: Chapter 5

Coming here was a mistake.

This is all I can think as the taxi screeches to a halt outside Solana mall, narrowly missing a vendor selling shiny Xi Yangyang helium balloons from the back of his bike. Lit up against the backdrop of a starless night sky, the sprawling shopping complex looks far bigger and grander than it did in the images I found on Baidu, the trees and wide storefronts all decorated with twinkling fairy lights. There’s even an inky river flowing past a row of Western cafés on one end, the still surface reflecting the glow of water fountains.

Everything here seems clean. Fancy. Expensive, from the European architecture to the dressed-up girls in their twenties casually swinging designer bags over their thin white shoulders.

It’s a completely different world from the tiny supermarkets that always stink of raw fish and the rundown shops near my parents’ flat. A world suited for people like Rainie or Henry, not me. I can’t help feeling like a dog who’s wandered into wolf territory, every muscle in my body tensed, prepared for something to pounce.

“That’ll be 73 RMB,” the taxi driver tells me.

It takes me a second to understand what he’s saying with his heavy regional accent, and when I do, I almost freak out. Solana isn’t even that far from Airington; all the time we spent stuck in traffic must’ve driven the price up.

But then I remember that user C207 is covering my travel expenses for today, on top of the 20,000 RMB for if—when—I do my job well.

20,000 RMB.

The thought of that money filling up my brand-new bank account is enough to force my fears aside.

For now, at least.

I quickly pay the driver through WeChat, then scramble out of the taxi. The warm night air wraps around me like a cloak, and I’m grateful I decided to go with a simple sleeveless black dress for tonight—the only dress I have. Wearing my school uniform was obviously out of the question; I can’t risk drawing any attention to myself before I turn invisible.

As I make my way toward the main entrance, sidestepping a young couple sharing lamb kebabs and a loud squad of international schoolkids (you can always just tell), I go over the to-do list in my head:

One, find user C207’s father.

Two, follow him for the rest of the night without getting caught, or until—

Three, you gather substantial evidence that he is or is not cheating on his wife.

Four, send evidence to user C207.

Once I’ve reached the sliding glass doors, I pull out my phone and do another scan of the photos C207 messaged me yesterday, trying to commit the face in them to memory. This task would be a lot easier if their father didn’t look like most wealthy men in their midfifties: beer belly straining against a crisp button-down shirt; short, graying hairs; ruddy complexion from too many free company drinks; and a roundish nose set over an even rounder chin.

Already, I’ve seen two or three businessmen passing by that bear a strong resemblance to the person I’m searching for. A terrible thought grips me: What if I end up stalking the wrong guy? It’d be so easy for me to blow it. And what then? The whole night would be wasted—a night that could’ve been spent finishing my ten-page history research assignment for tomorrow or revising for next week’s chemistry unit test. I’d have to tell Henry and user C207 that I messed up, have to sit with the awful taste of failure I’ve spent my whole life trying very hard to avoid, and the whole plan would implode, and—

“Hey, you okay, kid?”

I jerk my head up. A beautiful, kind-faced woman who looks young enough to still be in college has stopped to peer over at me, her thick-lashed eyes wide with concern.

I realize I’ve been tapping my feet anxiously on the pavement like a scared rabbit, and I doubt my expression is too reassuring either. Get your shit together, Alice, I scold myself, forcing my feet to still. There’s no way I can run a successful criminal enterprise if I have nerves of watery tofu.

“Oh yeah. I’m fine. Great,” I say, mustering as much enthusiasm as I can. Maybe a little too much enthusiasm. The woman takes a small step back as if uncertain about my mental stability.

“Okay then, just checking…” There’s a distinct Southern lilt to her voice—as in southern China, not Texas—making her words flow like water down a stream. After a few beats of deliberation, she turns around to leave, but before I can even breathe a sigh of relief, she pauses and asks, “Are you here with anyone? Your parents?”

God help me.

I know I have the kind of face that could easily be confused for a twelve-or thirteen-year-old’s, but the very last thing I need right now is adult supervision. Time for me to put my lying skills to the test, I guess.

“I am, actually,” I say. My voice sounds a few octaves too high. “Um, my parents are waiting for me over there”—I motion to a crowded line outside some Japanese BBQ restaurant in the near distance—“so I should really go…”

Without waiting for her to reply, I walk away at a speed that would probably impress our PE teacher, Ms. Garcia. I don’t stop until I’ve turned into a dark narrow alley, tucked between two stores and hidden from view, then crane my neck to see if the woman’s left.

