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We spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach. I teach Minji how to do a backflip, he gets it right on the third try, and he pays me back by trying to throw me in the water. I don’t let him, but then again he doesn’t try that hard. I think he just likes seeing me squirm.
It’s soothing to be out here, the constant lull of crashing waves relief from a normally rushed world. The salt air, the sound of the birds, it’s amazing.
We walk hand in hand along the shore and back until the sun starts to set. Minji stops and pulls me in for an embrace as the sky colors a deep pink. The water looks green with the reflection of lowering sun, white waves breaking onto the rock piers.
“This has been the best day of my life,” Minji whispers in my ear.
“Mine too,” I whisper back.
We don’t need to say anything more, we just hold each other until our arms grow numb and our feet grow weary.
Neither of us want to think of the future. Only now.
Driving over the bridge back towards Houston is harder than I thought it would be. It’s like we’re leaving our perfect day there and we’ll never see it again. I hope that’s not the case, but once we hit the downtown traffic I’m reminded that we don’t live in a place where time is no object.
Minji’s phone rings as we near our freeway exit, and the spell that held us together breaks.
He answers through a Bluetooth he’s connected to the radio. I can’t tell who it is because the contact is written in Hangul, but Minji answers in English.
“What’s up?”
“Minji?” His uncle says, words coming through the car speakers. I remember his voice from our one meeting since it was distinctive.
“Yeah,” Minji says, “I’m here.”
“I found your phone,” his uncle answers, his tone even higher than normal.
My hand grasps the handle by the door as the words sink in. Not the phone that’s at my house? It’s off, and probably dead by now.
“You did?” Minji says, sounding excited. “Where is it?”
“Still in Spring, just like we thought. Are you close by?”
“Yeah,” Minji answers, signaling to exit.
This is not the time to lose it. Someone had to get into my bedroom, a thief maybe? I do have a pretty nice house. They took the phone and found a charger and started it up. It’s not at my house. There’s no way it’s still at my house.
“Great,” his uncle continues like nothing is wrong. “I’ll give you the address and you can meet me. I’m almost there myself.”
“Hang on,” Minji says before the location can be divulged. “I have to drop Corrine off at home first. I’ll call you back right after and you can tell me where it is.”
“Good idea,” his uncle says and they both hang up.
When I get home I can run away and pretend that phone had nothing to do with me, If there is any mercy in the world, he won’t find out. Lead fills my stomach anyway, the anticipation heavy.
My house is all lit up when we get there. A black utility van is parked in Minji’s usual spot. The very van that his uncle drives. This is it. I’m so dead. The second we walk in there, things are going to explode.
Minji definitely notices the van, but he doesn’t say anything, parking on the other side of the street instead.
“I have to tell you something,” I blurt once the engine is off.
Minji holds onto his keys, not lifting his head. “Please tell me that’s not my uncle’s van.”
“I didn’t mean to lie—” I start, but Minji is out the door before I finish.
I follow him, running and grabbing his arm as he goes.
“Let go of me,” he says, pausing in the middle of the street.
“Minji, please understand. I wanted to tell you from the beginning.”
“Then you should have,” he snaps, wrenching himself from my grip. “We’ve had all this time together. I’ve been with you any chance I can for almost two weeks. I thought I was going crazy with how much my mind was consumed by you. I found out everything I could about you from your peers. Then today...”
He trails off, holding a hand over his mouth. Tears forming in those amazing eyes. I did this to him. I’m the worst.
There is no rebuttal. The most I can do is stand here and wish this wasn’t happening.
“I really liked you, Corrine,” he says, “I didn’t want to get involved because I was leaving, but you just...”
It was him who kissed me, but I won’t say that now. There’s only one thing to say.
“Minji, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take your phone. At the fan gathering there was that commotion, and—”
“The girl with the scarf?” he says, his head snapping up. “That was you too, wasn’t it?”
“I can explain,” I try. He has to understand. After today I can’t lose him. “Things changed when—”
He tears at his hair, screaming. “I risked everything for you.”
“I know,” I beg. “If you’ll just listen—”
“No,” he says, pointing a finger in my face. “Now I understand why Abby did what she did. All you think about is yourself.”
