“I made you miserable.” She raised her eyes to meet Tae’s.
“Everything made me miserable. And it was as much about me and stuff going on in my head as it was about anything happening around me.”
She nodded slowly, processing it all. And Tae was beginning to feel like maybe she was getting it now. He wasn’t going to say it, but the age oldIt’s not you, it’s meline was the truth here. Tae went to sit next to Kari, wrapping his arms around her for a hug. A goodbye. At one point he might have cared for her. But he was a different guy back then.
“Dinner is ready,” his mom called from the kitchen just as his dad came through the garage door. “Dangshin, Kari is here, from Chicago. Isn’t that a surprise?”
Kari quickly wiped her eyes and stood up to greet Tae’s dad.
“You look so healthy, Mr. Kim.”
“Oh, thank you. Yes, I feel good.”
Kari looked back at Tae. She gave him a small, sad smile and nodded. Maybe seeing his dad helped her to understand. He was okay now, in remission, not in immediate peril. And yet Tae had no intention of leaving. It finally clicked.
They all sat down to eat. Tae’s mom passed around bowls of rice, and Kari waved her hand to decline.
“I’m on keto,” she said.
“You’re on what-o?” Tae’s mom asked, nose scrunched.
“Keto. I don’t eat rice, bread, pasta, sugar, or legumes.”
“Legumes,” Tae’s dad repeated.
The corners of his mom’s mouth dropped in a frown. No matter what she’d believed about Kari up until this point, keto had sealed her fate.
Kari was never winning her over.
Lucky thing she no longer had to.
“Well, I hope there’s something here for you to eat. I’d hate for you to be hungry at whatever hotel you’re staying at.”
Point, Mom.
20
No Job, No Pay
Julia
Julia had been anxious on the previous dates. There was a lot of pressure on her, and she didn’t want to let anyone down.
Tonight, however, she felt actual nerves. Her stomach was all in knots, which made this fancy dinner even harder to face. It could be that this was the third setup and there was something so final about it all. Her last chance to prove that she could do this. That all the time and effort taken away from work and dedicated to coaching and practicing had paid off. That the effort had been worth it.
Or it could be that this one had the additional stakes of being the dream doctor her parents put so much hope in. Success on the date and her mother would be booking wedding venues. Maybe she could keep her promise to her grandmother after all and all would be well.
But Julia knew the real reason why her fingers tingled, why her mouth was so dry, why she couldn’t stop tapping her foot. It was because Tae was coming. Even as they practiced Korean terms and phrases together over email and texts through the course of the last week, they didn’t once mention their almost kiss. And they didn’t talk about Kari.
Was Kari’s surprise visit all it took for him to go back to her? Maybe showing up in California was her way of saying she’d show up for him in his life too, support his family as well.
Or maybe it was their final goodbye.
Julia didn’t know. And she was going into this date blind.
It also didn’t help that Tae was going to see with his own two eyes how bad Julia was at this. He was going to witness her awkward conversations, not just hear about them from her. She couldn’t joke about it or complain about it or make it seem like it was the other person’s fault. He was going to see how uninteresting she could be. And, if all went really badly as it tended to do, he might see her drop her guard and speak her mind without filter and be scared off like every other man had been.
It was her third and last try, and it felt like Coach Tae was here to give her a final grade. Julia had held out hope that she might meet a man she liked, she enjoyed spending time with, someone she could connect with. A man like...
