By the time we pulled her out, she was already gone. Her skin was blue, her eyes empty. She was lost to us forever, and no one would ever know how close we were to saving her, how close we came to losing everything.
The fear, the guilt, never left. It’s still here, in the quiet moments. A secret we carry, a lie we’ll never undo.
This is the despicable truth, the one that is so grim we can never even say it to each other. And so we adopted the mottodon’t think it, don’t say itin the hopes that we didn’t have to relive that night all over again. But after the last holiday in Waverley when Jiwon Kwon died, on a random day in November, her whole family moved out. They sold their house, because it was too hard, far too difficult to stay.
None of us ever went back to Waverley Peak and the curious case of the Waverly Peak tragedy remained a mystery unsolved. It drove the police insane, they just settled on the fact that it was some freak accident. Seeing the posters all over town, seeing the effects of her death on myself, and all my friends weighed down on me. I remembered how I told Wynter not to worry, how I kept telling him that he was being paranoid, and yet I watched his very worst fear come true that night.
So you see, one might think me cruel for urging my little sister to out herself to him, but I owe Wynter Andy Kwon the world. He is mybest friend, the one who didn’t resent me in spite of it all. How does one evenbeginto repent for that? I thought about it on sleepless nights. All my best compositions were inspired by that very haunting melody I heard in my mind every time I thought about the tragedy.
I hope that there comes a day that perhaps all seven of us could be forgiven by whatever God watched over us all for our sins. I hoped that our wrongdoings hadn’t yet branded themselves into our bones and sealed our fate. I hope that perhaps we could change the prophecy.
I hoped that perhaps if Yesoh told the truth, she could save what she has with Wynter and not let history repeat itself. So do you understand that I am sorry for many things, but not for that?
?
39
Breaking Wynter
Losing a sister does something to you, something that once undone cannot be sewn back together. Watching someone you love lose a part of himself also shatters you, deeply so. I remember Jiwon every waking minute of every day. This fact is that it cannot be diminished. Oftentimes I think my friends think of me as cold, detached. I am not sunshine and pink skies like Sydney, I don’t light up rooms when I walk into them. I’m not humor and poetry like Jax, I can’t string together words with expert ease and command they are comprehensible. I cannot play the piano and enchant crowds to my sheer will like Cahya oract and make people believe me like Remi. I am liquid smooth, I go wherever the wind takes me, I am whoever everyone thinks I am but—
Not with Wynter.Only to him, I find myself able to unlock a side of me unlike any other. A side that never left Jakarta and wasn’t bent to the wants and needs of others. A side of me that can let her guard down and lower her defences that have been up for so long. Being with Wynter Kwon was like a rest stop on a long drive. Like finally taking the backseat on a tiresome road trip and allowing myself to sleep without a worry in the world of where the car is going, because it didn’t matter where I was or where I was headed with Wynter, he was my home, with him I was at true peace.
The last person who ever made me feel that way before him was Jiwon, but she isn’t here anymore and it’s time to accept that she hasn’t been in a long time and never will be. We let her down, we broke the rules and faced the consequences of our actions. You’d think that perhaps kids shouldn’t have to learn that way—and yet we did. We learned not to get burned by pressing our palms to a burning flame, learned not to put too much pressure on thin ice by watching someone we loved fall beneath it.
So you see, I have been faced with hard truths all my life and this one that I was living was no different.
And I risked the only peace I’d ever known in a selfish, twisted pursuit. I found myself regretting every minuscule detail of knowledge I’d gained from reading his diary, because it was like winning a marathon by putting weights in the pockets of my opponents. I cheated my way to the finish line, and therefore I could not blame Wynter if he hated me now—I’d hate me too.
I last saw Wynter two days ago; he ignored all my phone calls and messages. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep—I was living in this loop of my own shame. The look in his eyes, his fury, his tears. Itwas all my doing. So I lay there in my bed, ignoring my siblings’ advances—even encouraging calls from myfather, that’s how I knew he had to have been concerned.
The room felt like a tomb, the air thick and unmoving, heavy with a silence I couldn’t escape. Curtains pulled tight. Light shut out. I stayed curled in the corner of my bed, knees drawn to my chest, arms wrapped around them as if they could hold the pieces of me together. The world outside the door might as well have stopped.
I heard the knock first, soft, hesitant. Then the door creaked open, slow and cautious, and Cahya stepped inside. I didn’t look up. I didn’t move.
“You need to eat,” he said, his voice too steady, too careful, like he thought he could coax me out with kindness.
I stared at the floor, the wood grain a blur, my head heavy against my knees.
“I brought you soup,” he continued, setting the tray down on the desk. “Something easy. Just try a little, okay?”
I didn’t respond.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. I felt the way his gaze lingered on me, like he was trying to reach past the walls I’d built, trying to pull me back into the world.
“You don’thaveto talk,” he said, softer now. “But you can’t keep doing this, Yesoh. You can’t stay in here forever. The world is still out there waiting for you, no matter how long you shut it out.”
His words were gentle, but they felt like cracks splintering across the surface of something I’d tried so hard to keep contained. I tightened my arms around my knees, burying my face deeper.
“We all still care about you you know, even if you are alittlecrazy—that may be news to Wynter—but we’re your family, it’s certainly not news to us,” he joked, his voice lighter, trying to humor me, but I couldn’t. “You’ll be okay, I know it doesn’t feel that way but yeah. I’m not exactly good at this being in between two people I love thing.”
I flinched but stayed silent.
That was something I hadn’t considered before, how hard it must’ve been for Cahya to find out what I had done. It put them in a very difficult position, between his sister and his best friend. I realized that he had no choice in the matter. HelovesWynter too.
He sighed then, the sound full of frustration and something softer, something helpless. “I get it,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You’re angry with me, I know it feels easier like this. But it’s not.”
I didn’t look up. I couldn’t. The weight in my chest pressed down harder, threatening to crush me under it.