I hang my head, drawing in one long shuttering breath in my last attempt to not let the tears spill over. “Minji, I love you.”
Maybe I can’t make the lie go away, but I can do everything to pour my emotion into that one truth. It’s not just the longing I had as a fangirl either. He’s become my rock, the person I lean on when I’m down. The one I want to call and tell everything to. The person that means more to me than anyone else.
I only see a shadow of Minji’s face as he turns to me. All the joy from earlier is gone.
“If you love me,” he says, “You never would have lied.”
With that, he heads for the house. I crumple onto the asphalt, the pieces of my life disintegrating in my hands. He’s right. People who love each other don’t keep secrets, and I’ve spent too much of my time being someone I’m not.
***
Minji doesn’t come to school on Monday, not that I expected him to. None of my texts have been answered, none of my phone calls returned. I didn’t have his real number anyway, just the one from the pre-paid phone he was using while I had his real one.
One week passes, two. A month goes by and Minji isn’t part of it. I’m more alone than I’ve ever been. No one talks to me at school, no one is there to greet me at home. The only contact I have with the outside world is my online presence as Korean Corrine, and I can’t use it for fear of seeing Minji again.
One thing I do know, I’m not going to be fake anymore. I’m done with that. Fake made me lose the only person I’ve ever loved.
My PTS shirt came in the mail yesterday and I plan on wearing it to school. It’s the total opposite of most things I put on. Black in color, baggier than my frame. It even has a picture of a grenade on the front. If someone didn’t know me or K-pop they’d think I was into guns or something.
I don’t notice the flood of students as I walk through the halls. It’s amazing how quickly I went from queen to nothing, and I did it all to myself.
I’m about to walk into American History when someone stops me, a random girl whose name I don’t know. “Cool shirt!” she says.
It’s the first time I’ve smiled since Minji left. It makes me want to cry at the same time. I haven’t been able to listen to K-pop since the incident.
“Are you a fan?” I say, holding my shirt out.
“Huge fan,” the girl gushes. “My bias is Rapdude, you?”
“Minji,” I say, my voice cracking.
I haven’t spoken his name since he left, and it feels foreign on my tongue.
“Can you believe he came to our school?” The girl responds. “He was hanging with some girl for a while, but then he left. I wish that was me...anyway, I love Liar.”
Minji’s solo, one of my faves. Funny that she doesn’t recognize me as the girl he was with. She was probably too busy looking at him. I know I would be.
I offer her my fist to bump. “Cool, we’ll have to fangirl sometime.” Not today. Not yet. It’s still too soon, but now I feel like I might actually get there.
Abby is in her usual spot, the chair in front of mine. I never switched chairs because of assigned seating. This is the first time I’ve looked her in the face since the incident.
She doesn’t seem happy. In fact, she looks more depressed than me. I wish I knew what I did to hurt her so I could make it right again.
If I approach her here, maybe she won’t be so upset. One apology, however huge, was probably not enough.
“Hey,” I say, tapping her shoulder. “Everything alright?”
She doesn’t turn around. “Why are you asking?”
“Whatever I did,” I say, not swayed by her gruffness. “I want to fix it.”
She scoffs, still facing away from me. “I think it’s a little late for that.”
No, it’s not. If it’s too late to fix things with Abby, then it’s too late to fix things with Minji, and I can’t take either of those options without giving up on life.
“If you liked Dylan that bad,” I say, taking a shot in the dark. “I should’ve just stepped out of you way instead of making him the bad guy. It was wrong of me to do the things I did.”
That gets her to look over her shoulder, but not turn around. “You don’t like Dylan?”
I laugh. “No. I never have. Honestly, I wish you had told me. I would’ve gladly handed him over. You’re my best friend. Sisters before misters, ya know?”
She turns all the way around and really looks at me. “But, I saw you hugging him that day.”
He hugged me? When? “Oh!” I say, my eyes going wide as I remember the conversation I had with him outside the cafeteria. I almost forgot about it because Minji showed up. “Yeah, that was icky. I really don’t like him.”
Abby half smiles. “Then, you’re not going to try and get him back?”
“Never,” I say, and I mean it.
She reaches over my desk and gives me a really awkward hug. “Thank you.”
