“There are several pulse points on the human body where you can measure a pulse. These are places where arteries run just beneath the skin…”
Holding a long pointer, Ms. Shapiro began her explanation, indicating various points on the anatomical model. Meanwhile, Mr. Hawkins moved between the rows, handing out printed worksheets and pencils. Only after the papers had been distributed did Sienna finally look away from Jiyu.
Phew.
Jiyu quietly breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing going on between her and Hunter, and she had no desire to invite the sort of needless suspicion that could turn school into a living hell.
During the previous winter term, Sienna had ended her eight-year friendship with her best friend, Beatrice.
Beatrice, who attended the same tennis academy as Hunter, had recklessly invited him to a “secret party” behind Sienna’s back while riding the after-school shuttle to the tennis courts.
Beatrice’s parents were frequently away for days at a time because of work, and the impromptu secret parties she held whenever the house was empty were notorious among private-school students.
Only the most popular seventh graders from each school were discreetly invited to those exclusive gatherings, making them objects of quiet envy. Yet despite the name “secret party,” colorful rumors invariably spread across the entire Upper East Side the very next day.
Someone had French-kissed someone else as punishment during a game.
Someone else had locked herself in an empty room with another girl’s boyfriend and failed to emerge for a suspiciously long time.
While the shuttle bus sat trapped in traffic on the bridge to Randalls Island, Beatrice, seated beside Hunter, had whispered the invitation to him. The other students pretended not to notice while straining their ears to catch every word.
Hunter had rejected her immediately.
“Secret party? Sorry, but I’m busy. I have a tournament this weekend, so I need to practice all week.”
The incident—in which Beatrice secretly invited Hunter, widely known to be Sienna’s crush, to a party behind Sienna’s back, only to be rejected in front of everyone on the bus—became the most humiliating scandal of the previous semester.
The students’ fingers flew across their phone screens, and by the time the shuttle reached the tennis academy, the story had already spread throughout the entire seventh grade.
Chloe, who took a particular interest in gossip surrounding the popular crowd, concluded that Beatrice, the clique’s perpetual second-in-command, had overplayed her hand. By hosting the secret parties, she had tried to strengthen her position and challenge Sienna for the role of queen bee.
Instead, Beatrice was branded a traitor and subjected to Sienna’s merciless retaliation. In the end, she was cast out of the popular clique. Even the “wannabe” crowd—the girls who hovered around the edges, flattering anyone who might let them in—refused to accept her.
Even now, an entire semester later, Beatrice wandered around with a defeated expression, clinging to the “loser” clique she once would not even have acknowledged.
These days, Sienna hosted the secret parties instead. Her parents were often away as well, and the gatherings held in secret in the basement of her family’s luxury townhouse between Fifth and Madison Avenues had been renamed “underground parties.”
Beatrice had become a cautionary tale among Aster School’s seventh graders. No one had the nerve to flirt with Hunter anymore—not when doing so meant risking Sienna’s vicious revenge and a school life straight out of hell.
Jiyu clicked her tongue under her breath.
He was apparently desirable enough to inspire all that, yet he could not even be bothered to treat Sienna kindly. Sienna or anyone else, Hunter had no interest in anything but tennis.
That was probably for the best.
If Hunter ever started dating some girl other than Sienna…
Jiyu shuddered and subtly shifted farther away from him. Whoever that future girlfriend turned out to be, Jiyu already felt sorry for her.
At that moment, Ms. Shapiro posed a question to the class.
“When checking the vital signs of an unconscious person, where is the most efficient place to measure the pulse?”
Around twenty hands shot into the air.
Jiyu hugged her knees and answered silently in her head while watching the others participate with eager enthusiasm.
The students called out reasonable answers such as the wrist, chest, and temples, along with more absurd suggestions like the soles of the feet or the eyelids. Ms. Shapiro never scolded them, no matter how ridiculous their responses were. After listening to every answer, she nodded.
