“But he doesn’t make out with us.” Mika leaned against the statue’s base. “Thank God.”
I glanced in their direction. David’s arms were suctioned around Caroline’s waist, and Caroline’s hands were crammed into his hair. They might have been performing a complicated face-fusion procedure. “What the hell does he see in her, anyway?”
Mika pulled distractedly at the spikes on the top of her head. “I don’t know, dude. You’re the one who’s all BFF with her.”
“I am not,” I huffed, already hating how this night was going. “She’s just nice to me because I’m nerdy and unthreatening.”
“Whatevs,” she said, eyes lost in the crowd.
“Anyway,” I said, “she can’t be completely superficial. David wouldn’t like her if she was.”
“Uh, have you met David?” Mika snapped her gum and looked disapproving.
“Maybe things would be different,” I said, “if—you know—if I told him I liked him.”
Mika pushed herself off the statue and grabbed both my wrists. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but don’t do that. You are out of your fucking mind.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I think so,” Mika said. “In fact, I know so. You do not want to tell David you like him. He will lord it over you for the rest of your life.”
I glanced back at David and whispered, “He won’t get the chance. I’m moving.”
Mika’s face was so full of concern, it was making me uncomfortable. I examined a bit of chipped nail polish on my thumb. “I’ve known him for six years, Sophia,” she said. “When shit gets serious, he turns into an insensitive A-hole.”
“Oh, and I don’t know him?”
Mika sighed and shook her head. She was always doing that, reminding me how romantically ignorant I was.
And in a lot of ways, I knew she was right. I’d never so much as kissed anyone, and I’d definitely never had a boyfriend. Not in Japan and not in New Jersey, where the only boy I’d ever had a crush on ran the Anime Appreciation Club and said “Sorry, Sarah” the one time I bumped into him in the hallway.
Still, I knew there was something between David and me. I felt it—even if Mika couldn’t.
“God! Where is Jamie?” Mika pulled my wrist up so she could see the time.
My airway constricted again. All the dark thoughts I’d been pushing down for the past three years floated to the surface. Jamie and his big, sad eyes and all the horrible things I’d said to him. I thought about it, and it felt like pressing a bruise. Like pressing and pressing and pressing it.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, wrenching my hand away from Mika. “Okay?”
“Be right back?” Mika repeated. “What do you mean? Where are you going?”
“I… I need to make a phone call.”
“You need to make a phone call? Are you secretly forty years old? Are you here on business?”
I yelled over my shoulder, since I was already walking away, “From the station! I need to call my mom from the station!”
Mika shouted back, “You’re not saying things a sane person would say!”
“I’ll be right back!”
No way in hell was I going back. I pushed my way through the closely packed groups of people coming and going, carrying shopping bags, fanning themselves with portable fans. It was early evening, and the sky was a hazy orange and purple. The neon lights were just starting to come to life.
The farther I walked, the better I felt. This was the perfect time to leave. Right before the night went from sour to unsalvageable, right before I had to see Jamie again. Jamie in real life. In real time. I’d go home and send Mika a text telling her I didn’t feel well. It would be better this way. Better for everyone.
By the time I started down the stairs into Shibuya Station, I felt pretty good. Less like the entire city was about to crash down on my head. Less like karma had a cruel sense of humor and was out to get me.
And then I ran right into Jamie Foster-Collins.
I’m running through the cemetery. Cutting across lawns, weaving around gravestones. Everything is gray and muted, and the air feels like static.
It’s going to rain.
Great. I’m gonna go home looking like a bedraggled cat. On my birthday. And the last day of middle school, the last day of my first year at the Tokyo International Academy…
“Sophia?”
The sound of Jamie’s voice breaks my stride. I stumble and grab the top of the nearest gravestone.
I can’t face him. The thought of it stretches me thin, like I could snap apart at any second. But he’s standing next to me now. “Hey. Um, are you okay?” he asks. “You just ran off campus, and—well—you forgot this. It’s your birthday present, remember? And a good-bye present, I guess.” His eyebrows bunch together and he holds out his palm. In the center, there’s a small button with a picture of Totoro on it.
But I don’t take it. I’m still clutching my phone, the edges of it imprinting on my palm.
Jamie’s hand drops by his side. There are red splotches on his neck, and he looks so small and young. His shirt is a size too big, and the belt on his jeans is pulled too tight. “You don’t want it?” he asks.
I swallow, and it takes me a second to find my voice. “Did you mean to send this to me?”
“Send what?”
I hold out my phone for him to read. His eyes swipe over the screen, and his face crumples.
I had been standing by my locker with David when my phone buzzed. A text from Jamie.
Ladies and gents, it’s the Sophia Throws Herself at David Show. Airing all day, every day. Come on down and enjoy the desperation!
And now I can’t think straight. I should cry, but I’m too confused to cry. I should scream at him, but I can’t, because I still can’t believe he did this. Jamie is sweet and goofy and kind. Jamie would never be cruel to anyone.
Jamie would never be cruel to me.
“Shit,” he whispers. “I—I meant to send that to Mika.”