Sixteen

“Can I sleep on the other side tonight?” I ask. It’s about an hour after George and Umma have retired to their room, and Ji-hyun is brushing her hair next to me while I pretend to read a book. Her hair is still wet, and she sends splatters of water over my arms with every stroke. She glances at me, her expression puzzled. I’ve never asked her to switch sides before.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Why do you have to interrogate me about everything?” I ask. “You almost pushed me off the bed last night. I just want to sleep comfortably for once.”

Ji-hyun purses her lips together. “What will you give me?”

“Never mind,” I say in a huff, crawling in on my side of the bed. Ji-hyun gives me a peculiar look and sets the brush down on the desk.

“You can have the inside if you want.”

Without a word, I roll over onto her side of the bed. She crawls in next to me and, to aggravate me further, touches my bare thighs with her cold feet. Instead of pushing them off, I let her. She falls asleep almost instantly, her breathing steady and even, and only when I’m certain that she’s completely out do I press my head against the wall. If I do it hard enough, I can hear breathing next door.

George’s breathing.

It gives me a thrill to listen to it. He’s fast asleep. Each gasp of air chokes him, causes him to sputter. I imagine that, even in the darkness, I can see his eyes clearly. Their brightness and their beauty. They’re so close, just on the other side of this wall. . . .

My mother’s room looks different tonight. The curtains are blue, the rug is blue, the duvet is blue. Everything is blue. A pale white light pours in from the skylight—since when did we have a skylight?—onto the center of the bed, where I know my mother and George are sleeping. They’re huddled under the blankets, their heads covered.

Nevertheless, I am propelled forward, toward the lump on the mattress. I reach for the blankets, even though I shouldn’t, even though they will wake up and be angry with me, and rip them off the bed.

A blur of movement. There’s a soggy sound, like a wet ball of paper towels hitting a tiled floor. I stifle a scream. It’s not my mother in the bed. It isn’t George, either.

It’s . . . a huge eyeball. George’s eyeball. It’s wet and squelching and the size of a human, its iris the bright blue of morning glories. It turns to me slowly, watching me, surveying my every move. I close my eyes and scream until something smacks me across the face, hard.

My sister’s face hovers above mine, anxious and pale and moonlike in the darkness. “Unni,” she says hoarsely. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I say, sitting up. “I’m fine.” She watches me with worried eyes before lying back down.

When she falls asleep, I press my ear against the wall to listen to George’s breathing again.