pounding at the back of my skull:

Where is the real Jessica Chen?

I have to find my cousin—but how am I meant to do that if I’m wearing her face?

The sky has already started to darken by the time I stop outside the front door, thick clouds crowding in from the edges,

threatening rain. I stamp my feet over the tiles and shakily lift my finger to the doorbell. Then pause. There’s a buzzing

sensation in my veins, like the moments before I walk into an examination hall. Will some old version of me open the door?

Will I bump into myself? Do I run? Attack? Call the police?

No, of course not. Nobody would believe me.

The thought sends another spike of apprehension running through my body. I shiver, wrap my blazer tighter around myself. No

matter what happens, I’m completely on my own.

“Don’t be such a coward. Just get this over with,” I hiss out loud, and the sound of Jessica’s voice is enough to jolt me

into action.

The bell rings once before the door swings open.

It’s not my face that appears in the doorway, but one just as familiar.

“Mo—” I catch myself. Clear my throat. “A-Auntie.” The word sounds horribly stiff and unnatural on my tongue. Wrong. Like calling our robin’s-egg-blue couch green, or pointing at a turtle and calling it a rat.

My mom blinks at me with faint surprise, before her expression quickly arranges itself into a smile. It’s a smile I recognize

at once, the warm, polite one she always uses in company. I’ve seen her switch to that smile mid-lecture on countless occasions,

when a neighbor popped up with fresh-baked cookies or a relative from China rang her on WeChat. One second she would be scolding

me for splashing too much water around the bathroom sink, and the next she would be all gentle mannered and sweet voiced like

she was meeting a royal.

But I’ve never been subject to it. It feels wrong too, even more so than greeting her as “Auntie.” It’s too nice, everything

real forced beneath the surface. It’s something I never thought I would experience: being looked at by my own mother like

an outsider.

“Jessica,” she says. “I didn’t expect you here today. Were you looking for something?”

I try to scan the space behind her, but I can’t see anyone inside. “Uh... I just—wanted to finish a group project Jenna

and I were working on. She left the materials in her room. Is that okay?” I watch her reaction closely, looking for signs

of—what, I don’t even know. Maybe confusion. Suspicion. Maybe for her to clap her hand to her mouth and exclaim: Speaking of Jenna, I haven’t seen her all day. Or, better yet, Of course, Jenna is right upstairs.

But she says neither of those things. Her expression is smooth, her polite smile still perfectly in place. Yet instead of

reassuring me, it only drives a deeper sense of unease down my spine. “Oh, certainly. Come on in.”

I enter the room without thinking, the way I have a thousand times before: shrugging off my blazer and throwing it over the couch; letting my schoolbag fall to the floor with a thud; sliding into my plastic pink slippers by the closet.

It’s only once I’ve completed my routine that I notice Mom staring at me.

“Uh,” I say, panicked, trying to recover in record speed. I manage a short laugh. “Sorry, Auntie, I was... I think I’m

a little too comfortable around here, you know. It feels even more familiar than my own house.”

Her expression clears. “Ah, that’s how it should be! We’re all family. Let yourself be as comfortable as you want.”

“Th-thank you,” I tell her distractedly. There’s still no sign of anyone else yet. My eyes slide past the empty kitchen and

faded furniture and family portraits to my bedroom upstairs. From my angle, all I can see is the closed door. “I’ll just...

go and get started, then.”

“Of course,” she says, her smile back and brighter than ever, but still strange. Still foreign. It’s making my skin itch,

the distance and the niceties. She should be nagging me to do my homework or wash my hair in time for dinner, not speaking

softly as if I’m someone else’s daughter. “Take as long as you’d like.”

I run up the stairs, taking two at a time, my heart beating madly in my chest like a wild, spooked creature. Then I burst

through the door without knocking, expecting—anything. A duplicate of myself, a phantom, some supernatural force. A banner

and camera crew waiting to inform me that I’ve been pranked.

But I’m greeted with silence.

All I can hear is my own harsh breathing, as if I’ve just sprinted straight over from school. There’s nobody here. In fact, there’s no sign that anybody’s been in this room since I went to sleep last night. The covers are wrinkled, unmade, the blanket sliding off the bed.

I creep across the space, feeling oddly like an intruder in my own bedroom. My uniform’s where I last threw it, crumpled at

the bottom of my closet, my skirt spotted with old paint stains that have withstood the strongest laundry detergents our local

mall has to offer. Even my homework is in the same place, my math textbook flipped open to the bonus questions, my laptop

half open and charging, my Muji highlighters poking out of my pencil case.

