by Sarah Suk
“Oh.” His face fell with disappointment. “So it really is a jjak sarang.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“A one-sided, unrequited love,” he said.
“Maybe in the romantic sense,” she agreed. “But not in the friendship sense. You were as important a friend to me as I was to you. I mean, you helped me realize that aquatic life was my passion! That’s always stuck with me. Besides, why is friendship any less meaningful than a romantic relationship?”
“That is true,” he said. He paused for a moment, his face still disappointed. After hyping himself up for this talk for so long, this probably wasn’t the exact outcome he was hoping for. But after a few seconds, he managed a grin. “Does that mean we can be friends again? Because I have a cool under-the-sea fact to share with you.”
She grinned back. “Yeah. Friends again. And maybe this time we can both be a little more honest.”
They laughed, which I took as my cue to turn away from the otters, which I’d completely forgotten to pretend to look at. I felt proud of Charlie for finally speaking up. I rejoined them, glad that the air had cleared between them. Maybe we could all even hang out together. With Valerie, too.
“So why is Wes here again?” Pauline said, glancing at me. “Are you really here for the otters?”
“Yes,” I said. “And maybe a little bit of moral support.”
“Thanks again,” Charlie said, giving me a fist bump. “By the way, I was meaning to ask you, because Valerie won’t tell me a thing, but what’s going on between you two?”
Now it was my turn to fumble for my words. “Um… I’ll let you know.” Probably best if I tell people after Valerie and I have had a chance to talk about it for ourselves. “But I’m thinking about calling off the bet.”
“Thank God,” Charlie said in relief. “I told her it was a bad idea from the start.”
I had been thinking about it during the entire car ride. The audition had gone so well, and I was feeling more confident than ever that I had a shot at getting into Toblie. But I also didn’t want to be in competition with Valerie anymore. I felt like I was facing another huge risk. By canceling the bet and pursuing something more with Valerie, I was risking not being able to pay for my spot at Toblie, especially with my sales being so spotty lately. But I’d made my decision. I would find another way to make music school happen, even if it meant deferring my acceptance for another year while I made more money or finally admitting the truth to my parents and begging them to help me.
Music school for me had always meant finding a place to truly be myself, but in a strange twist of fate, Valerie had started to mean that for me too. I couldn’t let her go.
Just then, my phone pinged with a text message, and her name lit up my screen.
Valerie: Hey. Can you meet me at the school courtyard tomorrow at noon?
My heart leaped. I would tell her tomorrow then that I wanted to call off the bet. Face-to-face.
Me: Of course. See you there.
Monday / February 17
It was a cold day and the courtyard was deserted. I shivered in my jacket, the zipper pulled all the way up to my nose, wondering why Valerie wanted to meet here, of all places, when school was closed for the holiday. Hopefully this was just a meeting spot and we could hang out somewhere warmer for the rest of the day.
As with all important things, I had practiced what I wanted to say a hundred times. Let’s call off the bet.
I don’t want to fight anymore.
Be my girlfriend?
But no matter how many times I practiced the words in front of my mirror, they never rolled off my tongue the way I wanted them to. And then I decided that some things weren’t meant to be practiced and that maybe this was just one of those things where the right exact words would come to me in the moment.
I spotted Valerie walking across the courtyard and my heart lifted. Her hair hung long and straight down her back, her hands tucked into the pockets of her winter jacket. The urge to touch her was overwhelming. I wanted to run to her, take her in my arms, kiss her again like we had last Friday.
But the vibe was strange. Her face was drawn and serious, her eyes back to being the sharp and piercing gaze I was so familiar with. No warmth. Just business.
“Valerie?” I said as she drew nearer.
“Thanks for meeting me,” she said, her voice crisp.
I reached for her, but she didn’t pull her hands out of her pockets. My hand fell back down by my side. “What’s going on?”
“I wanted to ask you a question.” It was so cold out, I could see her breath as she talked. The sharpness in her eyes dimmed, and I saw something else there. Uncertainty, like she was scared to ask me whatever it was that was on her mind. “Did you tell Lisa, Natalie, and Mimi that if they stopped shopping with me, you would give them a discount?”
Whatever I’d been expecting Valerie to say, it wasn’t that. I felt like someone had tipped the world over and I was suddenly standing upside down, with blood rushing to my head, drowning out all my thoughts. “What?” It was the wrong thing to say, but the only thing I could manage.
“Did you tell Lisa, Natalie, and Mimi that if they stopped shopping with me, you would give them a discount?” she repeated. Her voice didn’t waver, but I could see the pain in her eyes. It hurt her to ask me, and I had made her ask me twice. I had to answer.
“I… did,” I confessed.
For a split second, she looked devastated. She let out a breath that hung between us in the cold and closed her eyes. “So it was all true. I can’t believe this.”
“Valerie, I can explain.” I took a step toward her, but she opened her eyes and stepped back, stopping me.
