After the Polaroid incident, Eli and Hae Mi had been talking more frequently, but still weren’t certified friends. They only knew the basics about each other—full names, classes, numbers. So Eli made a plan to spend the whole day with Hae Mi on Thanksgiving and learn everything he could about her in a short amount of time.

            He wasn’t originally going to spend time with Hae Mi on Thanksgiving. He thought she was going to spend time with her family. But he was dead wrong. Hae Mi told him that nobody cared about her or her wellbeing and they all wished she was never born. Eli was finally starting to understand why she felt so heartbroken over the bad grades and wanted to hurt herself. But he wouldn’t allow it. Hae Mi was a great person, he could tell, and she just needed to be reassured of that. Encouragement was important to the stimulation of teenager’s emotions. Hae Mi was too deprived of it.

            Eli waited outside of school. That’s where he and Hae Mi planned on meeting. He wasn’t sure if she was going to stick to it and come, but he could only hope.

            After twenty minutes, Hae Mi came running into the school yard. Eli smiled and held his arms open for her. She stopped in front of Eli, but she had to use his shoulders for support. Eli looked at her worriedly, taking her face into his hands. “Hae Mi, what’s wrong? Why did you run all the way here?”

            Hae Mi was gasping for air. She had bruises all over her face and she needed to get to the hospital. Eli didn’t recognize this until she gasped out a few words: “Parents… took… inhaler…”

            Eli’s eyes widened. Hae Mi was having an asthma attack. She knew about it, but she still ran to the school to get Eli because she knew her parents wouldn’t do it. They were the ones who did this to her in the first place.

            Without thinking, Eli scooped Hae Mi up in his arms like she was a baby and ran to his car. He buckled her into the passenger seat before rushing to get into his own side. The engine roared to life. Eli sped out of the parking lot like a madman, but there was a perfectly logical reason to such an action: Hae Mi was gasping for air, and her face got paler by the second. Eli had to hurry.

           By the time Eli had reached the hospital, Hae Mi had calmed down a bit and was doing much better. She was able to get out of the car on her own, but Eli held her hand all the way into the emergency room, just in case she decided to suddenly collapse from fatigue.

           A nurse buzzed a free doctor out to help Hae Mi as soon as possible, and when he finished with her, he asked Eli questions about her.

            “Where was her inhaler at the time of the attack?”

            “She lost it a while ago and didn’t have any money to buy a new one, so she tried her best to prevent an asthma attack,” Eli smoothly lied.

            The doctor wrote on his clipboard. “Alright. Where were you at the time of the attack?”

            “We were just about to meet up at our school to spend the day together when she arrived. She wasn’t breathing very well, so I brought her here.”

            “Last question… Did her parents know anything about this?”

            Eli stiffened. This was a question even hedidn’t know the truth to. So he pulled something from the top of his head. “Her mom and dad are divorced. She lives with her mom, who was at work.”

            The doctor finished writing on the clipboard and smiled at Eli. “Thank you, young man. Hae Mi is free to leave when she feels like it.” With that, the doctor spun on his heels and walked off to his office.

            Eli took a deep breath. Half of his day was wasted in the hospital. Not that it was a bad thing. He saved Hae Mi, and it made him thrilled to know he got to save a life. But when he entered the room Hae Mi resided in, his heart stopped leaping in happiness, but dropped to his stomach with a heavy weight of sorrow on it. Eli walked over and sat next to her. “Hae Mi, why are you crying again?”

            Hae Mi wiped her tears and sniffled. “I just don’t know how my life took a sudden turn. My parents have beaten me before, but now they took my inhaler in hopes of it seeming like I died of a natural cause.” Hae Mi looked up at Eli with sad, pitiful eyes. “What’s wrong with me, Eli?”

            Eli sighed. He placed his forehead on Hae Mi’s and looked directly into her eyes. “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

            Around midnight, Eli and Hae Mi were watching movies together. Hae Mi suddenly announced, “I want to drink all night. No worries, no problems. Just… drinking.”

            Eli just smiled and laughed. “I’ll be right back.” He got up from the couch. In the kitchen, he swung the fridge door open and pulled out a 12-pack. He grinned at it before returning to the couch. He placed the cold drinks on the coffee table in front of the couch that Hae Mi was sitting on.

            Hae Mi inspected the box carefully. She read the label. “’Red Bull.’” She looked up at Eli in wonder. He responded by sitting next to her and pulling out a can of his favorite drink. “Let’s drink until we’re drunk.”

            Hae Mi speculated whether or not she should, but after a few moments of careful thinking, she shrugged and grabbed the can, chugging down the energy drink in a mere thirty seconds.

            Eli watched Hae Mi drink his whole pack of Red Bull happily, smiling and laughing along with the comedy movies he put in for the two of them to enjoy together.

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A/N: Please comment~ :3