Nothing has changed at all, and yet...

I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. Something important.

Mouth dry, I slowly make my way around the rest of the room, treating it like a crime scene, every pen and yellow Post-it

note and half-dry mascara wand evidence of what this is. But what is this? What am I now? I keep my hands curled up by my sides, letting my gaze wander.

And that’s when I notice it.

The self-portrait I was working on. It’s standing up in its usual spot, the paint splattered over the canvas in my rage. Dripping

violet, smeared black. I feel that lump of indignation rise to my throat again, but it quickly hardens into fear as I look

closer. The difference is small, yes. So subtle I probably could have walked right past and missed it. Confused it for a trick

of the light, a lapse in my memory. But it’s there.

Somehow, the paint I threw last night has... spread. Before, only my eyes had been covered, the rest of my features as clear and vivid as if I were holding up a mirror to myself. Now, the entire top half of my face is hidden, disappearing behind layers of violet. It isn’t just that the paint has dripped down—that would make sense, at least. It looks more like someone’s come in with a wet brush and run it across the painting in a series of quick, messy strokes, blurring my nose and forehead.

A chill stirs my spine.

“What is this?” I say out loud, into the empty quiet. “What’s happening?” My fingers reach out before me, stopping just short of the canvas.

Well, not my fingers. Not the same fingers that drew this self-portrait, but Jessica’s. Longer and more delicate, the birthmark blooming

over my skin like a splotch of ink.

I squeeze my temples and try to think like Jessica. If we’d swapped bodies, and she had woken up this morning as me, then

what would she have done?

Okay, let’s reenact this.

I make my way back to the bed and awkwardly lower myself onto it, the springs creaking under my weight. Then, once I’m in

sleeping position, I close my eyes, then open them with a theatrical yawn.

So. I wake up. I’m the real Jessica Chen, or Jessica’s soul, in my own body—I mean, in Jenna’s body—god, this is confusing. But point is, I’m Jessica. I’m super intelligent, and practical, and responsible, and everyone is in love with me. I never make mistakes. I never have a bad hair day. I don’t even know what acne looks like. I have the perfect life. My life is so amazing that I probably laugh in my sleep, and it would be charming instead of creepy. Now, I’ve woken up in my cousin’s bedroom for some inexplicable reason, so the first thing I do is—

The first thing I had done this morning: look for my phone.

I sit up and pull open the drawer beside the bed. My phone is exactly where I left it, untouched.

Right. My heart patters as I push forward with my line of logic.

Since I’m Jessica, and my brain just magically works ten times faster than the average human being, I quickly arrive at the

conclusion that I’m not in my own body. This is extremely upsetting, because I love my own body, I love my face, and I love my family and my grades and my expensive collection of summer dresses. I’m desperate

to track down where my body is and make things go back to normal, so I give myself a call.

I weigh my phone out in my palm, pausing to think. Of course, as Jessica, I don’t know the passcode, but that’s fine, because

I can just use my fingerprint....

I pretend to perform the motion and then swipe up. Time to make that call, which should be shown here.... I go back to my call history, and frown. Nothing. No new calls since yesterday.

Okay. Maybe I don’t call myself. Maybe I send myself a text.

My pulse accelerates in anticipation as I scroll through my messages. But again—there’s nothing.

Maybe... Uncertainty creeps into the corners of my mind. Maybe I don’t message myself . Maybe I message someone else for help. Someone I care about, someone who I’m certain cares about me. Someone like...

I can’t bring myself to say his name, but I pull up my last conversation with Aaron. There aren’t any new messages here, either—the

last one is dated a year ago. Even without looking, I remember. He had sent it before his flight, only a week after that day

in the rain, his tone so uncharacteristically formal I would have mocked him for it under any other circumstances:

Jenna. I’m sorry this is so sudden, but after some thought, I’ve decided to accept the invitation to the medical youth program

and will be leaving for Paris tomorrow. I’ve left the math notes you asked for in your locker, if you still need them.

Please don’t wait for me.

Don’t wait. As if it were that easy. As if I could wipe my memory, forget him the second his plane left the tarmac. As if

I could just move past the fact that I wasn’t good enough for him, that I lacked some quality that would have made him stay

and like me back. Some quality that Jessica would have.