“Don’t come closer.” Her face was closed off again, her voice steel. She was Valerie of September, the day I’d first met her in front of my locker. All business. No wavering. “You fucking bribed them to stay away from my business? How many others did you offer the same deal to? Not that that’s even a deal. That’s just sabotage. They used to be my loyal customers, and now they won’t even stop at my locker.”
“Valerie, please,” I said, desperate to make her understand. “That was—I didn’t mean to—I was just trying to make a sale.”
It was the wrong thing to say again. She laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “Well. Good job, Wes Jung. You did what you set out to do. What a way to knock me out of the competition.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I felt like my chest was cracking open. How do I fix this? How do I say the right thing? “I’m so, so sorry, Valerie. That wasn’t my intention. And it was before—”
She held up a hand, stopping me again. It was before the kiss, I wanted to say. Before I fell for you. Before we were anything but rivals.
“I don’t need any explanations, Wes,” she said. “I just wanted to ask you that one question and tell you that from now until the end of the bet, there won’t be any sabotaging of each other’s businesses. It’s a clear game from here. Got it?”
“The bet?” My face fell. She still wanted to do the bet?
“I’m not finished,” she continued. “I also wanted to tell you that we shouldn’t see each other anymore. If you see me in the hallway, ignore me. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Let’s not talk again until prom and I cash in my winnings.”
I stared at her, at a loss for words. How could someone change so drastically over the weekend? What happened?
“You’re not even going to give me a chance to explain?” I said. “Or talk about us? What about Friday?”
“That was a mistake,” she said, her voice flat. “I got distracted. I lost sight of my goals, but I remembered over the weekend what they are. I want to be the best business in our school. And I’m not going to let anybody stand in my way, especially not you.”
“Are you serious?” Anger surged in me now. I couldn’t believe how stubborn she was being. “You can’t keep treating people like this, Valerie! Like they’re either a help or a hindrance to your busi
ness life. People are more than that. I’m more than that! When are you going to wake up and get it?” My voice softened. “Please, let’s just talk about this.”
She looked away and said nothing.
I stared at her in disbelief. “So that’s it, then? Is winning really all you care about right now?”
“It’s what I’ve always cared about.” She put her hands back into her pockets and turned away. “See you at prom, Wes.”
And then she walked away, leaving me to stare after her in the cold.
The bet wasn’t over yet, but why did it feel like I had already lost?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN VALERIE
Friday / April 3
Toners. Face wash. BB cream.
No. No. No.
I scratched my notes out of my notebook with furious crosses of my pen. That wouldn’t work. I was trying to think of my feature product for the month, but nothing was clicking. Everything felt old, played out, not interesting enough. I needed a new strategy. Something that would blow Wes out of the water.
Things hadn’t been going so well since our falling out in February. The entire month of March had passed by in a blur of schoolwork and business planning. I knew my grades were slipping. Ms. Jackson was more than a little concerned.
“You look exhausted lately, Valerie,” she’d said during our last mentor meeting. “I don’t want to see you burn out. This is your senior year. You should be having fun, too.”
But I didn’t have time for fun. My entire March spring break was devoted to content creation. New Instagram posts, new beauty tutorials, new graphics. I stayed up late into the night, texting Charlie at three a.m. with new ideas.
Me: What if we brought back the snail masks?
Me: Are you free tomorrow? Can you come over to film a new video?
Me: I think we should go to IKEA and get new shelving for my locker. It’s getting old.
His reply would always come in the morning, and it was the same every time.
Charlie: I gotta help my mom out at the restaurant today, but I’ll come over after.
Charlie: But Val, I’m worried about you.
Charlie: Are you sure you’re okay? Have you talked to Wes?
My answer was always the same too. Yes, I’m okay. No, I haven’t talked to Wes.
Sometimes we saw each other in the halls at school, but we hadn’t spoken since that day in the courtyard. He kept to my request: he didn’t talk to me, he didn’t text me, and he didn’t call me. My heart still ached when I thought about him, which I tried not to. I stored all my thoughts of him—from the day at his house to the kiss in the storage room—away in a deep part of my mind. But his words from the courtyard were harder to push away. You can’t keep treating people like this, Valerie! When are you going to wake up and get it?
He was one to talk. After all, he was the one who’d tried to use me to sabotage my business. Hypocrite. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe there was some truth to his words. They bothered me more than I wanted them to. I tried not to think about it, though. I didn’t have time.
He’s a distraction, I reminded myself. Distraction and competition. That’s all. Focus on the bet.
All that mattered now was winning. Not only was my pride on the line, but so was my goal to go to Paris with Halmeoni and to show Umma that I could do this. I could be a smart and savvy businesswoman. I had to show her. I had to show myself.
There was a light tap-tap-tap on my bedroom door, and Halmeoni poked her head in.
“Not sleeping?” she said. “It’s getting late.”
“Just staying up a bit longer,” I said, hunched over my desk without looking up. “I want to get this done before I sleep.”
Halmeoni lingered in the doorway. “Sleep is important if you want to be well rested.”
“I know, Halmeoni,” I said, sighing. “I just have to finish this one thing.”
She shuffled over to my bed, taking a seat and facing me. “Valerie. Look at me for a moment.”
