Kevin disappeared later that night.

By that I mean there was no sign of him anywhere. And believe me, that was probably the first time anyone had ever described my brother like that in living history.

My parents were frantic. When they got home from their dinner party, Mom and Dad helped me practically tear the house apart trying to find my stupid brother, but it was like he’d walked right off the face of the planet. He hadn’t even bothered leaving a note.

“I’m sure he’s just off on a walk to cool his head somewhere,” Mom said soothingly as Dad’s face turned a nasty shade of purple-red.

“He’s probably off with his friends somewhere. He’ll be back,” I assured Dad.

Dad shot both of us glares like we’d just confirmed his worst fears instead. “Just when I thought he couldn’t possibly be more of an idiot,” he growled, “Kevin goes and pulls something like this! When will the boy ever grow up?”

This will probably come out sounding bad, but I wasn’t nearly as concerned as my parents were. I figured Kevin was old enough to go off on his own, anyway. The guy was approaching his mid-twenties, for Pete’s sakes.

“How did you two find out about Kevin’s choir?” I asked.

“I hardly think this is the time for that sort of question,” Dad replied—and in English, which must have meant he was working up a foul mood.

“I think it is, considering Kevin is under the impression that I ratted him out and that is partially the reason why he’s gone in the first place.”

Dad turned around and gave me a steely look. “Don’t blame yourself for your brother’s irresponsibilityness.”

“Dad, the word is ‘irresponsibility’ And you’re not going to find Kevin under there,” I sighed as my father lifted up the bathroom rug like he was hoping to find his grown sun lurking among the dust bunnies.

“Go to your room, Nancy,” Mom said tiredly.

“What? What did I even do?”

“Nothing. A lot has happened tonight. Your father and I just need some peace of mind.” Mom paused and gave me a meaningful look. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on college applications now?”

I groaned but found myself sitting in front of a blank Microsoft Word document not even two full minutes later.

I was probably the only senior in all of America who still had no clue what she wanted to write for her college essay. So far, I was onto my ninth draft. Yes. Ninth. All eight of the other versions had been so unsalvageable that I hadn’t even bothered trying to rewrite them before tossing them out. If it continued at this rate, frankly, even the state university wouldn’t accept me.

The prompt on the screen started to mesh together in my whacked-out vision for a moment, so that the Tell us about a special bond between you and another person was more like Tlel su buoat @ lpsieac bndo btewene ouy nda toanhre snoepr.

I needed sleep. Badly.

I was about to shut my laptop and get some shut-eye before my vision scared me even more, but then those plans were dashed when I heard the telltale ping! announcing an incoming Facebook message.

Alexander: Hey

Nancy: Hello?

Alexander: Are you busy right now?

Nancy: Busy procrastinating, yeah.

Alexander: Good. I want to ask you something.

Nancy: Okay, but make it quick. I don’t want to have to procrastinate on my procrastinating.

Alexander: Haha. I see what you did there.

Nancy: Sometimes even I crack jokes.

Alexander: Define “joke”…

Nancy: Wow. Thanks.

Nancy: So what was your question?

Alexander: (typing)…

Nancy: ?

Alexander: …(typing)…

Nancy: What’s taking so long? Are you writing me the freaking Moby Dick?

Alexander: I’m trying to get this right!

Nancy: Get what right?

Alexander: …Okay, screw it.

Alexander: Do you want to go to the Homecoming dance with me?

Alexander: The one next Friday.

Alexander: Not that there’s another Homecoming at our school on a different date.

Alexander: Sorry, I’ll stop rambling now.

Once the meaning of Alexander’s words had sunk in, I stared at the screen in utter shock for a moment. I thought maybe my brain was doing the word-scrambling thing again, so I pinched my skin, slapped my cheeks, banged my hand against my forehead. None of it changed the fact that Alexander Lin had apparently just asked me to the Homecoming Dance.

Alexander: Uh…you there still?

Alexander: I hope this means you’re too thrilled to be typing a response.

Alexander: …Hello?!

By this time, I’d finally recovered from the initial shock. I couldn’t believe Alexander was asking me to Homecoming. Didn’t he hate my guts? Or something? Okay, so it was more like I hated his guts…but still. Was he asking me as a friend, or as something more? And since when had we even been friends?