I clench my teeth as I finish scrolling and slide off the bed. “Never mind. I don’t contact anyone, because I decide it’s

easier to go hunt myself down in person. I’m still wearing my pajamas, so I have to change....”

Except I can already see the fissures running through this scenario. Even if Jessica had chosen not to wear my school uniform,

she would have had to take something from my wardrobe—but a thorough inspection confirms that all my clothes are in order. The more I think about it, the more unlikely it seems that this was a simple body-swapping incident. But if Jessica’s soul isn’t in my body... then where is she?

“Jessica?” I whisper out loud. No answer comes. I clear my throat and try again, with the cautious air of someone attempting

to summon a ghost. “Jessica? Hello? If your soul happens to be, um, hanging around, feel free to let me know.”

Still no response. Not even a sound.

How else is one meant to locate a soul? Through candles? I still have a few scented ones lying around in my bedroom—all Christmas

gifts from people I’m not close to. Or should I draw some kind of diagram? Write out her name? Should I hypnotize myself?

Should I do drugs ?

I don’t know what will work. I just know that I need to find my cousin.

So I try everything, except the drugs. I spend the next two hours going through every spiritual trick I’ve heard of. But the

overpowering lavender scent from the candles only makes me cough, and the locket I swing before my eyes only makes me dizzy,

and all of it succeeds only in making me feel ridiculous.

Defeated, I plop down on the floor and stare at the altered portrait again, a strange suspicion solidifying inside me. I take

out Jessica’s phone and unlock it with my fingerprint, then hold the front camera up. The flash goes off, temporarily illuminating

the painting in a ghost-white light.

Then I slide Jessica’s phone into my blazer pocket and head back down the stairs.

“Have you finished everything?” Mom asks, patting the couch. “Here, eat some fruit before you leave. I bought it from the market just this morning. Imported all the way from Sanya, you know—it’s very hard to find around here.”

The flesh of the dragon fruit has been cut into cubes, the thick purplish shell hollowed out and put to use as a bowl.

“That’s okay,” I start to say, but Mom’s already holding out a small silver fork with a delicate porcelain coating. It’s the

guest fork. The pretty one she saves for special company. A hollowness forms in the pit of my stomach, the same feeling I

would get on the third night of school camp, when the sleeping bags were too stuffy and my classmates were too loud and I

started to miss home, or when my mom would drop me off at a gathering I didn’t really want to attend, or when I would have

a bad dream and tiptoe into my parents’ bedroom, waiting for them to wake up and comfort me.

I do my best to ignore it as I take the guest fork and sit down slowly beside my mom. Since I’m here, I might as well test

out my theory. If Jenna had appeared or disappeared in the past twenty-four hours in my body, then surely my mom would have

seen her. “I haven’t had this in a while,” I tell her, lifting the fruit to my lips. It’s sweeter than I expected, with a

faintly tropical, sour edge.

“Ah, yes, we don’t buy them often,” Mom says, smiling. “But it’s one of Jenna’s favorites.”

I blink at her, trying to recover from the shock of hearing my own mother speak my name like I’m not sitting right here. “Jenna,” I repeat, chewing the fruit as fast as I can and swallowing hard, the black seeds scraping my throat like tiny stones. “I was going to ask... is she around?”

For the briefest of seconds, Mom’s expression goes blank. Like someone’s wiped a canvas clean, smoothed out a drawing in sand.

Her eyes remain on me, but they shift out of focus, as if staring ahead into a thick fog. Then she shakes her head, and everything

about her—her straight posture, her hospitable air—is utterly normal again. So normal I’m not sure if I imagined that odd

lapse. “No,” she says.

“No?” My heart thuds. “Then where is she?”

“Why, I thought you knew,” she tells me, and her voice is still her voice, but it sounds detached. There’s a floaty quality

to it, sweetness without substance. “She has gone away on that trip.”

This isn’t right. “What trip?” I press, rifling through my memories. I can’t remember ever telling her about a trip, much

less planning to go on one last night. “Where has she gone?”

“Away.”

Despite all my attempts at composure, I feel myself frown. “Away? How long will she be gone? When did she leave? This morning?”

She pauses, with the kind of confused look I’ve seen on my classmates when they’re working through an impossible math equation,

and lets out a light laugh. “I must be getting old,” she says. “I’m sorry, Jessica, the details have slipped my mind....”

My heart pounds faster. This is the same woman who memorized my class schedule every semester, who knew the exact minute my lunch breaks started and ended so she could come deliver hot food on time, who kept a mental catalog of all my exams. There’s no way she could have simply forgotten the details if I were to leave on a trip.