She hasn’t.

Not because she’s searching for me, though, but because of the stout, gray-haired man heading her way, a wide grin stretching the faint wrinkles around his mouth.

Her father? I wonder.

Then he holds up a huge bouquet of roses that looks like a prop for a bad rom-com movie, and the woman squeals and runs to him, throwing her arms around his neck in a tight embrace.

So…definitely not her father then.

I’m about to leave and give the two of them some much-needed privacy, when the man spins the woman around, lifting his weak jaw up at an angle to offer a clearer view of his face, and I’m suddenly gripped by the feeling that I’ve seen him before, in a newspaper or—

The photos. Of course.

I pull out my phone again just to double-check, and sure enough, that same round plain-featured face is staring back at me.

But in the brief time it takes me to glance down and up again, the two have already broken apart, the woman now holding the flowers instead of the old man in her arms. She says something to him that I can’t make out, and he laughs, a loud rumbling sound. Together, they set off down one of the brightly lit lanes by the river.

It’s clear what I need to do next. I wait until there’s a few more yards of distance between us, then follow them, like a ghost getting ready for its first haunting.

It turns out that stalking people is much harder than I thought.

The crowds in Solana seem to grow as the sky darkens, and more than once I find myself almost losing sight of my target, or forced to take a step back by a group of very evidently intoxicated young men.

“Hey, meinu,” one of the men calls after me, making my skin prickle. Meinu means beautiful girl, which I guess is meant to be flattering, except people around here call pretty much anyone between the ages of twelve and thirty that. Even if that weren’t the case, I’d rather fail a midterm than have some creepy guy comment on my looks.

I pick up my pace, trying to get as far away from the group as possible—and almost bump straight into the back of the old man and his girlfriend.

Heart pounding, I quickly duck around the closest corner before they can see me. They’ve come to a stop outside what looks to be a fancy Chinese restaurant—the traditional kind, with crimson lanterns swaying from the painted overhanging eaves and images of coiled dragons carved into the front doors.

A waitress dressed in shimmering black comes out to greet them.

“Cao xiansheng!” she says warmly. “Please follow me upstairs. We’ve already prepared your favorite dishes, and you’ll be pleased to know the barramundi dish for today is…” The rest of her sentence is lost beneath an enthusiastic chorus of huanying guanglin and the clink of plates and champagne glasses as they move into the restaurant.

I try to follow. Now would be a great time to turn invisible, but of course my new curse—power, affliction, whatever—isn’t cooperating when I actually need it. Based on the detailed records I’ve kept in my notebook, the invisibility thing tends to happen once every two days or so, and only when I’m awake. And since I haven’t transformed in the past thirty hours, the probability of it happening sometime tonight should be high.

Should be.

But I know all too well that the universe doesn’t always work the way it should.

Case in point: I’ve barely taken two steps forward when another waitress at the entrance holds up a hand to stop me. She’s pretty in a mean-looking sort of way, her dark, eyeliner-rimmed eyes narrowing as they take in my appearance.

My gut clenches. Is it so obvious that I don’t belong here?

“Do you have a reservation?” she asks in a clipped monotone voice, like she already knows the answer.

“Uh…yes, yes I do,” I bluff, my mind scrambling for purchase. “My family’s waiting for me upstairs—”

“Upstairs is the VIP lounge,” she interrupts. Her eyes narrow further, and I can almost imagine the conversation she’s going to have with her coworkers the second I’m out of earshot: Did you see that weird little girl trying to get into the restaurant just now? You think she was trying to steal food or something? “I’m going to need evidence of membership.”

“Oh. Sure thing.” I make what I hope is a convincing show of searching my pockets for a card I most certainly don’t have. “Hang on—oh no. I must’ve left it somewhere… Let me just um—go get it…”

I’m rushing back out the door before she can think to call over a manager or security, cursing myself and my luck as I turn to hide behind the same corner as before. It’s not like I should be expected to produce a VIP card out of thin air, but I have a feeling someone like Henry wouldn’t run into the same problem. He could just stride in there with his quiet charm and confidence and perfect hair and they’d let him upstairs without a second thought.

I shake my head. No point making myself feel worse with imaginary scenarios—even though that seems to be what I do best. Tonight’s mission has only just started, and I have to keep it together until my powers kick in.

However long that takes.

I end up standing outside the restaurant for what must be hours. Parents wheeling strollers and expats likely headed to the bars on Lucky Street walk past me, chatting and laughing in a messy blend of languages, oblivious to the panic crawling up my throat.

