Page 23

CHAPTER 23 EVIE

“So what’s your deal?”

Evie’s little sister, also back from break, dived onto her bed, making herself perfectly comfortable. Evie pretended to ignore Linh as she scrolled through her social media. She thought about all the times she’d seen high school classmates date and break up, then delete every sight of their time as a couple. But she never thought that would apply to her. Just an hour ago, her thumb had hovered over the delete button: the latest photo was of her and Jake, at the Saturday Sins picnic. They looked happy, but there were no other “couple” photos in the weeks after. She wondered if newly single people archived or deleted their photos? Archived meant that Evie believed Jake and her would get back together. But the idea of deleting digital traces of him and her seemed dramatic.

She changed her mind and decided to archive, but she shifted on her bed at the wrong moment, and her thumb hit the delete button. Once that happened, she couldn’t stop and kept on going. She was in the middle of her sixth deletion when Linh burst into their shared room and belly-flopped onto the bed.

Evie would have gone on pretending she didn’t exist—if only her little sister didn’t throw a pillow at her.

“Hey!”

“Oh, she speaks!”

“What do you mean? I was talking during dinner.”

“Yeah, but only when M? or Ba asked you questions. They might not notice how you’re acting, but I do.”

“You do?”

“Normally you don’t shut up.” She launched the pillow back at Linh, but her sister ducked. The pillow fell to the floor with a soft thump.

“You deleted some photos from your socials?”

Evie winced. “I didn’t think anyone would see it so soon.”

Linh regarded her, kicking her legs like she was swimming freestyle. Then she rolled over onto her back and tilted her head to look at Evie upside down. “So you and Jake are done? Like done done ?”

She rested her phone on the nightstand. “Happened right before break. Truthfully, it was just a matter of time.”

“Did you break up with him or did he break up with you?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’d feel more comfortable knowing your answer before saying the next thing.”

“Fine, I broke up with him,” Evie said.

“Good. He wasn’t good for you.” Linh didn’t know that much about Jake, and yet she had already picked a side. They were definitely sisters.

“And if he broke up with me?”

“Impossible.” Linh smiled. She wore a pimple patch on her forehead, and it shined under the overhead lights.

Evie slid her back down the headboard until she was lying right next to her sister.

“Did it happen for any particular reason?” Linh asked.

She had explained it to Jake, as best as she could, but given his reaction, she wasn’t certain if she even made sense. Honestly, their conversation was a blurry mess in her mind; all she could recall was his stinging accusation:

When did you get so needy?

Growing up, she had no opportunity to be needy. Needy meant clingy. Needy meant she was an attention seeker, even though her whole life she did anything she could to avoid attention. She accepted all the hand-me-down clothes from cousins instead of asking for new clothes. When she was sick, she begged the elementary school nurse not to call her parents because they couldn’t leave while the restaurant was open. When her parents were at work and they had no babysitter, she turned down birthday party invites and hangouts to care for Linh.

Jake was wrong. If anything, needy was a word that described him .

“We just grew apart,” she finally answered, wanting to keep it simple.

“At least you’re not crying. Which means you’re probably not too upset.”

“Or maybe I’m just numb. Is it wrong of me to feel numb?”

“Are you required to cry after a breakup?” Linh wondered out loud. Absentmindedly she went to pick at her pimple patch, but Evie batted away her hand. “Not all breakups are bad,” Linh added. “When an object breaks, you can create something new with the pieces. In Japan, people take broken pottery pieces and bind them back together with lacquer and gold coloring. It’s an actual art form.”

Trust her sister to use an artistic metaphor. Evie shook her head. Linh must have thought she didn’t understand, so she added, “Or think of a piggy bank. It’s filled with coins, but then you break it open one day and there you have it: extra cash.”

“I don’t think five dollars and ten cents will do anything to help me right now,” Evie said with a tired smile. “But thanks.”

Linh reached over to slip her hand into hers. Gave her three squeezes.

The two sisters breathed together, nice and slow.

“Tell me about you and Bao. And where you’re getting all that money to go back and forth between campuses. All because of M?, right?”

Linh grinned annoyingly. “I probably softened her up.”

