Amelia Sóng had never believed in the concept of true love. Love was for children. There was something bittersweet to that. When she was a little kid, she had loved her family so much the feeling was uncontrollable and overflowing. When she grew up, she understood love was something people made as an excuse.
"I can't leave him, I love him."
"He wouldn't have hurt me knowingly, he loves me!"
Bullshit!
Yet, like everything else in her life, there was no scarcity of love either. If it was real or an excuse was always up for debate.
The Sóngs were hard workers and deserved every bit of appreciation and praise they received. Amelia's father had always coded into her the ethic of helping others and of sacrifice. And Amelia's mother had never missed a court date or a meeting with her client, never failed to offer help wherever needed, and never asked for anything in return. Amelia worked just as hard, just as sincerely. Her father had his business and her mother had her law practice. The Songs weren't very religious people. But if it came to it: their work was their religion. Amelia hadn't found hers yet.
Amelia didn't know if there was a god.
Once upon a time, the youngest Sóng had been in a car accident. In all the privileges she had been given, this life was no different. No one should have survived that crash. You cannot cheat death, a voice had whispered in her twelve-year-old ears. I'm not dead, she had thought, not yet.
The car crash killed her older sister. Amelia had died, too, but had failed to stay that way.
She did not know why she had been saved. Because there should have been something, right? Some explanation for the impossible and inconceivable. Something a twelve-year mind couldn't understand but didn't fail in trying to. She was always plagued, always restless because she could never find the meaning of this life she had been granted. This good second life when many people didn't have one good one.
This near-death experience also of course came with her parent's full support in whatever she wanted to do next. It's not that they didn't value her before it. It was: if a thing was almost taken away from you and all the while all you could do was watch hopeless and helpless ─ then if it is given back by some miracle, you want to do everything to keep the thing with you forever. Not that Amelia was a thing but you get the point.
DC had always seemed too monotone for her. The first place she visited was Shanghai and not too later Italy. Nothing made her feel more alive than watching the stark lush red of the Shanghai streets turn into cobblestone and sand-colored alleys of Italy. But these moments of aliveness ─ they were momentary. She wanted more, she needed more. So when her childhood friend Monika decided she was moving to New York to attend Midtown High, one of the best science schools ─ Amelia was quick to follow. Monika hadn't wanted to go, of course. Monika didn't like school ─ but her father wouldn't have any of it. Amelia would take care of her. Because of course, she would. Because Amelia longed for her life to serve a purpose and sometimes babysitting Monika was a plausible alternative.
It was only three months later that they had met Gemma. Well, Amelia had met her. In the library behind all the shelves and cabinets, there was a secret hide-out. You could find it if you looked hard enough. You could find it if you were good at finding things. Amelia was good at finding things. And the silver-haired girl. You could find her if you looked hard enough. You could find her if you were good at finding things. Amelia was good at finding things. So, on a Wednesday at Lunch hour, there Amelia sat. Sandwiched between the towering non-fiction shelf and the wall scribbled with signatures of alums ─ talking with the silver-haired girl about everything and nothing. And just like that, Gemma became essential to the friend group.
It could have been enough. It would have been if Amelia had let it be. But she didn't know what had kept her alive. She still didn't know if there was a god. And she didn't know why she had been saved.
She needed to know why she had been saved.
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