Come on, I urge my body, the universe, whichever one is listening. Hurry up already.

But another excruciating hour or so passes, with me feeling more idiotic by the second, before finally, finally, a familiar wave of cold washes over me, accompanied by an overwhelming surge of relief. I make myself count to three hundred, giving the cold time to sink in, then dart a glance at the tinted window behind me.

It’s still disorientating and more than a little terrifying to not be able to see my own reflection, but right now I’m just glad the invisibility thing is working.

The restaurant is crowded when I slip inside—this time careful not to bump into anyone—and I have to blink a few times to adjust to the bright, lavish interior. Every surface has been polished until it practically glows, from the giant fish tanks out front to the traditional-style mahogany chairs arranged around the rotating tables.

Upstairs, however, the colors and noise level are more subdued, with dark panes of glass and wood pressing in on both sides of the narrow corridor. There’s a luxurious lounge at the far end, the kind of spot where the richest of the rich are probably busy exchanging trade secrets or making arrangements to buy Greenland over tiny glasses of baijiu, but leading up to it are six private rooms. This must be where the old man and his girlfriend disappeared off to.

I tiptoe from door to door, silently thanking whatever God of Crime is out there that the walls aren’t soundproof. Snippets of conversation float toward me, but it’s not until I reach the fifth room that I hear what I’m looking for: a soft female voice, with a distinct Southern accent.

“…the hospital, but the doctors say it might be months before they can actually go ahead with the operation…”

“What?” A gruff male voice booms out, followed by a muffled thud, like someone slamming a fist on the table. “That’s ridiculous!”

“I know.” She sniffs. “And the only way to push forward the date is to pay an extra fee, but it’s just—it’s so expensive…”

“How expensive?”

A short pause. Then: “35,000 RMB.”

“Baobei’r,” the man says, rolling an er sound into the end of the pet name the way all old Beijingers do. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? That’s hardly anything—”

“To you,” the woman interrupts. There’s the squeak of a heavy chair being moved, and I imagine her pushing away from him, a frown settling over her delicate features. “But for me—”

“Don’t be silly. How many times do I have to tell you, baobei’r? What’s mine is naturally yours…”

As the man continues spouting cheesy lines and words of comfort, I pull out my phone and hit Record. It’s a good start, but a low-quality voice memo alone won’t cut it. I still need photo evidence.

I’m trying to figure out how to get inside without opening the door myself when a waitress walks by, carrying an elaborate platter of fruit laid out on dry ice. All the lychees have been peeled and pinned into place with mini wooden toothpicks, and the fresh watermelons have been carved into the shape of blooming flowers.

With one elbow, the waitress pushes the door open, and I seize the opportunity to enter the room right after her.

It becomes clear to me at once why the private rooms are reserved for VIP members only. A glittering chandelier dangles from the high painted ceiling, casting flecks of light over the carpeted floor and full-length mirror on the wall like a much more expensive version of a disco ball. Beneath it, the old man and his girlfriend are seated around a table that looks big enough to fit twenty extra guests, the red tablecloth almost completely covered by an extravagant, mouthwatering spread of dishes. Most of them I’ve never even tasted before, only seen in ads or Chinese palace dramas: braised sea cucumber and abalone simmering in two little clay pots, white bird’s nest soup glistening in a hollowed-out papaya like just-fallen snow.

I do my best to ignore the sudden sharp pang of hunger in my stomach. I was so nervous before coming here that I skipped lunch entirely—a mistake, I’m realizing now.

“Sorry to disturb you, Cao xiansheng,” the waitress says, dipping her head and extending the fruit platter toward him like an offering to a king. “The manager asked me to bring you this complimentary fruit platter as a small token of his appreciation. We’ll also be serving sweet red bean porridge at the end of your meal. Please enjoy.”

The man waves a meaty hand in the air before she’s even finished talking, evidently used to this kind of treatment by now.

After the waitress sets down the platter and turns to go, the woman instantly reaches for the lychees.

“Oh, these are my favorite,” she sighs, chewing the small glossy fruit with such relish I feel like I should look away.

But of course, the man only leans in closer, smiling, then—to my absolute horror—starts feeding the lychees to her. I really should’ve charged more for this job. Resisting the urge to gag, I snap as many photos as I can on my phone, making sure to get a clear shot of both their faces even as something prickles at the edge of my conscience. It’s not like I have any sympathy for cheaters who date women half their age, but my being here is still a blatant invasion of privacy. And the young woman—she was kind to me earlier. If these photos end up affecting her…

No. That’s not for me to worry about. I can’t worry. I’m just here to gather the evidence; user C207 can decide what to do with it.

