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“Read that,” she said.
Confused, I picked up the paper, drawing myself up to sit on my butt, covering my body with folded legs against my chest. My eyes scanned the square, yellow piece of paper.
The note was mostly in English. It announced a make-up test required in three days or I’d fail.
There was a single line of script at the end. The language was my own secret code, the Korean lettering nearly identical to the way I wrote it.
Bathroom.
That was all. It meant something. That I should go back to the bathroom?
He knew my language. I hated him and loved him for it at the same time. Shrewd, clever Mr. Blackbourne.
“It says I have to take a test,” I told my mother.
“I should call the police on you now,” she spat at me. “Your father leaves me. I’m ill and he walked out. How am I supposed to run this house with his harpy daughter, running wild in the streets? Getting boys to buy her cell phones. Wearing boy clothes. I saw those clothes in your closet. Boy pants. Boy shirts. I said you would get raped, killed, and tried to warn you. Nothing. No one listens to me. I’ll stop this before it starts. You won’t bring down this house.” She shut the door again, leaving me in the darkness to ponder how she could think such things. I understood it. It looked bad. If she only knew...
But it didn’t matter to me.
I was no longer alone.
Many Things,
But NEver alone
The way the light under the door shifted, I understood that it turned from morning to afternoon. I almost dozed off, but couldn’t allow myself to sleep. I was listening and waiting.
Marie returned, stopping in to check with our mother. So I guessed it was after school. It seemed kind of early for it. Did she skip?
She was told to go to her room and remain there. Marie obeyed without question. I listened for her footsteps, giving myself something else to do.
Marie turned her stereo on. I couldn’t make out the music type, just the rhythmic beat. It was enough to mask some of her noise.
Mr. Blackbourne hadn’t returned. That told me a couple of things. I couldn’t tell if he meant from his message that they saw what was in the bathroom or they wanted me to go there. I hadn’t risked going to the bathroom yet because I wasn’t sure she would let me or if it would be the wrong move.
As the hours drifted by and nothing was happening, I thought I should try it just in case. Maybe there was a message for me or they could tell me what to do from there.
I hesitated a little longer because I was naked.
I cracked the closet door open again. “Mom?”
“What?” she snapped.
“I need to use the bathroom.” I peeked around the edge of the door into her room.
She was on her bed. A collection of mail nestled in her hands. Marie must have delivered it. My mother glared over at me, contemplating.
“I don’t want to make a mess,” I said. I guessed that she didn’t want me to pee in the closet.
She released a loud breath. Was this the same person I understood her to be yesterday? She was so weak last night, sick from the cancer that ate her inside. Now she looked so aware, and full of spite. The anger that radiated from her didn’t seem like the illness, or like the usual drug induced paranoia that I was familiar with. Instead, it was like she was fully awake for the first time in years. “You’ve got five seconds.”
I raced to the bathroom, shutting the door. I was here. The heart was still in the tub. Was the camera on?
I dashed to the small bathroom closet, finding a long towel to wrap around myself. I clasped the towel, and stared up at the camera, asking questions with my eyes to people I couldn’t see. I’m here. Now what? What do I do?
Maybe that’s all they needed. They needed to know I was there.
A tap at the window startled me. I spun on my heels.
Gabriel’s face, his beautiful crystal eyes, the blond locks lifting against the breeze, mixing with the russet brown, his playful lips... for a moment, I wondered if it was my own hopeful imagination.
Gabriel mouthed words that I didn’t catch. He pointed to the lock.
I sucked in some courage, clutched the towel around my body tighter. I turned the lock on the window. Gabriel popped the screen out on the other side, pushing the window up for me. “Come on, Trouble, let’s go,” he whispered, urgency etched in his eyes and dripping from his voice. His hand stretched to me, wrapping around my arm to pull me toward him.
Was that the plan? To get me to run away? I wanted to. I wanted to run away with him. I knew I should trust them. They didn’t know what I knew. They didn’t have all the information. “I can’t,” I said.
He started tugging stronger. “You can fit through the window. It’s not that small.”
“No, I mean, I can’t leave,” I said.
“Don’t start this again,” he said. “You have to. We have to go. Now.”
I shook my head, trying to wrestle my arm from his grasp. “No,” I whispered, “she’s already told me she’d call the police. She’s waiting to do it now.”
“Sang, we’re about ready to call the police on her. She’s crazy.”
I wrenched myself away. “I can’t. They’ll find us. They’ll put me in some home somewhere. You guys will be arrested.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“I have to,” I said, and pouted, not meaning to but I wouldn’t let Gabriel go to jail.
“No, Trouble,” he pleaded under his breath, “no, no, no. Sweetie, don’t... you can’t. Please.” His eyes darkened, watered. “No, don’t you dare.”
“Tell them to call my father,” I said. “Find him. She’s determined to find him. She wants me to go with him.”
Gabriel jerked his head back, looking back out toward the yard and then inside at me. “I can’t leave you.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Sang!” My mother called. I quivered, worried she’d heard me.
Gabriel’s face steeled over. He grasped the edge of the window, hauling himself up and over the side of the wall, sinking down onto the back of the toilet as he stepped into the bathroom. Dark slacks, white shirt, red tie swinging from his neck. Did he go straight from school to here?
“Get out,” I whispered to him.
Gabriel put his fingers to his mouth, indicating I shouldn’t talk any more.
This was it. He was going to get caught. We’d all go to jail.
He lowered himself onto the carpet, stepping close to me until I could breathe in fresh leaves and sweet fruit. Gabriel, the perfume maker, always smelling different.
“Sang!” my mother called again from the bedroom.
Gabriel signaled with his hands for me to go toward the door. I did, opening it slowly as he closed the window, leaving it unlocked.
I peeked my head out, looking toward the bedroom. My mother’s eyes were expectant on me. I sighed, opened the door as Gabriel stood behind it, my shadow.
I shuffled out, clinging to the towel. I opened the closet door, holding it wide. From the angle, it blocked the view of the bathroom. Gabriel slipped against the wall, sliding into the closet. I stepped in behind him, my heart thundering, worried my mother would notice.
“Drop the towel,” she said.
Gabriel gazed back at me from the inside the corner of the closet. He turned away, staring off at the opposite wall.
I dropped the towel at my feet, stepped into the closet and closed the door.
When I was inside, I sank onto my butt on the floor, drawing in my knees and surrounding my legs with my arms.
Gabriel’s arms found me in the dark, encircling my body. His breath heated my face. Silent, he collected me into his lap. I wanted to push him away, to tell him to go or hide but his scent, his warmth, the feel of his body made me weak. I was done fighting him.
He held me as he sat cross legged on the floor. He stripped off his tie, his shirt. He quietly fluffed the shirt out and wrapped it around
me. He dressed me, putting my arms through the sleeves and buttoning the front. “Trouble,” he whispered against my hair at my cheek. “I swear to fucking god, I’ll hate you forever if you ever do that to me again.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered back, not meaning it at all.
“Like I’m going to leave you alone.” He finished the last button and his hand sought out my cheek, bringing my head to his shoulder as he embraced me. “Can’t spend the night on her own in her own fucking bedroom and wants me to leave her naked in the dark closet.”
