Page 15

CHAPTER 15 VI?T

Later that night, Viet, Evie, and Lis sat on the boys’ sunken couch, printouts and note cards fanned out before them. The Spotify playlist was playing Connor Price songs on the living area TV, lowered to a café decibel. Tate was somewhere else in the apartment. They had finished a regular dinner, not a Saturday Sins meal, where they celebrated Evie getting through the interview process and becoming a Paul Hom volunteer. She tried to brush it aside, saying they had already celebrated her a few weeks ago, but Kale eventually screamed at her to “just take the compliment.”

Call it premonition, but Viet knew she’d aced the interview process, even though it was notoriously hard, he learned. He knew it the moment he got his hands on her prepared questions and answers and skimmed through her statement, her voice clear in his head. Her answers might have been textbook perfect, but it was her intent that mattered.

Evie had smiled wide when she dropped by Kale and Tate’s apartment right after the interview. She’d waved off Kale’s catcalls at the sight of her outfit. Viet hadn’t seen Evie with makeup on, or maybe he just couldn’t tell. But when he’d met her earlier, before the interview, he’d never seen her hair half up half down, just slightly wavy. It looked so soft that he wanted to reach out to feel it…. As soon as the thought had crossed his mind, he’d axed it and tried to focus on why he was there.

If he thought about it more, he’d admit he had a thing for intense girls. They knew what they wanted. They would give you straight answers. They wouldn’t string people along for the fun of it. He used to have a high school crush on a girl named Kelly Tran, who ran their Asian Club, but she was too intense—a mean intensity. She’d yelled at him and Bao for skipping some volunteer opportunities and was always snarky after that. He might have had a crush on his friend Ali when they’d first met; she’d kept pestering him to write a column on all the movies and TV shows he watched. But it had become clear that she was already in love—with journalism.

Evie’s intensity lured him in, in a good way, and he could imagine—

Wait, wait, wait.

Viet blinked several times.

Boyfriend. She had a boyfriend.

Anything he was feeling now—anything he was thinking now—needed to end. Immediately.

At the moment, there were other things to worry about. Beside him, oblivious to his internal storm of thoughts, Lis mumbled under breath as she read a note card. In two weeks, the FSC would hold a qualifying test to determine who’d represent the school at the spring competition. The first portion contained a forensic science knowledge exam, and there was no way to tell what would be on there. The latter portion, the crime scene study, was at least guaranteed context clues. Lis had talked about it since the very beginning, but he didn’t realize it was happening so soon.

Which led to the mountain of forensic note cards before them.

“Why didn’t either of you tell me it was coming up so soon?” Evie asked.

Lis waved away Evie’s concern. “You had more things to worry about. But if you feel so guilty, you can help me study.”

“Viet, can you give me a hand here?” Kale asked from the kitchen. As always, he was more preoccupied with food preparation than studying.

“You’re cooking something else? We just ate.”

“I do what I want.” His friend gestured him to come closer with a peeler. “Chop up these carrots. I’m making carrot chips.”

“ Carrot chips? ”

“Don’t say it like that, or you won’t get any when I’m finished. They’re really good. Have you had any reason to doubt me yet?”

That shut Viet up. Kale was right.

Viet pulled a knife from the wooden block; it was Kale’s favorite. And it got Viet thinking that maybe he should find more friends besides Kale, because who has a favorite knife?

His friend was now observing him—but surely it wasn’t to evaluate his knife skills.

“You like her,” he whispered.

“What?” Viet whispered back.

“You were just staring at Evie for a good five minutes. Love our friends, but wow, they are oblivious!”

“No—that’s not… I mean.” He had to tread this conversation carefully.

“You, Viet, like her.” Kale only tilted his head in her direction, but he may as well have just called out her name. Subtlety was not his forte. Luckily, Evie was testing Lis, flashcards flying through her hands, and didn’t even notice he’d left his seat. “I caught you staring at her at the picnic, too. And I sensed you felt more than friendship when you volunteered to go see her before the interview. Then I realized that out of all our texts, you seem to reply to Evie quicker and react the most to anything she says.”

Correction: apparently, Kale was more stealthy than subtle.

Viet had two options: continue denying his crush, which would only make Kale more insistent with his probing—or come clean and admit it. Neither appealed to him because it still didn’t change the realization that he had feelings for someone he shouldn’t. A friend. A really nice friend who already had a boyfriend.

His brain decided for him; it was tired of holding it all in for the past week or so—his sudden revelation, his panic, all contradictory emotions. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Maybe he hadn’t said it loud enough because Kale didn’t even blink in acknowledgment. He’d gone over to turn on the air fryer, and Viet felt it was a good thing that he was distracted. Better for Kale to forget and for himself to remain quiet.

A couple minutes passed by. He felt Kale’s eyes on him again.

“Stop staring at me,” Viet said, feeling sour.

Kale was now beside him, a small bowl in hand. “I can’t help it. This is adorable.”