I’m already planning the trip back to the dorms in my head, thinking of the homework I need to catch up on and the midnight snacks I can grab from the school kitchens if I’m still invisible by then, when my stomach growls.

Loudly.

I freeze. The woman freezes too, the half-eaten lychee falling from her open mouth, and I might’ve laughed at the cartoonish expression on her face if I couldn’t feel my heart jumping to my throat.

“Did…did you hear that?” the woman whispers.

“I—Yes.” The man’s graying brows draw together. Then, in an unconvincingly casual tone, he says, “It must’ve been the air conditioner. Or the people in the next room.”

“Maybe,” the woman says, uncertain. “It just… It sounded so close to me. You don’t think someone might be hiding…?”

The man shakes his head. Makes a tsking sound with his teeth, another attempt at nonchalance. “See, Bichun, this is why I told you to stop watching those creepy detective shows at night. It’s bad for the nerves, and it’s enough to send anyone’s imagination into overdrive.”

“I guess so…” Yet even as she says this, her eyes roam over a spot only a few feet away from where I’m standing. I tense every muscle in my body, afraid to so much as breathe. After a few beats of silence, the woman seems to relax a little, returning to her lychees—

But my stomach betrays me by rumbling again.

The woman jumps in her seat as if struck by lightning. “F-fuwuyuan!” she calls, her voice sharp with fear. “Fuwuyuan, quick, get in here!”

The waitress outside responds almost at once, the doors flying open as she hurries into the room, a heavy menu tucked under her arm.

“Is something the matter, madame? Was the fruit not to your liking or—”

“Forget the fruit!” The woman points a trembling finger in my general direction. “There was a…a noise…”

“What kind of noise?”

I don’t wait around to hear the rest of their conversation. I tiptoe over to the opened door, grateful for the thick carpet masking my steps. Then I’m running—running down the winding stairs, past waiters carrying trays, and out into the open night.

It’s not until I’ve rounded the restaurant corner that I let myself slow down. I’m panting hard. The back of my dress is soaked with sweat, and there’s an awful stitch gnawing at my side, but none of that matters right now. Not when I’ve got my evidence.

Still gasping for air, I pull up the Beijing Ghost app on my phone and find all the photos and voice recordings I took in the restaurant.

Then I hit Send.

My dorm room is quiet when I walk in, the lights turned down low, veiling everything in shadow.

It’s just past midnight, and usually around this time Chanel’s jamming out to her K-pop playlist or doing some new aerobic workout or laughing hysterically on the phone with her other fuerdai friends about some joke with too much cultural nuance for me to understand. This silence is unexpected, unnatural; either Chanel’s decided to become a monk, or something must have happened.

I drag my feet forward. The sharp spike of adrenaline I experienced at the restaurant has long given way to dizzying, mind-numbing fatigue, and all I really want to do is fall onto my bed and sleep. But instead, I turn the lights on to full brightness and search the cramped space for my roommate.

It takes a moment to spot her. She’s curled up in the far corner of the room, her silk blankets pulled tight around her small frame, covering everything except her hands and face. Her eyes are swollen red.

She sets the phone in her hands down when she notices me standing there—but not before I see the photos flashing across the screen. The same photos I took only a few hours ago.

In my confusion, I think something nonsensical, like: she must’ve somehow taken my phone. But no, I can still feel the full weight of my phone in my own pocket. And it still wouldn’t explain why she’s been crying. What would the photos have to do with her…

Then understanding clicks into place.

Cao. It’s a common enough Chinese surname—there are at least five or six Caos at our school—that I didn’t think to make the connection earlier, yet now it seems obvious. The old man at the restaurant must be her father.

Guilt clamps down on my stomach. This whole time I was fantasizing about all the money going into my bank account, Chanel’s life has been unraveling.

Still, she doesn’t know that I know. The smart thing to do—the safe thing to do—would be to just leave it as that, act like nothing’s wrong and spend the rest of my night catching up on homework. Let her grieve and rage however she wishes. I’m sure she has plenty of friends to comfort her anyway.

But as I stare at her sad, hunched-over form, all alone in the dark, an old memory ambushes me: a few months after we first moved in together, she’d found me lying facedown on the bed, uniform still on, my Chinese test shredded to pieces around me. A hideous 87.5% scrawled across one of the torn corners. We weren’t close-close even then, but she’d plopped down beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world and cheerily mocked every question on the test until I felt more like laughing than sobbing.