I hold out my pinkie for a promise. “Friends again?”
She grabs it with her pinkie, holding tight. “Sisters before misters.”
As we laugh, her eyes drift to my shirt. “Hang on a second,” she says, her mouth dropping open. “Were you already a K-pop fan?”
I hold out my shirt. “You know who this is?”
Then she does something I don’t expect, she bursts into tears. “I’m so sorry, Corrine. I shouldn’t have hurt you. I was being such an idiot.”
Finally, I’m starting to understand and see it from her perspective. Neither of us made the effort to help each other because we were both keeping secrets.
She lets out a giant sob and puts her head on my desk. Everyone is looking at us now. The starting bell rings and the teacher points to us. “Take it out the hall girls. Come back when you’re ready.” Thank goodness our teacher is so cool.
I nod and pull Abby from her seat. She’s uncontrollably balling as we reach the hall. We find a place in the student lounge and sit in between a wall and a vending machine so no one can see us. As I sit I bring my knees to my chest.
“It’s okay,” I say, one we’re settled “I was a jerk too.”
Abby shakes her head, tears glistening in her eyes. “I didn’t know you knew who Minji was when he first came to our school.”
No way, Corrine knew Minji from the beginning? I never would have pegged her as a K-pop fan. Then again, I wouldn’t have pegged myself as one either.
“I hated you,” she says, dabbing some snot on a tissue I hand her from my bag. “First you had Dylan, and I was jealous. I actually threatened his little sister. Told her she couldn’t do freshman cheer anymore. That’s the only reason he did that balloon prank with me.”
My shoulders sink. No wonder. I guess Dylan really is a good guy. He was helping his sister. I still don’t like him that way, though.
“Then Minji saved you,” Abby says. “And on top of that he put together that amazing apology with you. I didn’t know what to do, so I panicked. I did what I could to make you look bad. It was wrong.”
“Oh honey, come here.” I pull her into a hug and she cries into my shoulder. “It was probably a good thing. Minji and I... well, it’s over now.”
She looks up at me, pushing away. “What happened with that?”
“He found out I was K-pop fan after we kissed.”
She shoves me. “You kissed Minji?!” My ears are ringing she was so loud. I look around to make sure there are no hall monitors. Even if the teacher excused us, behavior like that could get us sent out.
“You probably hate me again, don’t you?” I say.
“No way,” Abby says. “I actually like Dylan. Totally. More than K-pop. Which, trust me, is saying something. I do have to give you mad props though. Tell me everything!”
If she likes Dylan that much, I’m going to support her no matter what. I guess what she needed was time and the right kind of support. I was too rash before.
“I met him at a fan gathering and accidently took his phone. Somehow it got turned on back on at my house. I don’t know how, but once he figured out it was me, he ran.”
“So...” she says. “He dumped you because you like him?”
My shoulders shake as I laugh at the irony. “Yes.”
“Girl,” Abby says, playfully shoving me. “We have to do something about this!”
She’s sweet. If she’s really a K-pop fan then she knows there’s nothing that will fix it. “What can I do? I can’t find him again.”
Abby’s brows pull together as she twiddles her thumbs. “You’re not gonna believe this,” she says. “But I’m actually The PTS fan club president for the area. I’m the one that hosted that fan gathering last month—”
“Shut up!” I say, shoving her a bit harder than she shoved me. “I was the girl who tripped over the projector chord. How come I didn’t see you?”
Memories of the night flood back. I remember how crowded it was, and how I couldn’t see whoever spoke at the microphone. I thought it sounded like her, but I never dreamed... Heck, I should’ve known I sat next to Minji, but I was too focused on myself. Turns out I knew she was there all along.
“No way,” Abby says, once she sees the recognition dawning. “I can’t believe you were a K-pop fan, too. We were meant to be friends.”
“For sure!”
Abby grabs my hands. “I have an idea. If you and Minji met at a fan gathering before, maybe I can host another one.”
My heart skips a beat at the thought. It worked once, why couldn’t it work again? “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Corrine,” Abby says. “I have to make it up to you. I want to be your best friend again, and I think I need to earn that back.”
It’s my turn to hug her. I guess all it took to have a great friend was to be a great friend.
