I ignored them both and headed upstairs to lie down.
The run had succeeded in distracting me from looking at the article, though. It took me so long to stop feeling dizzy that I’d nearly forgotten about it by the time I felt well enough to drag myself into a nice, relaxing bath.
By the time I got out the bath, I went downstairs to make a hot drink, only to discover Jihoon had ordered more flowers. Less extravagant than the last bouquet, but no less lovely.
Mum handed me the card. “We didn’t read it,” she said with a smile, walking back out to the garden.
Turning back around, I opened the little envelope and pulled out the card.
Jagiya
I knew you could do it.
I am so proud of you.
This is just your beginning.
Saranghae.
My heart swelled as I held the little, ivory card to my chest.
It was a funny thing though. Later that evening, I was in bed – having only checked in a few times to see that people were indeed reading the article I’d been so nervous about – and I kept getting notifications that people were following me on the social media page I shared my blogs through, where I also posted photos from LA and Korea.
My personal social media accounts were all private, thankfully. This one had been more of a throwaway I’d created at the same time I’d started my blog.
I’d already gone through it to make sure that there was nothing incriminating, or identifying, but seeing people ‘like’ my photos made me consider them anew.
I paused once again on the photos I’d uploaded from Korea and tried to see them from a stranger’s perspective, looking for anything that might stand out. To me, these pictures told stories, but what did they say to a casual viewer?
There was the photo I’d taken in the bathroom of my skin care lined up next to Jihoon’s. A his’n’her collection of the same products, carefully arranged the day we’d first gone to Lotte Plaza to replace my meagre collection of samples from the plane. I smiled, remembering Jihoon’s barely disguised shock that I just didn’t own any.
I left the photo up after scrutinising it once more for anything it might give away, and finding nothing.
The photo I’d taken of the Christmas tree that Lee and Ace had ‘helped’ us decorate never failed to make me smile. We had been so chaotic, twirling the twinkly lights around the tree like a couple of kids dancing around a May pole, and throwing as much tat at it that would stick. The poor tree had been heaving by the end of it.
There were a few pictures I’d taken from the balcony. The view of a cold, December evening blanketing Seoul in shadows. They weren’t even good photos, not really. They were more memory than image, my mind filling in the blanks that my humble phone camera hadn’t been able to capture.
Looking at those pictures now, I felt a sense of vertigo so intense I could feel the cold breeze. I could imagine I saw the distant lights of cars crawling across roads, streaks of indistinct light. I felt like I could blink and fall back into that life. Between one breath and the next, I saw myself sitting on the floor in front of the TV, Joon next to me, a box of fried chicken on the coffee table.
With no warning, a sob heaved its way out of me so suddenly, and so violently that I had to slap a hand over my mouth to contain it. It felt like it might rip me open from the inside out.
The sudden realisation that that period of my life was just memories now was… inconceivable.
Because up until this moment, I’d been working on the assumption that this was like a sort of holding pattern. Temporary, and inconsequential.
But it had been months, and so much had changed.
How do you live a life in a waiting room?
It was like Mum had said; I couldn’t keep being static. But how do I move forward when I’m desperately clinging to the past? It was starting to feel like a convenient excuse to not alter my life in a way that might move it forward.
Hot on the heels of that thought, came the remembrance of the way I’d used Jihoon’s life and activities as a way to ignore how inadequate I had felt about my own back in LA. It was an ugly thing to admit to yourself.
I needed to learn how to live on my own merit, in my own spotlight, instead of hiding in the shadows cast by someone else’s light.
I took a deep breath, reeling myself back in, layer by layer until my breaths no longer shuddered.
All my photos were a study in plausible deniability. I didn’t take any of them down.