My heart wavers.

“Hey,” I blurt out, taking a step closer even as I curse my own mouth. “Um… Are you all right?”

Chanel glances up at me from her cocoon of blankets. I half expect her to brush the question off, or maybe simply stay silent until I get the message and go away, but she replies quickly, with surprising violence, “Aside from the fact that my dad’s a total asshole? I’m great.”

I try to hide my shock. I can’t imagine ever calling Baba something like that, not with all his lectures on filial piety and respecting my elders no matter what entrenched in my very bones.

“Sorry,” Chanel says, maybe sensing my discomfort. She tugs the blankets higher over her face, so her words are muffled when she explains, “It’s just been a shitty day.”

I hesitate, then go to sit down on the floor beside her and ask, as if I were auditioning for Side Character Two in a high school drama, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She snorts, though it sounds a bit like a sob. “Aren’t we already talking about it?”

“Right,” I say, feeling dumb. Part of me is already regretting this conversation, but another part—the part that once hoped Chanel and I might become best friends—doesn’t want to just leave it like this either. “I guess we are.”

“I just. I don’t get it.” She sighs, blowing a stray, slightly wet strand of hair from her eyes. Picks up her phone, scrolls through another photo, then slams it down again with such force I almost jump. “I. Don’t. Get. It.”

I decide to stay silent.

“It just doesn’t make sense. My mum never did—I mean, this whole time, she’s been busy preparing for his birthday. Can you believe that? She’s booked his favorite restaurant, and his favorite band, and she even had a qipao tailored just for the occasion, and he’s…” She tightens her grip on her phone, knuckles white. “What was he thinking? Why?” Then she turns to me, like she’s actually hoping I might have an answer.

“It’s not really about your mum though, right?” I say slowly. “I mean, if even Beyoncé was cheated on—”

Her eyes narrow. “Wait. How do you know that?”

“Know what?” I say, half wondering, in my sleep-deprived state, if she’s talking about Beyoncé.

“I didn’t say anything about my dad cheating just now. How do you know?”

Shit.

Panic seizes my throat. I choke out a vague uming sound, my mind scrambling for some plausible explanation.

“Did Grace tell you?” she presses. “Because I specifically asked her not to say anything until I had evidence. Ma ya,” she mutters, switching to Chinese. “That girl just can’t keep her mouth shut—”

“No, no, it’s not that. Really,” I add when she casts me a look of disbelief. I realize that if there were an official report card for criminals, I’d be sitting on a low B or C right now; any straight-A criminal would go with the ready-made excuse, pin all the blame on Grace and simply move on with their lives. But seeing as Chanel’s father has been deceiving her and her mother this whole time, it seems cruel to feed her another lie, no matter how small.

Besides, it might make things easier to have my roommate in on the plan, to turn invisible in the mornings without raising any alarm that I’ve disappeared.

“So what?” Chanel says, watching me closely. “Who told you?”

“No one.”

She frowns. “Then how…”

“Look, it’s probably easier if I show you.” I take out my phone and open up the app to my recent conversation with user C207—our recent conversation. Chanel’s eyes lock on the photos of her father at the restaurant, then snap to the identical photos on her own phone. Her mouth falls open.

“You’re the person behind Beijing Ghost?” she demands. She inspects the photos again, holding the phone so close her small nose is almost touching the screen. Then she stares back at me. “Seriously? You?”

“You don’t have to sound so skeptical,” I say, not sure whether I should be offended by her reaction.

“Sorry. You just didn’t strike me as the type to…you know.”

I really don’t, but there’s no point in asking her to specify. So instead I ask, “Who did you think it was, then?”

“I’m not sure.” She shrugs, the blankets sliding a few inches off her shoulders. “Henry, maybe? He’s good with the tech stuff, and he’s got his dad’s entrepreneurial genes.”

My jaw tightens. Henry, again. Even when he’s not here, he’s everywhere.

“Anyway,” Chanel says, with a little shake of her head. “That’s not the point. How did you do it? I thought—I don’t know, maybe the app came with some kind of secret spy camera system—but the photo quality is perfect. And the angle.” She jabs a manicured finger at the photo, clearly taken at eye level with her father and his girlfriend. “It’s almost as if you were right there in the room with them…”

“Well, um.” A nervous laugh escapes my throat. But better to get this over and done with, I suppose. “The thing is… I was. In the room with them.”