“What’s adorable?” asked Tate, who had emerged from his room to grab a Celsius from the fridge.

Viet flung the end of a carrot at Kale, who dodged it immediately. “Nothing. Just teasing our friend here.” And that seemed enough to make his boyfriend go away, disappearing back into the depths of their hallway.

“Thanks for not telling him,” Viet grudgingly said.

“Don’t thank me. He already suspects.”

“What?!”

“He’s my boyfriend. We talk. We love conspiracy theories. And gossip. He knows.” He waved a hand. “But he’s not going to tell anyone else. He doesn’t have any other friends.” Once again, Viet had to find new friends. “And I’m definitely not. I wouldn’t do that to anyone. I just think it’s cute. There’s nothing wrong with liking Evie. She’s amazing.”

“Nothing wrong? She has a boyfriend.” Viet’s knife went down hard against the cutting board. He couldn’t understand why his friend was being so casual about it all. And if he and Tate knew, did that mean he was that easy to read? How could they be sure that Lis—or worse, Evie—didn’t know either?

“Yeah, she has a boyfriend, but I’m not sure how long that’ll last.” Kale shrugged. In a small bowl, he had mixed olive oil, black pepper, salt, and garlic powder, and was now plucking each carrot from the cutting board and plopping it into the mix. “Things seem rocky lately. And maybe you’ve already noticed it, but he’s not around a lot.”

“Aren’t you friends with him, too?”

“I’m her friend first. And yeah, maybe I was his friend too. But he hasn’t been a friend to me in ages. Not that I mind. Friend groups can change; that’s just how life works.” Viet could tell Kale had more to say about it but didn’t push. He finished cutting the carrots, Kale moved the coated pieces to the air fryer. “Wasn’t it hard hiding all your feelings?”

“I didn’t even realize I had them until right this minute,” Viet mumbled.

“You just realized now?!” Kale laughed. “Oh this is too funny. Poor you.” As the carrot chips cooked, he busied himself with chucking the carrot rinds into the compost, while Viet munched on leftover carrots.

“And how about those other feelings?” his friend asked softly. “Everything good there?”

Ah. There it was.

Since his depressive episode, he wondered if the others had become more aware, more watchful. No one remarked on his brief absences from that time, but perhaps they were being polite about it. He wouldn’t have minded if Evie said something. He knew the others wouldn’t judge him.

The mental health center had been heavily advertised during orientation, but Viet didn’t even think about it until after his talk with Evie. Solutions were not easy to see when he was lost in that mindset. He hadn’t felt that bad since the phone call; rather, there were flickers of darkness—moments when he woke up and couldn’t move his body; when he stared blankly at the wall as he showered; when the food he ate had no flavor; when he sat in class and the professor’s voice droned on and on.

One day maybe he’d stop by the center, if only to figure out how to better manage the flickering.

“I’m feeling better now, after talking about it with Evie,” Viet answered truthfully.

“I’m glad. You seem to keep a lot to yourself. If you ever want to talk more about it, know I can be there too. I’ve been to the mental health center and thought it was pretty good,” Kale said with a nod. “Carrot chips are in!” he announced, pouring them into the air fryer basket.

In the living room Lis and Evie let out muted cheers. The latter, the very person they’d been talking about before, stood up and stretched, her shirt lifting up to reveal a sliver of skin.

“Ahem.”

Viet jumped, guilty. It took every ounce of self-restraint he had to not meet Kale’s eyes because he was sure his friend was smirking.

All right. So he liked someone who was already taken. Great. Perfect. You sure know how to pick ’em, Viet!!!

He needed to acclimate himself with the poetic pain and joy that came alongside time spent with Evie, in a group or alone. Where was Bao when he needed him? There had to be a more eloquent term besides sweet torture . It was exhausting not to watch her in his periphery. To remind himself that he should not stand next to Evie, when there were also people present. Now that he knew Kale was watching. Look away for five to seven seconds, Viet. Good. Gooood. Ah damnit, I’m looking at her again. It was tiring not to feel like he won a medal whenever he made her laugh. To refrain from liking her text messages first, whenever he did remember to respond to the Saturday Sins group. Because Kale might be watching.

He started sitting in the farthest seat from Evie—never across from her anymore, to prevent his tendency to stare. If there was a small space, and self-imposed distance was not an option, he used their friends as buffers. More than once, Kale refused to move.

“There’s no harm in sitting close to her, Viet! Calm down,” he hissed one time when Lis and Evie had disappeared into the bathroom.

Without discussing it with Evie, Viet reduced their thrice-a-week run to twice-a-week, claiming he was falling behind—which wasn’t a complete lie. On their running days, however, he was excessively self-aware, and specifically preoccupied with his limbs: Was his chest out? Were his hands holding invisible potato chips? (The coach who taught him this was probably hungry.) He sucked in his stomach when his breathing got harder; Viet didn’t want her to hear him sounding like an asthmatic horse. Not that Evie had any reason to notice him, because he was just her friend.

Really spectacular.