“Are you okay?” she asks suddenly, peering at my face with obvious concern. “You’re looking quite pale.”

I set my fork down on the table. “I’m fine,” I say, but my head is buzzing. “I just... remembered something urgent I have

to do this evening.”

“Oh.” She stands up, wiping her hands on her long skirt. “Well, I won’t keep you—I know how busy you are, our Harvard star.”

I make myself smile, thank her for the fruit, and grab my things, the absolutely surreal exchange already replaying itself

in my mind. The cold air hits my face as I shove the front door open. The sky is darker than ever, the clouds layered against

each other, the air tinged ash-gray. I’m so absorbed in my own thoughts, the fresh memory of my mom’s face, that odd, blank

confusion clouding her features, that I don’t notice Aaron until I’ve turned the corner and crashed headfirst into his chest.

“S-sorry,” I say, stepping back in a daze, rubbing my forehead.

Then his face comes into clear view: him and his cold beauty, his windswept hair, the clean lines of his nose and jaw. He’s

staring down at me with a mildly bemused expression, and even through all the noise roaring inside my head, I hear the single

beat of my heart.

I wanted this, after he left. To live in the same town, the same city, to be able to bump into him without planning to, to

be able to see him just by lifting my gaze. But now he’s here, and my wanting has long soured into resentment.

Please don’t wait for me.

I drop my hand and straighten with false dignity. “What are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same thing,” he says.

“What do you mean? This is my—” This is my house, I’m about to say, until I remember. “This is my aunt’s house. I have every right to be here.”

“Well, by the same logic, this is my father’s best friend’s house.”

“Can you not hear the obvious distinction?”

His bemusement only seems to grow. “You’re a little... prickly today. Did something happen?”

“No,” I say, too sharply.

“Then have I done something to offend you?”

Your very existence offends me. I swallow those words and shake my head. “Of course not. How could you?”

“Right,” he says, but he’s studying me too intently, and I feel my skin warming. Just when I’m about to waver under the weight

of his gaze, he looks past me to the front of the house. “Is Jenna in there?”

I tense, quiet shock rippling through my body. Not just because he’s here in my front yard, looking for me, asking for me, but because he doesn’t seem to know that I’m apparently on a trip either. “She’s... gone.”

“Gone?” His dark brows furrow. “Where?”

“On some kind of trip, according to her mom. This is my first time hearing of it.” I scan his face as I speak, waiting for the same mist of confusion to descend, but his features are perfectly clear, alert. Worried, I would even say, if I didn’t know better.

“What trip? We just saw her last night, and she didn’t mention anything. Her parents didn’t either.”

“Are you sure?” I press. “You don’t have any impression whatsoever of her leaving?”

“No,” he says firmly. “I was trying to find her at school today, but she wasn’t there. I feared—” He presses his lips together.

“I thought she might be sick.”

“Interesting,” I murmur, filing this information away in the back of my mind.

“What was that?”

“I just said it’s surprising, that she’s not around.” I pause. I should probably leave it here, before I do or say something

that makes him suspicious or breaks the whole illusion, but I need to confirm one last thing with him. “Do you remember the

last time you saw her?”

An emotion flashes over his face, faster than I can catch. “Yeah, of course. It was late, she was sliding into the back seat

of the car, and she...” The corner of his mouth tugs up for a second, an involuntary change, and even his voice sounds

softer than it was earlier. “She helped her mother put her bags inside first, and then as she turned around to wave, she bumped

her head against the door.”

I wince. I had hoped the darkness would conceal the clumsiness of my movements; I hadn’t thought he would notice. But how

fitting, I guess, that this would be Aaron Cai’s latest and possibly last impression of me.

“I haven’t seen her since,” I tell him, which isn’t a complete lie. “Maybe... maybe she really is gone, somewhere far away.”

I hope so, I think to myself, all my old self-loathing bubbling back up again in his presence. I hope that broken, embarrassing version of me never resurfaces again. I hope she remains buried. I hope she’s disappeared

permanently.

He nods, though there’s still a trace of disbelief in his eyes, like he knows there’s more to it than what I’m saying. “Okay,”

he says after a pause, sliding his hands into his back pockets. “Well, if you do happen to find out where she’s gone, could

you let me know? Immediately, I mean. I want to talk to her about...” He looks down at the wild, uneven grass. Looks up

again. “I just want to talk to her.”

