Some girls do

Chapter 5: Chaewon

I catch the new girl, along with An Yujin and Jang friggin' Wonyoung, staring at me as they start to warm up. I'm sure they think they're being subtle, but they're not. I wonder what they're telling her—probably something along the lines of Chaewon's trash, stay away, which is fine. I'm not a stranger to people talking about me; I just wish they were being a little less obvious about it.

"Hey, Chaewon," Jaewook says. He gives my shoulder a light shove as he drops onto the bleachers beside me, running his hands over his fade before pulling out his AirPods. "You think you could take a look at my mom's car this weekend? It's making a rattling sound that's got her stressing out."

"Yeah, no problem," I say as the varsity girls start running slow laps around the turf below us. "You know the deal, though."

Jaewook nods solemnly. "She's already got the ingredients on the list."

I grin. I've known Lee Jaewook since we were kids. He and his mom live on the other side of the trailer park from me. His mom used to babysit me sometimes when I was little and my mom was working double shifts. I don't remember a ton about those years—it's kind of a blur of pageants and random sitters—but I remember Mrs. Lee makes the best mac and cheese I've ever tasted in my life.

One time, I worked up the nerve to ask her if it was Velveeta, because it sure as hell wasn't the store-brand powdered cheese and pasta that I was used to. At $3.99 a box, Velveeta always felt like this glorious, unobtainable thing. Mrs. Lee just laughed, though, and said, "No, baby, I made this from scratch."

I don't think I'd ever really had a meal made from scratch before that. Not that Mom didn't try. I mean, she can twirl a mean baton and smile like a model and talk about wanting world peace, but her pageant training didn't really cover skills like "how to raise a baby at sixteen when your mom kicks you out and your boyfriend ditches you" or "your toddler and you: how to make nutritious, homecooked meals on a two-dollar budget after working a double shift under the table when you're barely old enough to vote."

And even now, the only time I really have a good meal is when Mrs. Lee needs me to fix her car up. She and Jaewook say I can come over anytime to eat, but I never take them up on it. Eating other people's food doesn't seem right, but trading for it seems fair enough.

Jimin comes up beside us, giving Jaewook a good-natured shove before dropping down next to me. He stares at her with big puppy-dog eyes as she pulls out her camera and tries to keep from smiling. They've been dancing around being together for a few months now, and as much as it kills me to say it, I think they'd be perfect together. We're joined a second later by a few lacrosse girlfriends and some stragglers.

The lacrosse team has a "friendly" scrimmage with another school today, and normally Jaewook would be down there on the field, but he's "not progressing fast enough" through the concussion protocol, so he has to sit it out. Technically, it's a friendly match, but I know Sunghoon's still going to go all out. He would even if the guy who pegged Jaewook in the head with a ball—costing them their best defender—weren't on the opposing team.

And maybe it blurs the lines a little bit for me to be here to cheer him on, along with the rest of our crew and the slew of lacrosse girlfriends, but I've got nothing better to do this afternoon, and god knows I don't feel like going home now that Junhyung has taken up permanent residence in our living room.

"We miss anything?" one of the girls behind me asks, and I roll my eyes because clearly the guys are just walking onto the field now.

"Just the runners starting their drills," Jimin says, sounding bored. She raises her camera and starts snapping pics as the lacrosse team pours out of the locker room and onto the field. Sunghoon is in the center of the herd, grin on his face, helmet in his hand, while the rest of the team ping-pongs around him like giant, sweaty versions of my mother's dogs. I don't know how he stands it.