SUMMER SEVENTEEN XVII

I FOLLOW TAE when she goes upstairs. I chase after her down the long hall, grab her hand and pull her lips to mine.

                It is what I am afraid to do, and I do it.

                She kisses me back. Her fingers twine in mine and I’m dizzy and she’s holding me up and everything is clear and everything is grand, again. Our kiss turns the world to dust. There is only us and nothing else matters.

                Then Tae pulls away. “I shouldn’t do this.”

                “Why not?” Her hand still holds mine.

                “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s – ”

                “I thought we started over. Isn’t this the starting over?”

                “I’m a mess.” She whispers, steps back, and leans against the wall. “This is such a cliché conversation. I don’t know what else to say.”

                “Explain.”

                A pause. And then: “You don’t know me.”

                “Explain,” I say again.

                Tae puts her head in her hands. We stand there, both leaning against the wall in the dark. “Okay. Here’s part of it,” she finally whispers. “You’ve never met my mom. You’ve never been to my apartment.”

                That’s true. I’ve never seen Tae anywhere but Beechwood.

                “You feel like you know me, Sica, but you only know the me who comes here,” she says. “It’s – it’s just not the whole picture. You don’t know my bedroom with the window onto the airshaft, my mom’s cooking, friends from school, the way we celebrate holidays. You only know the me on this island, where everyone’s rich except me and the staff. Where everyone’s tan and born-blonde and well-sculptured except me, Ginny, and Paulo.”

                “Who are Ginny and Paulo?”

                Tae hits her fist against the wall. “Ginny is the housekeeper. Paulo is the gardener. You don’t know their names and they’ve worked here summer after summer. That’s part of my point.” She’s gritting her teeth.

                My face heats with shame. “I’m sorry.”

                “But do you even want to see the whole picture?” Tae asks, exasperate. “Could you even understand it?”

                “You won’t know unless you try me,” I say. “I haven’t heard from you since forever.”

                “You know what I am to your grandfather? What I’ve always been?”

                “What?”

                “Heathcliff. In Wuthering Heights. Have you read it?”

                I shake my head.

                “Heathcliff is a gypsy boy taken in and raised by this pristine family, the Earnshaws. Heathcliff falls in love with the girl, Catherine. She loves him, too – but she also thinks he’s dirt, because of his background. And the rest of the family agrees.”

                “That’s not how I feel.”

                “There’s nothing Heathcliff can ever do to make these Earnshaws think he’s good enough. And he tries. He goes away, educates himself, becomes a gentleman. Still, they think he’s an animal.”

                “…and?”

                “Then, because the book is a tragedy, Heathcliff becomes what they think of him, y’know? He becomes a brute. The evil in him comes out.”

                “I heard it was a romance.”

                Tae shakes her head. “Those people are awful to each other.”

                “You’re saying Grandad thinks you’re Heathcliff?”

                “I promise you, he does – that is, a female version of Heathcliff,” says Tae. “A brute beneath a pleasant surface, betraying his kindness in letting me come to his sheltered island every year – I’ve betrayed him by seducing his Catherine, his Sooyeon. And my penance is to become the monster he always saw in me.”

                I am silent.

                She is silent.

                I reach out and touch her. Just the feel of her forearm beneath the thin cotton of her shirt makes me ache to kiss her again.

                “You know what’s terrifying?” Tae says, not looking at me. “What’s terrifying is he’s turned out to be right.”

                “No, he hasn’t.”

                “Oh, yes, he has.”

                I pull her to face me. “You’re not a monster,” I whisper.

                “Yeah, I am.”

                “Tae, wait.”

                But she has gone into her room and shut the door.

                I am alone in the dark hallway.