“Sure. I will,” I lie.

I return to Jessica’s mansion.

Their cleaner must have already left, because everything is so polished it’s almost glowing. There are no dirty clothes strewn

over furniture, no leftovers in the kitchen. The massive chandelier glitters in the foyer, throwing flecks of light shrapnel

over the obsidian and marble surfaces. I’d always wondered what it was like to come home to what’s practically a five-star

hotel lobby, complete with the lacquer antique vases on the cabinets and the variety of plush sofas to recline on. I wouldn’t

be surprised if Jessica had a special sofa just for reading, and another for watching movies, and another one specifically

for lying down and contemplating the meaning of human existence.

I cross the living room, the thick wool of my socks padding quietly over the waxed hardwood floors.

It’s only been a day, but it already feels like years ago that Aaron had appeared here without warning, the subject of my

sweetest dreams and very worst nightmares. And now he wants to talk to me... about what? About how his feelings toward

me haven’t changed? About how he’d like us to stay friends, and nothing more? Or maybe not even that...

I shake away the image of Aaron’s face as I enter Jessica’s bedroom, calibrating the little information I have.

My body is missing, and so is Jessica’s soul. Nobody seems to have detected that anything’s wrong, except Aaron. And my own

mom believes I’m away on some sort of trip.

Until I can figure out where Jessica is and exactly what has happened to her, my best course of action is to play the part

of Jessica as well as I can. Avoid suspicion. Wear her skin convincingly. Familiarize myself with her routine. I don’t want

to steal her glamorous life—I’m just living it for her until she returns, like how you’d keep a borrowed sports car in good

condition by driving it regularly around the block. That way, once she’s back in her own body, everything will be able to

continue as normal for her.

Still, a bubble of guilt rises up in my chest as I yank open Jessica’s drawers, rifling through the contents inside. It feels like a blatant invasion of privacy, even though I don’t exactly have any better choices. I flip through old notebooks, stacks of printed-out study sheets, notecards bound with a navy hair tie, past exam papers all marked with a shiny A-plus, the margins filled in with teachers’ praise. I take my time reading through them, swinging between awe and annoyance and incredulity. Most of the comments resemble those vague starred reviews you always see in indie movie trailers:

Simply astounding.

A marvel.

Spectacular.

Mesmerizing.

Profound in ways I was not expecting.

This made me weep.

Not only a life-changing experience, but a revelation, and a revolution.

“Okay, this is honestly a little much,” I mutter out loud. I would have been lucky to even get a “Good job!” on any of my

tests. Yet as my eyes move farther down the paper, I spot a different kind of comment in Jessica’s signature curly handwriting.

She’s circled a date—the only incorrect answer in the entire exam paper, worth merely half a point. And beside it, the red

pen pressed so deep it’s almost torn through the page: Did your brain die while you were writing this? How could you get this SO wrong? Fix it. Remember the correct date. Remember,

remember, REMEMBER. Don’t you dare let it happen again.

My jaw unhinges.

I don’t know what’s more alarming: the vicious, unforgiving tone of the comment, or the fact that it’s from Jessica...

to herself. It’s how you’d speak to an enemy, someone you hate. I can’t imagine the words delivered in her sweet voice, with

her easy mannerisms.

There’s a sudden prickling over the nape of my neck, the cold sensation of something gone wrong, something misplaced. I snap the test booklet shut and shove it back into the drawer. Then my fingers brush over soft leather. A book I must’ve missed the first time around.

Frowning, I pull it out.

No, not a book. It’s one of those traditional vintage journals I didn’t realize people still owned, tawny brown and bound

together with a string and rusted key. There’s a distinctly used quality to the pages; they’re loose and uneven and worn yellow,

as if they’ve been leafed through often in the past.

I never would have considered Jessica the type to keep a journal. It seems too sentimental a habit, too impractical, too time-consuming.

I inhale unsteadily, my curiosity warring with my own better judgment. My fingers drift over the clasp, pause at the key.

I might be able to justify going through her past exams, but reading her journal is different.

“No,” I scold myself, sliding the journal carefully back where I found it, between two folders stuffed full of certificates. “You

can’t.”

But I can’t help staring at it a few moments longer before pushing the drawer closed. I can’t help wondering if the entries

would piece together the Jessica I know: the model daughter, everyone’s favorite darling, success incarnate. Or if they’re

anything like the comment on her test paper: bitter, brutal, brimming with rage.