makes me feel like I’m in a Victorian novel, engaging in an epistolary relationship with Will. It’s scarily vulnerable, writing my thoughts out by hand. I wonder what he’ll read into the shape of my letters, the way they don’t quite travel in a perfect line. I think of the thank-you cards that Peggy Cheng always sends after her birthday parties, and her immaculate handwriting that is literally straightedge (you can see the faint marks from where she couldn’t quite erase the pencil lines she drew on the card).
My dad isn’t quite awful enough to make my amah sleep in my room with me, but he does make me leave my door open the entire night, as if Will could climb through my second-story window. The rule is: lights out once I enter my room. So I write my letter by moonlight. How romantic is that?
Dear Will,
So I guess you’ve figured out by now that I’m on lockdown. No cell, no internet. They’ve even turned my grandma against me (she’s my babysitter when I’m not at the restaurant). Sorry for going AWOL.
You’ve seen a lot of my parents in the past month, so you know that they’re kind of—
I have to think hard about the word I want to use. “Conservative” makes it sound like they’ve got a religious opposition to me dating. “Protective” might be more accurate, but it might be too generous. What are my parents? They’re fearful, and out of touch with American culture. They’re super suspicious of anyone not related to us by blood, regardless of their race or religion. And they’re desperate that Alan and I not make any mistakes that will affect our future—the future that they’ve worked so hard to create.
You’ve seen a lot of my family in the past month, so you know things are kind of complicated. My parents’ priorities are different from a lot of other people’s. It’s an immigrant family trope, right? The “Overprotective Parent”? But it’s a trope because there’s a kernel of truth to it.
I’m working on getting back to how things were. Or to even better than they were. It might take a while. But I hope you know that—
What do I hope Will knows? I hope that he knows that I miss him. That I really, really like him. That I want to kiss him, and to run my fingers along his forearm and make him shudder. That I want to figure out what comes next.
I’m too chickenshit to write this, of course. It’s been over a week since we kissed, and there have been no grand gestures or attempts to break my family’s barricade. He hasn’t shown up under my window with a boom box, a la John Cusack in Say Anything.… For all I know he could have taken one look at my dad’s Rage FaceTM and decided that no girl was worth it. Let alone me.
I hope we see each other soon.
I put it in a security envelope, the kind you use to send bills that don’t come with a self-addressed one. I’ll give it to Priya, because I don’t want to get Alan in trouble for aiding and abetting if my parents catch him with it. He’s on almost as short a leash as I am, and I don’t want to make him my mule.
Color me surprised, then, when he shows up in my room before bedtime.
He shuffles into my room. “Good night, Jiejie,” he says loudly, turning his head so his voice projects into our hallway. “I’ll see you in the morning. Do you think you could check my homework?”
With his face still turned, making sure no one else is coming in from the family room, he hands me a crumpled gift bag, whispering, “Actually, I don’t need you to look over my math. Will stopped by tonight looking for you, and he helped me with it.” He grins, then scuttles off.
I grab my bathrobe and wrap it around me to hide the bag pressed up against my chest as I go to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. I can practically feel my heart beating against the heavy paper of the bag. A shivery thrill of excitement starts in the back of my neck and electrifies my body. Will came. He brought me something. And he tutored Alan before he left.
My hands shake as I open the gift bag and dig through the purple tissue paper. The card is one of those over-the-top laser-cut three-dimensional cards that’s