“I softened her up first,” Evie replied.

In a way, they might as well have been arguing about the chicken and the egg. They were both telling the truth. Evie paved the way so that Linh might have an easier time, and Linh was brave enough to tell their parents the truth. They wanted the best for Evie, too, she knew that.

“You and Bao—are adorable. Ridiculously cute.”

“You think?” She smiled to herself. No doubt thinking of Bao.

“You complement each other. Different, but the same. For a while, I thought that was what me and Jake were—complements. But the balance wasn’t there.”

“I was trying to imagine Jake in our house, but I can’t see it,” Linh said.

“I had to teach him how to do his laundry,” Evie remembered. “He bleached his first load, and it was colors.”

“The idea of his parents meeting yours.”

“His mom—the definition of the tiger mom—would’ve probably thought M? would be a good target.”

“Little did she know, though,” Linh added.

Their mom blended in when she wanted to; food was her space and she was fine with it. But she sharpened up at immediate danger.

“Should I take over?” Linh gestured at Evie’s phone, where the rest of her photos waited to be deleted.

Winter breaks were always the same: her family shared meals together, and they would visit some relatives and close friends, but otherwise, she and her sister just lazed around. They occasionally shared a funny meme or updates about a former high school classmate. Linh had practically maxed out her storage with pictures and snapshots of her and Bao visiting or FaceTiming with each other.

They were hanging in their bedroom when suddenly Linh shot up into a sitting position, her eyes fixed to her phone.

“What’s up?”

Her little sister stood up and hurriedly grabbed a jacket from the closet. “Have to head out for a little. Friend needs me. But if I’m out too late and M? and Ba want me home soon—”

Only someone with siblings could read between the lines: Evie needed to cover for her in case she was late.

“Is something wrong with Bao? Ali?”

“Viet. The minute he got home, he learned his parents were getting a divorce.” Linh’s face scrunched up. “Ugh, I wasn’t supposed to say that. The other day, Bao and him—”

But Evie tuned out her sister’s words. The Saturday Sins group chat was relatively quiet, and even quieter without him. Why didn’t he say anything? He mentioned his parents’ struggles the last time they were together, but Evie didn’t know it was this serious.

“People are starting to talk. So that’s the reason Bao went to see him, but he shut him out. In our group chat, Viet’s not the best responder, but I know he reads our messages. He’s been silent, so we’re going to check on him somehow.”

“How are you going to get him to talk?” Evie’s mind flashed back to when Viet struggled with a depressive episode. She was lucky; she reached out before he’d gone anywhere too dark. But learning about the divorce… knowing how much he lived inside himself…

Linh’s phone pinged again, and her face relaxed after reading the message. She whispered, “Thank you, Ali.”

“Ali?”

“She’s driving over to him now. Her parents had divorced too, remember? He might feel comforted talking to her.”

Evie did remember. Ali took it hard. The younger girl’s usual self was a storm, ready to knock down anything that stood in the way of her goals. But when her parents split, she became a hurricane, even lashing out at Linh and Evie. She stayed away from the restaurant for a while.

But soon, with time and conversations with her mother, Ali finally calmed down. Their afternoon homework—and snack—sessions started again.

The knot in her chest that appeared at Linh’s exclamation had loosened, but she still felt it. She followed her sister to the hallway, watched as she bent over to tie her shoelaces. In her rush to get dressed, the left collar of her jacket was flipped inside out. Evie fixed it without thinking.

Linh was Viet’s friend, and that was why she was going to see him—Evie knew that. But wasn’t she also his friend? If anything, they were closer, rarely going a day without seeing each other on campus.

Evie cursed. And right before all of this, she was complaining about a relationship that should have ended ages ago. It was trivial compared to a divorce.

She wanted to see him. She needed to see him.

“I’m worried.” Her admission slipped out before she could stop herself.

“Evie?”

But was it right to go along with Linh? He didn’t tell Evie about the divorce—would showing up with Linh be… too much? Her sister stared in confusion. Evie suspected Linh, even being friends with him, didn’t know where his mind could go. How far away he could feel… how much he needed someone there to pull him up from a sinking hole—

“Hey, can I drive you there?”