I forced myself to look up from my notebook. She stared at me, hands clasped in her lap, brow furrowed, wrinkles deep with concern.
“I am worried about you,” she said. “You haven’t been yourself lately. I can hear you late at night working, and when I pass by your room in the morning, I see you always fall asleep with the light on. Are you even sleeping properly anymore? What is going on?”
“It’s nothing, Halmeoni.” I tried to make my tone sound reassuring, but it came out more as a snap. My nerves were totally on edge these days, even around Halmeoni. “I’m really fine. You know how it is. End of the school year, busy studying for final exams.”
She glanced at the closed textbooks on my desk. “Studying is important,” she agreed. “But so is your rest.”
“Halmeoni, gwaenchanayo. I’m telling you, I’m okay. Now, if anyone should be sleeping, isn’t it you? You’ve still been tossing and turning at night. I can hear you, too, you know. You need to rest.”
Halmeoni nodded. “That you are right about. My body has been aching very much lately. I feel so stiff.”
I softened, guilt pinching at my heart. I had been so busy the past month and a half, I really hadn’t been spending as much time with Halmeoni as I usually did. “We should go see the doctor soon for a checkup.”
“You just worry about you,” Halmeoni chuckled. “I’m sleeping now, then. Jalja, my girl.”
“Jalja, Halmeoni. Sweet dreams.”
She shuffled out of my room, the door clicking shut behind her. As soon as she was gone, I grabbed a hoodie and stuffed it under the crack beneath my door so sound wouldn’t travel. Then I switched off my lights and turned on the flashlight app on my phone. Just in case I fell asleep while I was working, I didn’t want Halmeoni to wake up in the morning and see me sleeping at my desk with my lights on all night.
Just a little longer, Halmeoni. I promise I’ll win this bet, show everyone whose business is the best, and then we can celebrate by having the time of our lives in Paris.
I flipped to a new page in my notebook and worked late into the night, without her ever knowing.
Saturday / April 4
“Hey. Hey. Wake up. It’s almost noon!”
I sat up with a start. I had fallen asleep at my desk. Again.
Samantha looked down at me, eyebrow raised. “You have drool all over your face.”
My hand immediately flew up to my chin. Gross. Dried drool.
“What are you doing sleeping at your desk anyway?” Samantha asked.
“None of your business.” I tilted my head to the side, stretching my neck. Ugh. I was sore all over. I had to stop doing this.
She held up her hands in defense. “Okay, okay. I just came to get you because Charlie’s here to see you. He’s waiting for you in Appa’s office.”
I nodded, massaging my shoulders. “Okay. Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”
She examined my face in concern. “Are you okay? You look really on edge.”
“Yep. Totally fine.”
She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something more and then closed it again. “Okay,” she finally said. “You obviously don’t want to talk right now. That’s fine. Here.” She dropped an envelope on my desk. “This came for you.”
As soon as she left my room, I immediately sat up straighter. Oh my God. It was a letter from Sommerson College.
I ripped it open and scanned the first lines.
Dear Ms. Valerie Kwon,
Thank you for applying to Sommerson College. While we were thoroughly impressed by your student-run business, we’re afraid we will not be accepting your application at this time. Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we are only able to admit…
The words blurred in front of my eyes. I shoved the letter back into the envelope and leaned back in my seat, covering my face with my hands. Deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale.
It’s fine, I told myself. There are still more schools I’m waiting to hear back from. Sommerson wasn’
t even my top choice. It’s fine. It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine.
I opened my desk drawer and buried the letter inside. I didn’t have the brain space to think about this right now. Besides, Charlie was waiting for me. I had to get ready.
I stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, dabbing on some moisturizer and concealer to hide the dark bags under my eyes while I was at it. I looked like a panda. No wonder everyone was so worried about me.
When I walked into Appa’s office, I found Charlie sitting in the spinning leather chair, his fingers drumming restlessly against the desk.
“Val,” he said, standing when he saw me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up? I thought you were helping out with your mom all day today.”
“Yeah, I am. But we got some news this morning that I wanted to tell you in person.” He took a deep breath, bouncing his fists against each other. “I don’t really know how you’re going to take it, but I’m really excited, so just hear me out, okay?”
I raised my eyebrows. “O… kay. What is it? You’re kind of freaking me out.”
“My dad is going to move back from Korea. He’s finally coming home.”
A smile broke out across his face. He looked like he was trying to hold it back, but he just couldn’t help himself. He was excited about this. He’d been wanting his dad to come back for years.
But. My mind stilled, not ready to open up to the meaning behind what Charlie was really saying.
“Coming back?” I said. “Here? As in here here? PNW here? When?”
He nodded. “He’ll be back by the end of the month. He’s been thinking about it for a while, and the timing is finally right. He misses living with us and he knows we miss him. And he’s been unhappy living on his own in Korea for so long. He just wasn’t sure if he would be able to find a job here that’s as good as the one he has there, but a friend of his offered him a position, so it was kind of the final push for him to come back.…”
