This Time It’s Real

The interview is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. the following Monday.

At 2:00 p.m., I swallow my pride and write, then rewrite, a text to Caz, my fingers shaking as I type out the time and location, alongside the question: Will you be there? At 2:30 p.m., the little read icon pops up below the message, but there’s no reply.

At 3:30 p.m., I show up alone to the senior library, my gut roiling.

The interviewer, Rachel Kim, wanted us to meet here. Something about it offering “insight” into my daily life as a student, which is pretty funny since I haven’t set foot into the library once in all my time here. I obviously didn’t tell her that, though. I mean, it’s not as if this interview is going to be grounded in truth anyway.

When I walk through the library’s sliding glass doors, the camera crew is already setting up inside. There’s equipment everywhere, professional cameras and microphones and screens resting on top of children’s bookshelves, long metal rods leaning against the pastel walls. A chair and two vintage sofas placed at the center of the room. Someone has even left out a tray of cupcakes and water, all still untouched.

I’m actually trembling as I make my way over to the sofas. I sit down and cross my legs. Uncross them. Fidget with a stray thread in the cushions.

I resist the sudden urge to throw up.

It’s just nerves, I tell myself. Nerves, and the fact that Caz isn’t here with me.

The next half hour crawls by at an excruciatingly slow pace. My mouth always gets dry when I’m stressed, so I keep getting up and chugging water and running to the bathroom and back again, all the while trying to look cool about the whole thing. The camera crew must think I have food poisoning.

I’m onto my eighth cup of water when the front doors slide open.

A pretty young woman with a pixie cut and the longest false lashes I’ve ever seen glides into the room, her eyes instantly landing on me.

“You must be Eliza!” she gushes, extending a manicured hand. Her nails are painted the same glossy peach pink shade as her dress. “I’m Rachel.”

“Yes. Hi.” I stand up quickly, praying she doesn’t notice the sweat stains on the sofa, and give her hand a firm shake.

“It is so lovely to meet you in person,” she says, all Colgate-ad smiles. Her breath smells like spearmint. “God, I’ve been looking forward to this interview for ages.”

“Yeah.” I try to match her level of enthusiasm and fail miserably. “I mean, same here.”

We both sit down. Or, at least, I do—she kind of pauses halfway and cranes her neck left and right, like I might be hiding something behind me.

“Sorry,” she says after a beat. “It’s just that … Is Caz not going to be here?”

My heart twists at the name. My throat burns.

But just as I’m about to feed her some excuse about Caz being called away last minute to reshoot a scene, the library doors slide open again, and Caz strides in like he had planned to come here all along.

A giddy, overwhelming surge of relief—mingled with disbelief—shoots through me.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says to Rachel, shaking her hand. “You know how Beijing traffic can be.” Then he turns to me for the first time since that day in the rain and smiles.

And my heart falls. Breaks upon impact.

Because it’s his formal smile, the same smile he gives strangers and fans and interviewers like Rachel, the corners of his mouth curving up just slightly, neither of his dimples showing.

It shouldn’t hurt this much. I should just be glad he’s still honoring our agreement after everything that happened between us. Yet as I force myself to smile back at him and watch him take the seat beside me, so close his shoulders almost brush my own, I can’t help feeling like there’s an axe lodged in my chest, twisting deeper with every passing second.

“It is so good to see you two together,” Rachel gushes as she sits down opposite us, hands folded neatly over her skirt. “I’m sure you’ve heard this, like, a million times already, but you really do make the cutest couple.”

Just smile and play along, I command myself, squashing the urge to glance over at Caz, to assess his reaction at her words. It’ll all be over soon.

But the interview drags on forever. After launching into a long, complimentary introduction, covering everything from my cultural background to the schools I’ve attended to how my essay went viral in the first place, Rachel pivots to Caz’s acting career, her Colgate beam widening.

“You’ve starred in quite a few popular works, haven’t you?” she says once she’s listed them all. “From campus dramas to costume and xianxia dramas.”

“Yeah, guess I have.” Unlike me, Caz obviously has no problem doing interviews; his answers come out smooth and easy, the result of years of practice and experience under the spotlight. But there’s an uncharacteristic tension to his body that, while I doubt is noticeable to onlookers, pulls at the narrow space between us like a taut cord.