I felt like I was missing an awful lot of important information here. There was an odd squirmy feeling in my stomach. I should have been disgusted, and I should have turned him down, but…what was that swoopy feeling in the middle of my gut?

There was only one person I knew who could help me out at times like these. I opened up a new Facebook chat window.

Nancy: HELP ME.

It took a few moments for her to respond, which gave Alexander plenty of time to spam me with more messages. I felt bad leaving him hanging there. But only a little.

Louisa: Uhhhh not on calc I hope.

Nancy: No!

Nancy: Not everything is about calculus.

Louisa: Lol. When it comes 2 u, pretty much…

Nancy: Well, this time it’s about the fact that Alexander Lin asked me to Homecoming over Facebook just now.

Louisa: !!

Nancy: !!!

Louisa: That’s just like him to do something like that thru FB chat.

Louisa: Soooo un-romantic lol.

Nancy: What am I supposed to say to him?

Louisa: What do u think? UM YES.

Louisa: Also put in a good word 4 me, ok? His brother is in college and hoooooly crap, they are 1 good-looking fam.

Nancy: Why the heck would I say yes?

Louisa: Y the heck wouldn’t u say yes?!

Nancy: Just the fact that I find him annoying…and insufferable…

Louisa: ??

Louisa: Only u, Nancy, only u…

Nancy: You don’t think so?

Louisa: Of course not! Did u c the way Alexander was acting like around u 2day?

Nancy: I guess he was being kind of decent to me today…surprisingly.

Louisa: Kind of?

Louisa: Everyone else can tell u have that boy WHIPPED.

Nancy: He doesn’t even like me!

Louisa: …Ugh. I feel bad for Alexander now.

Nancy: Gee, thanks for taking my side.

Louisa: U r impossible.

Louisa: But just think of how cute ur babies would be. ;)

Nancy: LOUISA!

Louisa: What? I know ur thinking it anyway!

Nancy: Fine. I’ll go with him.

Nancy: BUT NOT BECAUSE OF THE BABY THING, OH MY GOD.

Louisa: !!!!!

Louisa: ;)

I switched tabs and found that Alexander still hadn’t logged off, which meant he’d probably been sitting there waiting for a response for…about fifteen minutes. I winced and let my hands fly over the keyboard.

Nancy: Okay, I’ll go.

Alexander: Brilliant. Fantastic. I’ll pick you up at six, then.

Alexander: Well, I mean on Friday.

Alexander: Not now.

Alexander: That would be weird.

Alexander: And wrong.

Nancy: Alexander.

Alexander: ?

Nancy: Good night.

Nancy: I’ll see you around.

Nancy: And thanks for the invite.

*****

Things between Alexander and me were a little…odd for the next week. Especially that next Wednesday when we had our volunteer shift together.

Every time we made eye contact while we were moving boxes around or taking customers at the cash register, Alexander would quickly look away, the back of his neck flushing slightly.

I think he said all of three words to me the whole time apart from “Hello”, “pass the empty boxes”, and “goodbye”.

You would have thought he hadn’t just asked me to Homecoming the night before.

“Did something happen between you two?” Teresa eventually demanded when the atmosphere had gotten noticeably tense.

“No,” Alexander said at the same time I said, “Yes.” Then we both glared at each other again, with Alexander being the first to look away. Again.

Teresa looked between the two of us for a long time. “Ah, to be young,” was all she said, a wistful look on her face. Then her expression hardened. “Now I need one of you young ‘uns to use that youngness for some heavy-lifting with those new cookie shipments we got in today.”

So, yeah. Volunteering was…weird. I think something had happened between Alexander and me, but whatever it was, he was the only one who could distinguish it. Or had time to distinguish it. I was too busy calming my parents down about Kevin, who still had yet to show his shameful face around our house.

“Maybe he’s just taking a nice vacation with friends, and we’re getting worked up over nothing,” I suggested on Wednesday evening while we ate Chinese takeout. Mom and Dad were too busy biting their nails and pacing around the room to make proper food for us.

My imminent starvation: another thing to add to Kevin’s growing list of crap he’d caused.

