Sixty-Six

I’m at the bottom of a hole. Dirt is piled on my legs; I can’t move. I open my mouth to cry for help, but suddenly a head peers over the edge. It’s so dark that I can barely make out the person’s features. I squint and stare until I realize that it’s George. He’s working furiously, sweat pouring down his forehead. His eyes are breathtakingly beautiful even in the darkness. Shovels of sediment rain down on my body.

“Stop!” I scream.

But George continues until I am nearly covered, and when he looks down at me again, I realize that it’s not George at all, but Geoffrey, with blue eyes instead of brown. I gasp. Dirt coats my tongue and my throat. I flail around, hacking and coughing, and suddenly my mother is with me, my head in her hands. Her tears pool next to me until everything is soaked, and I am drowning.

“Wake up, Ji-won! Wake up!” she says.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. None of this is real, I know it, and yet I want to touch her. Comfort her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a good daughter.” She’s so far away, and my arms are too heavy to move.

“What do you mean?” she says, her voice gentle. “You’re the best daughter.”

Dream Umma hushes me, and in her eyes I see a warning. Don’t say anything else, she’s saying. I clamp my mouth shut and wait to be pulled all the way down into the void. But instead of sinking, my body grows lighter, and the darkness around me turns bright. I blink, confused.

Am I dead?

I’m in a hospital bed. There’s a beeping coming from behind me. I sit up and feel the tug of an IV in my arm. My head throbs. I touch it and realize that half of my hair is missing. On the side that’s shaved clean, there’s a line of stitches, puckered and raised.

“Ji-won!” Umma shrieks. She grabs me, peppering my cheeks with kisses. “Oh, thank god. Thank god!”

Next to her, Ji-hyun is smiling tearfully. She squeezes my hand. I look around, trying to get my bearings. “What happened?”

Umma and Ji-hyun exchange a look. “You have a brain tumor,” my sister says softly. “Well. Had.”

I gape at her. “A brain tumor?”

Ji-hyun nods. “They gave you an MRI because they thought you had a concussion. But they saw something else in the scans. You had to go into emergency surgery. They . . . weren’t sure if you were going to make it.”

“I don’t understand.”

Ji-hyun hesitates, glancing at Umma. “We don’t either.”

“How long have I been here?” I croak.

“Four days.”

“And the tumor? Did they say how long I’ve had it?”

“It’s hard to say. It’s possible you’ve had it your entire life. They don’t know.”

I close my eyes and lean back against the thin pillow. There are blue orbs imprinted on the black of my eyelids, and I focus on them.

George’s eyes.

Even though I can see them clearly in my mind, there’s no pleasure or desire attached to the memory. I concentrate hard, but I feel nothing.

What does this mean? Hope bubbles inside of me. Perhaps a lifetime of pain isn’t my destiny after all. Perhaps I’m meant to live a normal life.

I look at Umma. “Where’s George?”

Umma casts a worried glance at the door of my hospital room.

“Is he alive?”

“Yes,” Umma whispers.

“Your friend did a number on him,” Ji-hyun says.

“Geoffrey is not my friend,” I snap, and Ji-hyun is taken aback. I clear my throat. “Where is he?”

There’s an awkward silence, and I can sense their hesitance. Eventually Umma says, “You’re safe now. No one can hurt you.”

“But what happened?” I ask.

“We’ve been trying to figure it out. As far as we—and the police—know, you, George, and Geoffrey were found at an abandoned construction site. The one off of Vermont. They tried to ask George when he woke up, but he wasn’t making much sense. Geoffrey claims that you told him to meet you there, and when he arrived, you were already there with George. He said that George was strangling you, and he had to knock him out to protect you.”

I touch my throat. It’s tender and swollen. I wonder which room George is in.

“Luckily, one of the neighbors was out on a walk with her dog. She heard screaming and called the police. When they arrived, they found you and George unconscious, and . . . well, they arrested Geoffrey and took him to jail.” Ji-hyun leans in, whispering, “Is that really what happened? What were you and George doing over there—?”

“Ji-hyun!” Umma smacks her on the arm.

“The police are going to ask her anyway,” Ji-hyun says. “It’s better if she talks to us first.”

“Ji-hyun’s right,” I say, before Umma can argue with her. “I asked George to meet me. I wanted to talk about the wedding.” Umma puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I should have talked to you first. I was trying to take care of you.” She nods, wiping away an invisible tear. “But when George came and I started asking him all these questions, he got more and more upset until we started fighting. Then Geoffrey showed up.”

Ji-hyun picks up my phone from the side table and hands it to me. “He’s been calling and texting you every single day. He tried to come in the other day, but the nurses stopped him.”

“Who?” I ask, confused.

“Geoffrey.”

“I thought—”

“He’s out on bail,” Ji-hyun says. “The police said that there were no witnesses who could contradict Geoffrey’s side of the story, so they couldn’t keep him for more than a few days.”

We fall silent at Ji-hyun’s revelation. I look around my room. It’s so empty. There isn’t even a window. The TV tucked in the corner is tiny. There’s a door in the wall that appears to lead into the room next to mine.

Umma disappears, leaving Ji-hyun and me alone in the room. For some reason, this seems to anger my sister. “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

“Nothing.”

“I can see right through you, you know.”

Ji-hyun bites her lip and mutters under her breath. “She went to see George,” she whispers. I stiffen.

A few minutes later, Umma returns. Visiting hours are over, and before they go, Ji-hyun hands me my bag.

“Your phone is charging. If you need anything, call me. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

I wait for them to leave before getting up from the bed. I can barely move. Each step feels like I’m walking through glass. But the curiosity burns through me. I want to see George with my own eyes. I have to know where he is. I hold on to the IV bag, pulling it with me, the wheels rattling over the vinyl flooring. I peer down the ward, at the line of doors along the wall.

Where is he?