Maybe, I dare think, it’s killing him the way it’s killing me, sitting this close together, acting like everything’s fine, like we’re dating and in love, when we haven’t even spoken in more than a week—

“And what do you think of his work, Eliza?” Rachel asks. “Do you watch his dramas often?”

I blink, not expecting to be cued. “Um.” I clear my throat. “I do, of course I do. Often. He’s great in them.” This part requires no bullshitting—he is great in his dramas, and by now, I’ve watched everything he’s ever acted in, including his first minor role as the prince’s guard in an early palace drama.

Even then, he was beautiful.

“What about you?” Rachel turns back to Caz, pausing to take an incredibly small, elegant sip of water, then another, as if determined to stretch this interview out for as long as possible. “Would you call yourself a fan of Eliza’s writing?”

“Yes,” Caz says quietly, and this time, I can’t stop myself from sneaking a glance at his face. Though his eyes are dark and steady, staring straight ahead, there’s some subtle, complex interplay of emotions just beneath that mask of nonchalance, something that makes his next words sound like a confession. “I’ve always been her fan.”

“Oh, how sweet,” Rachel coos, then adds something else about my blog posts for Craneswift, but I barely hear her.

I’m remembering what Caz said the other day:

The first time we really met, you were sitting two seats in front of me in English class and the teacher was reading out one of your essays …

And then, as if I’ve accidentally unlocked some mental vault of all my forbidden, repressed memories, everything he said after that comes rushing back to me too.

I want this to be real.

The library seems to spin, the artificial heat swelling around me, the camera lights blinding, recording every little shift and flicker of emotion on my face. The space between Caz and me somehow feels both smaller and wider than ever.

“… okay, Eliza? Do you want a drink of water?”

When I glance up, Rachel and Caz and the crew are all staring at me, variations of confusion and concern playing out in their expressions. Well, mostly confusion. It’s Caz who looks most concerned—though only for a fleeting second, before his jaw tightens and his features smooth over again. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it, yet I have to. I need to see this performance through to the end.

“Sorry,” I say, wrenching my attention away from him. “Just, um, spaced out there for a second. I’m good.”

“Oh, well, we have been talking for a while, haven’t we?” Rachel says as she checks her watch in mild surprise. “Don’t worry, we’ll be wrapping up soon.”

I haven’t even had the chance to release a silent breath of relief before she reaches into her bag and retrieves a thin, laminated script.

“What … ?” I begin.

“Just a fun thing we thought we’d try,” Rachel explains cheerily, tossing the script over to me.

I study the script, and my heart stumbles over its next beats. The translated lines are from a famous scene Caz shot for his last costume drama, where he played a ghost king desperately in love with a banished princess over the course of ten lifetimes. And it’s not just any famous scene—it’s the famous confession scene, set right after the ghost king transfers his own powers to the princess to save her. I’ve seen screenshots and quotes of it floating around all over social media.

“Basically, we’d love for Caz to reenact this iconic scene with you,” Rachel says with a wink. Or maybe something’s just gotten stuck in her false lashes. “And I know you’re not an actor, Eliza, but your lines are super short. Plus,” she adds, grinning, “since this is your boyfriend, it’s not like there’s much actual acting needed.”

I’m probably more of an actor than you realize, I think, mouth dry.

A half-formed protest rises to my lips, but I swallow it back down again, unsure how to phrase it without inviting suspicion. Besides, Caz doesn’t seem to have any major issues acting out one of his most dramatic, romantic scenes right here with me. He just glances over my shoulder at the script, repeats the lines to himself a few times, nods, and says, “Okay. Sure thing.”

And if I notice him swallow right after, his fingers flexing over the sofa cushions, it’s still nothing compared with the panic worming in my gut. I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can maintain my composure, hide my hurt, before I fall apart.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Rachel calls, waving for the cameras to move closer to us.

Caz leaves his seat and promptly kneels down before me, right on the library floor, already slipping into character like a second skin: There’s a new hardness to the planes of his face, a brilliant intensity to his pitch-black gaze. Taking my hand in his, he asks, voice low and much deeper than it usually is, “How do you feel?”

