Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao

Author:Gloria Chao
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2019-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18 ROH BOY

I woke somehow feeling worse than I had last night. How had our fight escalated so quickly? Oh that’s right—because it was one of life’s sad ironies that it was easier to hurt someone you cared about, someone you knew so intimately you could go straight for their Achilles’ heel.

Even though it was Saturday, even though I had climbed through my window around three in the morning (and yes, almost slipping and falling straight down into Bógōng’s open mouth), I rose before eight, most likely because one can only take so much tossing and turning before their unconscious gives up.

With thoughts of turning this week’s leftover rice into breakfast congee, I padded downstairs, off my game, and, lo and behold, I almost ran headfirst into my father.

“Oh! Uh, Ali, zǎo’ān.”

“Good morning.”

We hovered on the stairs, my socks rubbing back and forth on the ancient hardwood despite the threat of splinters.

He pursed his lips to one side. “Okay, well, I have… stuff today, so… have a good day, okay?” He patted me on the head like I was a stranger’s dog, and I heard him exhale as soon as he had moved past me.

My mother was, of course, already gone, sans car, walking to who knows where to avoid the rest of us, and Bógōng was still asleep on the couch.

So what’s a kid to do with a house all to herself? I had no choice, really. The second my father left, I attacked my mother’s safe with everything I had: Chase’s lockpicks (borrowed yesterday after the Laurelson B&E), a nail file, even one of those Asian earwax scoopers. (Did we get more earwax than other races or something? Or were we more obsessed with cleaning it out?)

I was looking for confirmation—some kind of proof that my mother had dug into Chase’s family history—along with an explanation as to how everything connected to the mysterious park (or how it wasn’t connected—maybe my mother’s secret cup simply overflowethed). Also? I wanted a clue into what the bejesus was going on between my mother and great-uncle. And maybe… I just wanted to see a piece of her, the one from my childhood, somehow, somewhere, because I’d never felt as alone as I did right now.

After watching enough YouTube tutorials to ensure I was on some government watch list, I did it. I was in.

I wiped my cut-up fingers on my jeans, trying to soak up the droplets of blood.

Okay. I swung the door open. The inside was stacked with papers. Upon first glance, they appeared different from the ones I’d seen on the kitchen table. But on the top, almost floating, there it was: the picture of the park. Roh boy, had I earned my Scooby snack. I fingered the edges as if I needed to confirm it was real, and then I examined every last detail.

I’d been in such a rush last time that I’d missed the trash. There were so many scraps of paper tangled in the trees

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