The News

JADE

I run the hand dryer over my hair, but it’s useless. The thing barely blows warm air. My reflection in the bathroom mirror is a mess—flushed cheeks, wet strands sticking to my neck, and eyes still burning from the sight of Derek Yamanaka sitting in his fancy car like he owns the world.

I stomp downstairs. Dry clothes. Damp hair. Bad mood.

Marcus is on the couch, scrolling through his phone like nothing happened.

“What did you want to tell me that couldn’t wait until I showered?” I ask, yanking the hand dryer cord toward an outlet.

He looks up. “I’m going to med school.”

I freeze for half a second, then smile. “That’s good news. When?”

“Sunday, actually.”

I stop trying to plug in the dryer. Turn to face him fully.“Sunday as in… the day after tomorrow?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Congratulations.” I mean it. I do. But something in his voice makes my stomach tighten.

He sets his phone down. “I’ve been thinking about how you’ll be alone. And since our family is still in Europe, and I’m your only family here…” He pauses. “You’d be lonely.”

“I’ll be fine.” I cross my arms. “I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know you are.” He stands up. Comes closer. “But just in case, I asked Derek for a favor. And he agreed to watch over you.”

The hand dryer slips from my fingers. Clatters to the floor.

What the fuck?

“No.” The word comes out sharp. “No. I’m not a baby. I’m a grown adult. I can take care of myself. I don’t need a babysitter.”

Marcus holds up both hands. “I don’t doubt that. It’s just aprecaution.”

“A precaution?” My voice climbs. “You asked Derek? The guy who was mean to me my whole childhood? The guy who just called me bean sprout an hour ago?”

“He’s changed.”

“Like hell he has.”

“Jade—”

“Don’t ‘Jade’ me.” I look around for something—anything—to throw. My hand finds a vase on the side table. I don’t think. I just grab it and hurl it across the room.

“Are you kidding me?” I scream.

The vase sails past Marcus’s shoulder. Toward the front door.

The door opens.

The vase misses Derek’s head by inches. Shatters against the wall behind him.

Jesus.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just stands there in the doorway, dry now, looking at me with those cold eyes.

Marcus’s eyes dart between us. His voice is calm. Too calm.

“It’s not babysitting,” he says. “It’s common watching.”

DEREK

She glares at Marcus first. Then her eyes swing to me. Burning. Like she wants to set me on fire with just a look.

I lean against the doorframe. Cross my arms. “Don’t stop on my account. Please. Continue proving Marcus’s point.”

Her face twists. “Shut up and go fuck yourself.”

Then she storms upstairs. Stomps so hard I think the walls might crack.

Marcus watches her go. Then he looks at me. “You have your work cut out for you.”

“No shit.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I trust you. That’s why I asked. I know Jade can be a handful, but she’ll adjust. And I can’t trust anyone else with her because…” He pauses.“Well. You’re the only one who won’t—”

“Fuck her?”

Marcus nods. “Yeah.”

I keep my face blank. “I’m not interested in her.”

“I know.” He almost smiles. “You hate her. So on that regard, you can protect her for me.”

I push off the doorframe. Shove my hands in my pockets.“That’s the only reason I’m here.”

“I leave Sunday,” he says.

“Of course.”

We stop talking. Just stand there. The silence fills the room like water. It’s always like this with us. Two quiet people. Makes people wonder how we ever hold a conversation.

I look at the broken vase pieces on the floor. “How was your fuck date?”

Marcus snorts. “Ehh.”

Then he laughs. A short, tired sound.

I don’t laugh. I’m thinking about upstairs. About what she’s doing right now.

Probably destroying something else.

So much for grown adult.

JADE

I pace my room, phone pressed to my ear. The cord tangles around my fingers. I don’t care.

“—and then he tells me to get out. Like I’m some kind of dog. ‘Get out.’ That’s it. No ‘nice to see you.’ No ‘sorry about the rain.’ Just get out.” I kick a pillow across the floor.“And now Marcus wants him to be my ‘watcher.’ Like I’m a toddler who needs a babysitter.”

Nina’s voice crackles through the speaker. “Okay, okay. It can’t be that bad. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”

“Nothing about Derek Yamanaka is a blessing.” I stop pacing. Stare at my wall. “If anything, it’s a curse.”

Lauren laughs. Quiet. The way she always does. “You say that now. Give it a week.”

“A week? I won’t last a day.”

Nina tries again. I can hear her shifting, probably settling into her couch. “Look at the bright side. This shows Marcus isn’t a complete ass. Even though he’s leaving you with a complete ass.” She pauses. “That’s beside the point. It shows he really cares about you.”

I sigh. Drop onto my bed. “I’m not apologizing for breaking his vase. Or for almost killing Derek with it. They both deserve it.”

“Fair,” Lauren says.

“More than fair,” Nina adds.

Lauren speaks again, her voice thoughtful. “But no matter what Derek does, he can’t watch you 24/7. He probably lives far away. You’ll see him maybe twice a week at most. It won’t be that bad.”

I push off the bed. Walk to the window. Time to close the curtains and pretend the world doesn’t exist.

My hand touches the fabric.

Then I see him.

Walking across the street. Toward the building next door. The one with the new penthouse I noticed last week.

He disappears inside.

What the fuck?

I didn’t realize I said it out loud until Nina asks, “What?”

Lauren too: “What happened?”

I don’t answer. I just stand there. Staring at the building. At the windows. At the lights turning on in the top floor.

The penthouse opposite mine.

“No,” I whisper. “No. No. No.”

“Jade, you’re scaring me,” Nina says. “What’s going on?”

I grip the phone tighter. My voice comes out flat. Dead.

“Lauren is a fucking witch.”

“Huh?” Lauren sounds confused.

“She jinxed me.” I watch the shadows move behind his window. “He lives just opposite me.”

Nina starts laughing. Loud. Uncontrollable. The kind of laugh that makes me want to throw my phone across the room.

I want to scream. I want to cry.

Fuck no.

I hang up eventually, but sleep doesn’t come easy. I lie there running through every version of Derek I’ve ever known — the boy who used to steal the last slice of pizza and blame it on the dog we didn’t have, the teenager who went quiet and sharp-edged the year his parents’ marriage fell apart, the man in the car today who looked at me like I was an inconvenience he’d been assigned rather than a person he used to know.

I think about the version of him from before Japan, the one who used to actually smile, rare and lopsided, right before he said something designed to make me furious. I wonder, staring at my ceiling, how much of that boy is still in there somewhere, buried under the ice his father apparently packed him in like cargo. I decide it doesn’t matter. I decide I don’t care. I fall asleep somewhere around two in the morning still deciding it, which should probably have told me something about how convinced I actually was.