My mind blanks for a moment, registering nothing but the cool, firm press of his fingers, before I realize that it’s my turn to say my lines. “Better. I … um … No—wait—” Flushing, I scan through the script again. “I should be asking you that, you fool. How could you—”

“It’s nothing,” he says, fully immersed in the scene. He lifts his hand up to my cheek, tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, and I try to keep my breathing even, to conceal how much his proximity hurts. Only stage directions, I remind myself, again and again. Only that.

“It’s not nothing,” I continue from memory. “Your powers …”

“I can survive this world without my powers, but I can’t survive it without you.” Slowly, he says, “I’ve waited ten lifetimes for you, lost you ten times, fought my way through the underworld to retrieve your soul. You are my light, Your Highness; the only home I’ve ever known. I’d gladly die before I let you slip through my fingers again.”

Upon his last words, the library falls into complete silence; even the crew seems entranced by his performance.

And though I know—I know—it’s all fake, the hot tangle of emotions in my throat isn’t. Our gazes lock, me sitting down, him still on his knees, that invisible string between us tightening, and something seems to ripple over his face too.

Then Rachel’s loud, abrupt applause shatters the stillness.

“Oh, that was wonderful,” she enthuses, long nails fluttering at her chest. “Even better than I could’ve hoped. I’ll be sure to add this into the promo video.” She then goes on for a while about how great the interview went, how much she loves my blog posts, how excited she is to see my career with Craneswift take off further, and I think:

This is it. This is exactly what I wanted—or what I thought I wanted. The promise of a good career. The opportunity to impress the interviewer, and whoever ends up watching this at home. The safety of keeping Caz Song at a distance, of keeping everything between us purely professional.

So why do I feel so miserable?

When Rachel finally releases me from the conversation and busies herself packing up the interview equipment, I hurry after Caz out the library without hesitating. Without any instinct for self-preservation. Instead, there’s just the horrible hope blooming inside me like a severe bruise, the old, foolish thought resurfacing: Maybe there’s a way to fix this. To tell him how I feel, the way I did with Zoe. Some way to keep him in my life, even if it’s only as friends. Now that I’ve experienced the alternative firsthand—no calls from him, no real smiles, nothing, as if I don’t even exist in his life—I realize that pain might be inevitable. But some kinds of pain are worse than others.

Caz stops halfway down the empty corridor, and I almost crash into him.

For a moment, he just stares down at me, an unfathomable look in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice quieter now that we’re alone, distant. It kills me, but I know I also can’t blame him. I was the one who put that distance between us.

“I—I’m—” I chew my tongue, the irony of it hitting me. How supposedly good I am with words, except when it comes to this. To him. “I just wanted to say—to tell you …”

He tilts his head slightly, something behind his gaze shifting. Like he cares what I have to say next, despite himself. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean—the other day, when you said—I was lying—”

“You were lying,” he repeats. “About which part?”

“I—”

He shifts position, so that my back’s facing the closest wall, and moves forward. His voice remains soft, gentle even, yet each word cuts through the air like knives. “About how I should trust you? How I could be myself around you? How about that apparently you know better than I do how I really feel, even when I’ve just laid my heart out to you? Which one is it, Eliza?”

A flush rises through me. This is going so terribly wrong.

But he isn’t finished yet. He steps forward again, just like that day on the roof, and the back of my head touches the hard wall. “Those are all your words, not mine,” he says. “You ask me to feel comfortable around you, but the second I do, you just—you retreat. You run away. Do you know what it’s like for me? I trusted you with my hurt, my fears, my doubts, my heart—things I’ve never told anyone else, and you left.”

“I know that now,” I babble, my eyes stinging. “I know it wasn’t fair but … you came today.” There’s so much hope in my voice it’s embarrassing. You came for me, right?

Yet the hope inside me wilts when I see his expression.

“I came because we made a deal, and because I understand how much it means to you and your career. But, Eliza …” He shakes his head with a laugh that sounds more like a sigh. He moves away from me, and the space between us—the space I’d once tried so hard to manufacture—feels cold, cursed. “Whether they’re real or not—all your words have consequences. You can’t just take them back.”

It takes me too long to recover, to pick my heart up from where it’s fallen like shattered glass. By the time I do, Caz is already gone.