He’d scoffed. “No. But It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Of course it matters!” I launched upward, the motion the only thing stopping me from shouting. I felt like I was losing my mind! Why didn’t he care? “She’s claiming to be your secret girlfriend! She’s pretending to be me!”
“Is that what’s upsetting you?” He asked, his eyes sliding closed as he ran his fingers over his forehead.
I paced up and down the wooden boards of the porch, trying to arrange my thoughts, because yes, that did upset me. It was probably ridiculous, honestly. It wasn’t like it was true.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” I took a breath, giving myself a moment to make it make sense. “I know it’s silly, I get that. I can’t help how I feel about it. It makes me feel… invisible. Replaceable.” I opened my mouth, then shut it, because that’s exactly what it was. I felt… replaceable.
Joon looked at me, and for the first time that morning, I felt like he was really looking at me.
“Cheonsa, hear me. If you remember nothing else, remember this. You are never replaceable. You never could be. You are it for me.”
The rush of relief I felt running through me, under my skin, was intense, and I took a big, gulping inhale. Muscles I hadn’t even realised had been tensed were suddenly looser, and I relaxed back into my chair. I hadn’t known I’d needed to hear that.
“No matter what happens.”
The rush of warm relief in my veins turned to ice as unease prickled my skin.
“What did you say?” My words came out too quiet, and I cleared my throat to try again. “What–”
“I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly. “We have plans this evening. I’ll try to message you later.” A moment’s hesitation, and then– “I love you.”
The screen went blank, showing only the reflection of my own face, displaying an expression I didn’t recognise.
Days passed, but my discomfort didn’t settle. Speaking to Jihoon after that didn’t help. I’d asked him point blank what he’d meant by ‘no matter what happens’, but he’d shrugged it off.
I felt as tightly strung as a guitar string. I felt useless. I felt so far removed that it was like I was being erased, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Sitting in the garden usually gave me a measure of calm, but not this morning.
I needed to hear the situation from a different point of view, so I called the one person I could rely upon to give me a dose of reality.
I called Becka. It was late for her, but she answered anyway.
“I don’t understand why this time is different.” Frustration edged my words, and I dragged a hand down my face, trying to hash out how I was feeling about the distance I was feeling from Jihoon.
Becka scrunched her face in sympathy.
“I think you need to realise this time is different,” she replied.
“I know the separation is longer, believe me, I know.” I said pointedly.
“It’s not just that though.” Becka tapped a neat fingernail against her chin. “You’d made it. Before, I mean. You’d done the long distance thing, you’d paid your dues, and against my better judgement–” she held up her hand, grinning sheepishly, “Korea was your reward. I get it.” She shrugged. “That was supposed to be your happy ending. But, now here you are again. Separated, but this time there’s no end date. This time is different.”
“Bloody hell, Becka,” I muttered, rubbing a hand over my chest, “that’s cold.”
“I’m sorry, babes,” she laughed, “but that’s why you called me. You need to try to see it from his perspective.”
I considered this. I had been settled so firmly in the notion that we were just paused that while I hated the separation, my expectation of it was that it had an end date. Perhaps for him, it was more complex.
“I think for him, it isn’t so cut and dry,” Becka reflected, mirroring my thoughts. “Don’t take this the wrong way-”
“Too late,” I sighed.
“But I think for you, it’s easier- no, wait, hold on,” she held up a hand, halting my objection to any such assertion that my life was ‘easier’.
“What I mean by that, is that for you, there’s no pressure to be something you aren’t, or to pretend your life is one thing, when it’s really something different.”
