FRANCESCA POV
The city below looked small and fragile from up here…a scatter of lights pinned to the dark. It should have felt magnificent. Maybe it did for other people. For me it felt like a place I was being shipped to, like a box with someone else's name taped to it.
My mom and I were on a plane, heading to China. Probably my first time. I'd heard things about China… the good, the bad, the weird stories that people tell to make places sound like fairy tales or nightmares. All I knew was I wasn't excited. Not even a little.
Mom had an interview at her company's expanded branch in California. The pay was jaw-dropping. She'd only been there three months when the company… and I mean literally… burned down. Everything collapsed. Now the whole staff had to move to China if they wanted to keep working. Mom needed that job like air.
It wasn't easy for her. Being a single mom had already taken more than it should: my father ran when he found out she was pregnant. He'd said something about his parents not liking "a Black woman" and left like it was the simplest thing in the world. A stupid excuse…he was white. We are Black. We are American. California was the only life I'd known.
Life hadn't been kind. Mom couldn't find work back home; that's why she'd go to any length to hold this job. She did that for me. She did it because she wanted to give me the things she never had.
"Cesca… look at this… dishes sold in Goilin…" Mom waved her phone in front of me from the seat beside mine, grinning like she wanted me to share the excitement.
"Mom, it's Guilin, not 'Goilin.'" I corrected it automatically, looking out the window. She was trying to pump me up, and I hated that she knew me too well.
"Come on, Cesca, don't be like that," she said. "You know I'm doing this to make ends meet. You'll be going to college soon, and I need to save."
"I know," I cut in. "I understand."
She sighed and took my hand. For a second — such a brief, fragile second — I saw something like the old Mom, the one who laughed loud and easy before my father left. It was the kind of smile that looks like it might break if you breathe too hard.
I gave that smile back because that was what you did. You gave back what someone held up for you. Maybe, I thought, this wouldn't be the worst thing.
★★★★★★
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our descent into China. Please fasten your seatbelts and make sure your items are stowed. Thank you."
I opened my eyes and the world tilted: we were already there.
Mom hadn't slept a wink. Her eyes were bright with a nervous kind of joy. "You'll love it, Cesca," she said, winking in a way that made me want to roll my eyes and be mean, but I didn't.
There was something about the trip I couldn't name. An unease that sat behind my ribs. Maybe it was my gut. Maybe the way everything felt unfamiliar even before the plane landed.
The country itself was… fine. Clean avenues, towers like stacked books, people flowing through terminals like streams. What I hadn't expected were the stares. They landed on us like heat: people pointing, whispering, reaching. Some wanted to touch my hair. Others took pictures. For a minute I felt like something on display. Famous, only without the invitations and perks.
Mom loved it. She posed for pictures with anyone who asked. I walked away because I didn't want that attention.
"Cesca! Cesca!" Mom's voice chased me, breathless. "They're just being friendly!"
I stopped and turned. "Friendly? You know what's not friendly? This whole trip." My voice came out sharper than I meant it. I noticed the changed expressions of the small crowd around us, phones lifted, capturing everything.
"Please, can we just find our apartment?" I said, irritation flaring. The looks started to press in again.
Mom nodded, shoulders tense, and picked up our luggage. We moved through the crowd, and I tried to make myself smaller.
★★★★★
The apartment was decent… cleaner than I'd hoped, though the neighborhood had that tired, watchful feel to it. I went straight to my room and took a long shower until the water blurred everything. Steam turned the mirror into a soft smear; my face washed out of focus. This wasn't what I had pictured for my life. I loved California. I had friends, routines, a sense of belonging I didn't want to throw away. Now, I'll have to start it all over again in China.
Afterwards, I pulled on a big T-shirt and shorts and padded into the living room. Mom was asleep on the couch, one arm thrown over her face. For her, this move was a blessing; for me, it was a loss. I kissed her forehead, pulled a blanket over her shoulders, and sat for a few minutes watching the slow rise and fall of her chest.
I needed air. Sitting under fluorescent apartment lights after hours on a plane felt wrong. I took my phone… left the location on, because that's what you do now… and stepped outside.
The street was noisy, a tangle of horns and voices and scooters. I didn't know where I was going, but I was hoping I wouldn't stroll far. I put my earphones in and turned the volume up until the music filled my head and pushed everything else out, until the stares were distant static.
Then something yanked my arm so hard I nearly lost my footing. I turned instantly , while removing the earphones, heart racing, and came face to face with an older man in a suit. He'd grabbed me fast, like he thought I was about to step into traffic.
"Miss… please watch where you're going," he said in English with a thick accent, but he was clearly Chinese. "Young master doesn't like to be delayed in his trip."
I pulled my arm free. "Are you kidding me? You yank someone like that and that's all you have to say?" My voice was flat with anger and surprise. I hadn't expected to be treated like luggage.
The man's face hardened, but he kept his polite tone. "Ma'am, you shouldn't listen to loud music while walking. You could be hit."
That was not an apology. I was not going to let it pass. "So run me over then," I snapped. "If it's so dangerous, why don't you start with that?"
I was still talking when the car door opened and someone stepped out. He was the sun in a room full of shadows… dark hair that fell just so, cheekbones sharp as a blade, brown eyes that looked like they catalogued everything. He was taller than most people around us and moved like he knew the world belonged to him.
"韩先生,怎么还没处理好?(Mr. Han, what's all the delay?)" He asked, stepping forward.
The older man turned to him and mouthed the words I couldn't keep up with. "别担心,少爷,我已经在处理她了.( Don't worry, young master, I'm already getting rid of her.)"
The handsome young man…the one whom the older man had looked up to with respect young… looked at me. The expression on his face was slow and deliberate: disgust, like one might reserve for spoiled fruit.
"What are you looking at?" I said, my voice higher than I wanted.
He smiled, but it wasn't a smile for me. "谁是这个可怜的业余?(Who is this pathetic amateur?)"
I bristled. "What did you say?" I don't know what he said, but from his expression… It looked like he was insulting me.
He didn't bother to translate. He spoke up again, with the same casual cruelty. "You're pathetic. More pathetic than the other blacks I've seen."
Heat rose to my face. My fingers clenched furiously, and almost immediately my eyes sighted a glass cup of juice on a vendor's table nearby. I don't know why my hand moved… I think something in me just snapped. Maybe it was the way his eyes dug into me, or the way the crowd had turned into a circle of mirrors reflecting every humiliation.
I grabbed the half-full glass and tipped it. The juice arced through the air and landed across his designer shirt, seeping into fabric that probably cost more than our rent.
He was furious. I could see it in the hard set of his jaw. The older man…rushed forward, hands out, trying to calm the situation. "Master Qin Kai—" he began, in that quick, placating tone.
But the young man…Qin Kai… shoved him off like he was swatting a fly. He stepped toward me and the air between us tightened. If looks could kill, I would've planted flowers on my grave.
Phones came out. People hovered. The vendor stared like he'd been flayed… his glass broken by the suddenness of it all. For a wild second I felt exposed, like a bug on clear tape.
I wanted to say something clever. I wanted to tell Qin Kai to leave us alone, to apologize for the way he'd spoken, but the words were tangled in my throat. Instead, I raised my chin and didn't look away, because that was all I had left in that moment.
Silence pressed. Then Qin Kai tilted his head, a slow, predatory smile forming. "You really think you can humiliate me and walk away?" he asked in English, his voice smooth and cold.
I snapped, "Try me."
And then the world narrowed to the two of us, the wet stain spreading across his shirt, the old man muttering, the vendor shou
ting about his loss, the phone recording. I was not getting out of this easily. Neither was he.