“Since blood circulates throughout the entire body, none of those answers is completely wrong. In an emergency, however, it’s more convenient to use areas that are not covered by clothing, correct? Among those, the places where arteries lie close to the skin and are easy to locate are the wrist, the side of the neck, and the inner upper arm. These are called the radial, carotid, and brachial pulse points, respectively.”
Ms. Shapiro and Mr. Hawkins demonstrated how to take a pulse at each of the three locations.
“Now pair up with the person beside you. You’ll have one minute to measure the pulse at each point and record your findings on the worksheet.”
The gym, filled with students from both schools, instantly erupted into chaos, as noisy and crowded as Times Square in midsummer.
Startled, Jiyu opened her mouth and screamed internally.
‘With Hunter?’
“Olivia!”
Fumbling with her worksheet, Jiyu looked up at Chloe’s urgent whisper. Chloe and Sienna, seated beside each other in the second row, were both waving at her.
“Sienna says she’ll switch seats with you!”
Chloe grinned broadly, her pigtails bobbing and the rainbow-colored bands on her braces flashing. Sienna glanced toward the teachers, rose halfway from the floor, and motioned impatiently for Jiyu to hurry.
Jiyu’s face brightened. She quietly began to stand.
Hunter suddenly raised his hand.
“Mr. Hawkins, are we allowed to switch partners during class?”
In an instant, the buzzing voices died as though time itself had stopped.
Ms. Shapiro answered in Mr. Hawkins’s place, her tone stern.
“Sienna. Olivia. Sit down.”
Then she repeated the instruction with emphasis.
“You may not change partners during the exercise. We have limited time, so begin immediately. You have fifteen minutes to measure the pulse at all three points, record the results on the worksheet, and determine whether they fall within the normal range. Don’t forget to note whether the pulse is strong or weak, regular or irregular.”
Biting her lip, Jiyu awkwardly lowered herself back to the floor and glared at Hunter.
She poured as much resentment and accusation into her eyes as she could muster, but he looked infuriatingly indifferent as he scanned the worksheet. Then he spoke.
“You going first?”
“……”
When Jiyu continued glaring without answering, he shrugged.
“If you don’t want to, I’ll go first. Give me your wrist.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
Hunter’s reply was lazy.
“Sienna was being nice enough to offer to switch partners. You’d rather be with her than—”
“She’s annoying.”
Hunter cut her off.
“……”
So I’m not annoying, then.
“Don’t start being annoying too. Just hurry up and give me your wrist.”
Of course.
Jiyu released an exaggerated sigh, making sure he heard it, and reluctantly held out her arm.
Blue veins showed clearly beneath skin so pale it was nearly translucent. When they were younger, Hunter used to tease her that her skin looked like a spring roll wrapper—you could see straight through it.
During spring break in Cancún, Mexico, she had managed to tan her arms slightly after secretly washing off the sunscreen her mother had applied. Less than a month later, however, her skin had already returned to its original shade.
Her mother was deadly serious about preserving her pale complexion. No matter how earnestly Jiyu protested that excessively white skin looked unfashionable, her mother ignored her.
Whenever they vacationed somewhere hot, her mother reapplied sunscreen until it left white streaks peeling across Jiyu’s skin, forced her to wear an absurd hat with flaps like elephant ears that covered her shoulders, and even made her carry a parasol when there was not a cloud in the sky.
At times like that, Jiyu was too embarrassed to lift her head.
Hunter, by contrast, had spent his two-week spring break on the Hamilton family’s private island in the Caribbean and returned with a tan deeper than the one he usually had in summer.
She had never admitted it aloud, but she envied the healthy, melted-caramel shade of his skin. Somehow, it made him look both relaxed and sophisticated.
Hunter extended three callused fingers and pressed them firmly against the center of her wrist. Then he tilted his head and shifted them slightly higher.
Perhaps three seconds passed.
His brow furrowed, and he jerked his head up.
“Ju Parker, is your heart even beating?”