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“His father needed him,” Wansu says quietly, in a tone too soft to be genuine.
I blink rapidly. I haven’t cried since I was ten and I’m not starting because some male left me.
“Hara, I will drive you home. Wait here.”
Not in a million years.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Perhaps it was foolish to run out of the building, away from my mother, but being left behind once again dredged up so many hurt feelings that I felt like I might drown in them.
It was all too much. I couldn’t sit in a car with Wansu, a car that was undoubtedly expensive, a visible sign of her full and happy life here in Seoul with her perfect son. I move toward the stairs because standing and waiting for an elevator would allow Wansu to drag me back into her office, or even worse, she’d get in the car with me and I’d have to stand in her presence, which I can’t do—not for another second. I take the stairs, all fourteen flights of them. By the last one, I’m blinded by spots in my eyes, my breath is choppy and short, my skin is clammy, but I know I have to keep moving. I can still hear her tersely telling me to stop and come back to discuss this—whatever “this” is—with her like an adult, so I plan to never stop. If I do, I’ll collapse and my body will decay here in the stairwell of a foreign country because I won’t get up again. Boyoung is in the lobby, but I pretend I don’t see her. It’s not hard. I can’t really see anything at this point. My anger and hurt and frustration are all I can see and I use all of those emotions to power me forward. If Boyoung and Wansu are behind me, I don’t hear them. But I don’t look back either. Forward, forward, forward. What had Wansu said? Let’s keep yesterday in the past? Good idea. In the subway, I pick the first train that stops and ride it until the third stop, one I don’t even know the name of. I keep moving, past the coffee shops, the restaurants, the Olive Youngs, the small shops selling shoes and socks and T-shirts with English sayings that are sometimes vulgar, sometimes funny, sometimes indecipherable.
The cars and buses and occasional motorbikes with their big delivery boxes strapped to the back whiz by. The glass doors and windows of the office buildings reflect a distorted image of me, the street, the people. Ahead, through a break between buildings, I can see the river. I start toward it, walking first and then running, not caring that I might look like I’ve lost my mind.
I have lost my mind. I left it back in Iowa when I decided to come over here looking for answers that did not exist, answers I didn’t need. What was wrong with my life anyway? I had a job. I had friends. Yes, I wasn’t close with any of them and sometimes I felt like I was adrift in a sea of humanity without an anchor or a life vest, but that was normal. Who didn’t feel disconnected at some point in their lives or even at a lot of points in their lives? Normal people drank or smoke or slept around or took up needlepoint. I should have picked any one of those options instead of flying halfway across the world to find something that didn’t exist.
I keep running, ignoring my aching side and sore feet, across the six lanes of traffic, down the spiral stairs, and out onto the river’s edge. The railing puts an end to my progress. I grip it, winded, panting. I can barely make out the sounds of the river over the engines of the cars running on the bridge overhead.
In my pocket, the phone rings. I let it go to voicemail but the caller is persistent. It keeps ringing and keeps ringing and it’s so irritating I pull the device out and almost toss it in the river. Realizing how dumb that is, I pull back, but my hands are sweaty and I’m weak and dumb and the phone slips out of my hand and sails into the water, landing with an inaudible splash below me.
“Fuck.” I stare at the ripples in the dark water in full display. Of course I would drop my phone. I hate life. I hate it. I press my thumbs to my temples hard enough that my eyes sting and then I tell myself to stop the pity party and get the stupid thing. I climb over the metal railing and scramble down the steep side, but by the time I reach the edge, the phone is gone. There’s no shallow entry here. It’s a drop-off and I have no idea how deep it is. The water laps against the rocks like a tease.