“Should we call the police soon?” Mom said worriedly

“I don’t need outside involvement,” Dad snapped. He currently had one of his friends on the phone and was trying to gather together a search crew.

“You’re both overreacting,” I said. “Kevin’s probably just staying over at a friend’s or something.”

 Mom threw me a withering look. “How do you know that? How do you know your brother hasn’t been kidnapped…or…or…or worse?”

“Who would want to kidnap that?” Dad said.

I rolled my eyes. “I saw Kevin like a status on Facebook just yesterday. I don’t think kidnappers allow their kidnappees to access the Internet. He’s fine.”

“You saw what?!” my parents screamed at me.

This led to three painful hours of Mom and Dad overrunning my Facebook account and stalking Kevin for any sign of recent activity. They messaged him a few times—meaning seventy-eight times—despite the fact that I told them he wasn’t going to respond. I’d texted Kevin a few days ago, and all I had gotten back was a notification that I’d used up all my texts for the month.

Yup. That was what I got for being a concerned little sister.

It seemed like between all this crap going on in my life, I’d blinked and suddenly it was Friday, the day of Homecoming. I snuck looks at Alexander all throughout school. He must have sneaking look at me, too, because I caught him staring before quickly turning around multiple times.

“He’s definitely looking at you,” Amelia teased.

“You’re going to make me maid of honor, right?” Louisa said with a wink.

“Oh, shut up and work on your improper integrals.”

Despite the carefully neutral face I presented in school that day, I was pretty psyched about going to Homecoming. I already had my dressed picked out and knew what hairstyle and makeup I was going to put on, and everything.

I’d gone to the Homecoming dance my freshman year, but it hadn’t been particularly fun. Then again, I’d gone with the Margaret and Patty crowd, whose idea of 'fun' was putting their heads together to gossip about the latest scandalous things the popular kids were up to.

When I got home that afternoon, my Facebook newsfeed was blowing up.

Amy Li posted on your timeline: “CONGRATS ON THE WIN!”

Chelsea Ng posted on your timeline: “Holy crap!! First place, congratulations!!”

Louisa Kim posted on your timeline: “Just heard the news. Woooooow. You would. Good job, nerd.”

At first, I was thoroughly confused. Then I checked my e-mail and got the shock of a lifetime. I didn’t understand how everyone else had learned about this before me, but I’d come in first place at the Junior Mathematics Tournament!

For a moment, I couldn’t do anything except sit there. I was ecstatic, of course. The fact that all my hard work and grueling hours of studying had paid off had to be the greatest feeling in the universe.

But I was also very, very confused. How on Earth did I beat Alexander Lin?

When I stopped smiling like a madwoman, I re-opened the e-mail and scanned the list of the top ten finishers. Alexander Lin wasn’t on there. Not in second. Or third. Not even in tenth place.

I felt like I was living in some kind of parallel universe. And that was before Alexander Lin decided to acknowledge my presence again.

Alexander: Hey, congrats on the JMT!

Nancy: What happened?!

Alexander: Uh…you came in first place.

Nancy: No, I mean what happened to YOU?

Alexander: …(typing)…

The screen stayed like that for a long time.

Alexander: Just had a bad competition day is all.

Alexander: I’ll pick you up at six, ok?

Nancy: Ok. Can’t wait.

Nancy: Seriously though, you should ask to have your test graded again.

Nancy: I think someone messed up.

Nancy: Like, REALLY badly.

Alexander: Lol. Okay.

Louisa and Amelia came over to do my makeup shortly after. In-between their congratulations, they talked about who was going with who and provided a nice distraction for my otherwise hectic life.

I couldn’t quite explain why. But I didn’t really feel the celebratory vibe that was putting everyone else in a great mood. Instead, I had this nagging feeling that my beating Alexander at the Junior Mathematics Tournament was far from good news.

*****

A/N - Sorry my updates are slowing down! There's a reason for it: I have multiple tests spanning multiple days coming up next week, with finals and AP exams coming up the week after. Aaaargh. I'm trying to write as much as I can, but some days a girl just has to go to bed early before she collapses of exhaustion. XD Anyway, thanks for reading! Please vote/comment to show your support for this chapter. :)