I Hope This Doesn’t Find You

by Ann Liang

It’s hard to believe that someone with such an awful personality could have such pleasing looks

In my head, I like to keep a running mental scoreboard of every test, competition, and opportunity in which Julius and I have clashed since we were seven,

Complacency is for losers.

(ideally, he would have managed to actually find a job on his own after finishing his expensive sports university, but this is meant to be an achievable dream, not an alternate reality).

I could have sworn I’d lowered the screen almost all the way down, not just halfway.

Dramaaaaaaa

Because it might be Rosie standing here now, but in my head it’s someone else. Footsteps storming out the living room and the slam of the door, like a thunderclap, the rumble of the engine, then the horrible, crushing quiet. That’s what happens when people get angry.

:(

“You know what I think?” he murmurs, drawing so close his mouth skims my ear, his cruel face blurring in my vision. My breath catches. Goose bumps rise over my bare skin. “I think you’re obsessed with me, Sadie Wen.”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

“What’s so funny?” Abigail yells after them, because she’s never been afraid of confrontation. “Your new bangs?” “Her bangs actually looked pretty cute,” I say through my fingers. “Yeah, no, they really suit her,” Abigail agrees

Shes so real

I don’t want to remember the heat of his lips near my skin, the glint in his eyes, the malice dripping from his voice.

Dear Brady, Your personality sucks, your face sucks, and your existence sucks. I don’t like you very much at all. You should run out in front of a train.

Me core

Me core

Maybe I should run out in front of a train.

“Don’t disgust me. I would never write diary entries about you—” He cocks his head. Smiles with his lips but not his eyes. “And yet it’s clear I’m all you ever think about.”

Thanks to you, the entire school’s talking about us. It’s anarchy. And did you see what they drew over our captains’ photo? There was red marker.” He pauses for emphasis. “On my face.”

He stops, his black eyes raking my face. I force myself to meet his gaze, even though everything in me wants to run away. “I’ll let you know how you can make it up to me,” he says, letting the words simmer in the space between us, stretching out the threat. “But first, I have to see how bad the damage is.”

“As a solution, we ask that you work closely together over the coming month to bridge your differences, until your tensions have dissolved. I don’t just mean in your regular captain duties, but across the school, throughout various activities. Consider it a show of comradery.”

Principal Miller is really living out his fanfic writer dreams

I tug my hair free from its usual high bun, flipping it over my head and smoothing it with my fingers before retying it into a ponytail. I straighten in time to catch Julius staring at me, a strange, faintly confused look on his face. “What?” “Nothing. I’ve just . . . never seen you with your hair down before.”

Ooooo he thinks shes prettyyyyyy

“Protecting my skin. I have very nice hands—as you have already observed in the past. It would be a shame to ruin them.”

He turns slowly. His gaze catches on the blazer where it ends just above the knee, covering up my skirt. A slight movement in his throat, like he’s swallowing something sharp.

As I stare, my stomach sinking lower and lower, Julius moves closer and loosens the brush from my stiff fingers. Then he brings it down hard over the brick and begins scrubbing, using so much force the muscles in his shoulders flex beneath his damp shirt. Unlike his previous attempt, he erases all the marker in one go. “Done,” he says, letting his arm fall back to his side. “Simple as that.”

I watch Danny make his way to the front of the classroom. He usually sits right behind Julius, but today he hesitates, then pulls up a chair two rows away. As he dumps his stuff out onto the table, his hair falls over his injured eye, and his features twist into a pronounced wince.

Julius is my king

And this looks more unnatural, more deliberate, as if he’d slammed his fist into something hard . . . Like Danny’s face.

I want to know if Julius was afraid of the dark when he was younger. If he ever believed in ghosts or Santa or the Loch Ness monster. I want to know where he studies, whether it’s by the light of the living room window or alone in his bedroom, if he keeps the door wide open or closed. I want to know what he would dress up as for Halloween, what song he picks out at karaoke. How early he rises, how late he sleeps. What dishes their mother cooks for the Spring Festival, what he talks about on long car rides.

Shes so in love

It’s funny, thinking about it now. Because Julius has also accused me of plenty of things in the past, but he’s never faulted me for being intense. For being too much of anything. For wanting to win. He’s part of the reason why winning is worth it.

He’s stayed.

STOP IT NOW

“You’re the only person worth paying attention to.”

“You already owe me. How do you plan on returning all these favors?”

“The others need me to,” I protest, confused why we’re even having this conversation. “They didn’t want to race so—” “Screw the others,” he says fiercely. The heat in his voice shocks me. Burns me to the core. “I don’t care about them. I only care about—” He cuts himself off. Averts his gaze, stares out at the vivid blue sky stretching over the stadium. The students milling around the water fountain, tearing open packets of dried nuts and chocolate bars. Participants warming up by the fences, bending and straightening their legs out over the grass. My head is spinning, but I can no longer tell if it’s from the lack of oxygen or him.

“And Sadie is the light of my life,” Julius says, his lip curling, even though there’s an odd note to his tone. Something that could be confused for sincerity. “The sun in my sky, the source of all my joy. She’s the reason I wake up every morning excited to go to my classes. Not a day goes by where I’m not grateful that she exists, that she’s there, that I get to talk to her and pass her in the halls and listen to her laugh.”

I cant take this. Hes so in love with her

“Congratulations, Sadie. The torture is over.”

:(((

Abigail listens to what she refers to as sad music for hot girls,

Abagail might be my soulmate

“You have to understand . . . If you knew the effect you had on me, how often I think about you, the things I would do for you . . . I wouldn’t stand a chance against you ever again. You would have taken everything from me,” he goes on in a rush, like the words are burning him from within, like he has to get it out before the pain becomes overwhelming. “Not just a debating championship or some points for a test or a fancy award or a spot in a competition—but my whole heart. My pride. God, my sanity. It would be all over. You would annihilate me.”

10/10 love confession

Because I’m willing to lose everything,” he says, his eyes blacker than the surrounding darkness, than the sky outside, “so long as I don’t lose you.”

“I do choose you.”

All of which is to say I really hope this finds you. And I hope you find me too.

You were right, Sadie Wen. I am completely, helplessly obsessed with you. Love, Julius