Chanel laughs, too, but it’s a sound of incredulity. “As if.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Yeah, you’re always serious, Alice. But what you’re saying—it doesn’t make any sense. Like, at all. If you’d entered the room with my dad, he would’ve called security on you—”

“If he saw me,” I interrupt. “But he didn’t.”

She stares at me, now looking a bit concerned for my sanity. “Again, I’m hearing you, I am. But I honestly don’t understand how that would work, unless you could camouflage or turn invisible or something.”

I know she’s only joking, but I take the opportunity. “Actually, you’re right.”

“About…?”

“I can turn invisible. See”—I quickly zoom in on the photo for proof before she can protest—“that mirror in the background? If someone were standing there to take the photo, you should be able to see their reflection, right? Or at least a shadow. But here—”

“There’s nothing,” she murmurs, finishing the sentence for me. Then her brows crinkle. “You’re sure you didn’t just like, Photoshop this? Because I’ve seen Grace’s Instagram posts, and photos can be very deceiving.”

I wave aside whatever weird beef she has with this Grace girl, and look her straight in the eye. “Chanel, I swear I’m telling the truth. If I’m not…” I pause, trying to come up with the best way to convince her that I mean every word. “If I’m not…then let me get below average on every single test from now on. Let me end up rejected from all the Ivy Leagues I apply to. Let me—” I swallow. Even though this is all hypothetical, it’s still painful to say out loud. “Let me do worse than Henry Li in absolutely everything.”

Chanel’s hand flies to her mouth, and I’ve never been so grateful for my competitive overachiever reputation in my life. “No. No way.”

I nod grimly. “Yes. That’s how serious I am.”

I wait for realization to truly sink in this time. A long silence passes, and then—

“Wocao! I mean—wow. Holy shit. Holy fuck…” As Chanel makes her way through what seems like every single expletive in both the English and Chinese languages—some of which I don’t even recognize—I’m struck by the ridiculousness of this situation. These kind of late-night, bare-all, I-can’t-believe-that-happened conversations were exactly what twelve-year-old me would’ve wanted. Just never in these circumstances.

“When did it—How did it…” Chanel begins once she’s managed to compose herself a little.

“I’m not completely sure,” I admit. “There are still things I’m trying to figure out.”

“Wow,” she says again on a drawn breath, eyes wide. She wraps the blankets tighter around herself and leans all the way back against the wall, as if unsure she can keep her body upright much longer.

“Yeah,” I say awkwardly. “So, um—”

“Is this why you wouldn’t go to the mall with me?”

“Huh?” I glance up at her, certain I’ve heard wrong.

“When we first moved in here. I asked you to go shopping with me a few times and you always turned me down. Is it because of this whole invisibility side gig you’ve got going on?”

“Oh no. Me turning invisible is a pretty recent thing,” I tell her, still not understanding what this has to do with anything.

But then she offers me a brief, awkward sort of smile, sinks lower onto the floor, and it hits me that maybe she’s drawn her own conclusion—the wrong conclusion—about why I never agreed to hang out with her. Maybe this whole time I was worried about the shopping and the expensive clothes, she’s been under the impression that I simply don’t like her very much. Which is wild. Everyone likes Chanel Cao; even the Year Thirteens who always march around the school as if they own the place sometimes invite her to go out clubbing with them.

Then again, now that I really think about it, it’s hard to say if that’s because of her or all those nightclubs her dad owns.

“Hey,” I say. “About that. It’s not that I didn’t want to, you know. I really did—do. I just… Shopping isn’t really my thing.”

She lifts her head, her cheeks still damp with tears. Scans my face for a beat. “Are you being serious?”

I nod.

“Why didn’t you just say so earlier?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t think…” I trail off. I didn’t think it mattered, I finish in my head. I didn’t think anyone would care. But the very thought of saying those words aloud, of allowing myself to be vulnerable like that, makes me nauseated. Still, I force myself to add, “Now’s not too late though, right? If you ever want to talk, or spend more time together… I’m here for you—” I gesture to my bed on the other side of the room. “Literally.”

Somehow, my vague, fumbled explanation and bad joke seems good enough for Chanel, because she smiles. A real smile, this time, despite her puffy eyes and chapped lips.

Then she picks up her phone again and enters the Beijing Ghost home page.

“What are you doing?” I ask, cautious.

“What else?” she says with a small sniff, wiping the wet specks of mascara from her face. “Leaving you a good review.”