AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s probably because I like to eat junk food that they don’t allow in the house, and the only exercise I do is yoga, which means I’m strong, but not thin.
I flare my nostrils, catching the sparkle of my stud nose ring as I do so. That is my addition to my looks, along with the black eyeliner, the blue tips of my hair and my signature black clothing.
That’s not to say I don’t wear other colors, it’s just… Very rare.
Ugh, I’m so bored.
I spend the next few minutes shuffling through the tarot deck that Jeremy gave me for my eighteenth birthday. His sister runs a Wicca store and I’m about ninety percent sure he’d forgotten my birthday and just grabbed what he could from the shop.
I let out a breath and flip a card. Death. My stomach clenches, but I make myself not read into it. I’ve read enough of the book to know that Death doesn’t mean something bad, necessarily. It could just mean change.
I flip another card. The Devil.
Well, fuck. That’s not… great.
A final card is The Moon reversed.
Illusions. I frown down at the three cards, not liking how they’re making me feel. I hold very little stock in these cards. Generally, I am not a spiritual person. I don’t believe in them the same way I don’t believe in the crystals on my wrists, but everything I’ve read about tarot is that it’s all intuition, and right now my intuition is screaming at me that something awful is going to happen.
A shiver works its way down my spine.
A shriek from the living room has me whirling toward the sound. I stumble to my feet. “Mom?”
I relax when I get to the living room, seeing my dad has my mom by her waist, bending his head to kiss her.
“Ew gross!” I grumble, but really I feel all kinds of warmth. I love my parents love each other. Love their easy relationship. I’d been concerned before the Quarantine. My mom had been working more and more—she’s a physical therapist who works in the Athletics department at Palm de Rosa University—and I’d felt her pulling away. If I could feel it, you better believe that my dad could, too.
But now… Now things are so much better.
The door to the community hallway opens, slowly, like my dad hadn’t latched it when he’d come in, likely because he’d been carrying at least five bags of groceries at once. I start in that direction, but my dad’s sharp voice stops me. “Sabine, don’t! Get back!” I frown over my shoulder at him, to see he’s pale, shaking, terrified.
“I won’t get sick from closing-” I cut off as he lunges forward, putting himself between me and the door, hands raised like he’s going to fight something off.
No. Fuck. No. Please. Not him. Not my dad. Please.
“Hyun-Seok,” my mom whispers. She hasn’t moved from where he left her. We’re both just… frozen. My dad though, he looks over his shoulder at her.
“Take Sabine and run.” She doesn’t move. I don’t move. He looks at me, eyes pleading. “Gongjunim, run! Now!”
My heart is in my throat, thundering too hard and making it impossible for me to swallow, to breathe, to speak. I watch as my dad, my rock for my entire life, lifts his hands and starts clawing at his own throat, digging his fingers in, making blood spill down his skin.
“No!” I scream, starting toward him, needing to help. But in the next instant, my mom barrels into me, lifting me off my feet and carrying me down the hall to the bathroom attached to their room. I fight her, batter at her, but she doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow. “Let me help him. Please. Let me-”
She drops me on my feet and cups my cheeks, making me focus on her. “Sab, honey. We can’t help him. Not now. We can’t.” She’s crying, tears running down her cheeks. I’m crying too. And keening, a mournful noise is screaming from my chest. “Tell me you understand.”
I swallow and nod. She holds my cheeks for a moment and then turns to lock the bathroom door. We know it won’t help. But I understand her urge.
That done, she turns back to me, ushers me to the farthest point of the bathroom and we sink down to the floor, huddled against the bathtub. She wraps her arms around me and holds me close while we try to ignore the sounds coming from the living room. The cries of agony, the sounds of things breaking.
My mom laces her fingers into my hair and pulls until I’m looking at her. “Sab, listen to me. Okay. Listen to what I’m going to tell you. It’s important.”
I nod, even though I want to tell her not to say goodbye. I can’t take it, but it feels like that’s what she’s going to do. She takes a deep breath and cups my face again. “I cheated on your father.”
What little air I’d had in my lungs disappears. I choke on nothing. “Listen, Sab. We were together for months. Almost a year.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I wheeze. The anger radiating out of me must catch her off guard, because her face crumples. Her head falls, but she keeps fucking talking.
“He asked me to marry him,” she sobs into my shoulder. “He asked me to marry him and I said yes and I was going to leave your father before all of this happened.” I stare blindly at the bathroom door. My vision is blurry with tears and I’m momentarily overcome with hatred for my mother. All-consuming hatred.
