“

If you can’t fly, run
Today we will survive
If you can’t run, walk
Today we will survive
If you can’t walk, crawl
 

”
 

#05 the break

“Ji Soo?” I called out, knocking on the door to her room.

When I received no answer, I carefully opened the door, to which I was greeted with the stench of alcohol and the after mass of what must be a very drunk Ji Soo. As I carefully maneuvered my way through the mess of tissues and empty glass bottles on the floor, I came to an abrupt halt when I heard muffled sobs from under the blankets. Sighing, I slowly made my way over to the bed where Ji Soo was presumably buried in the comfort of her bedsheets and sat at a corner.

“How are you feeling?” I muttered worriedly, gently pulling the covers off her face to be met with her tear streaked face and soft whimpers.

“I don’t know… It just hurts a lot.” She hiccupped, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. I reached out and lightly her hair to soothe Ji Soo as I let her cry it out.

“Is this how it feels like to like someone?” She mumbled bitterly. “It doesn’t feel nice.”

“You’ll get better, I promise.” I chuckled weakly. “Just let it out, let it all out.”

And with that, the dam broke, and I watched my best friend dissolve into tears as I struggled to hold back my own.

===

Everyone did things for a reason, and Ji Soo was no exception. She just didn’t know why she did what she did, except that it helped her feel better about herself. I remember when we were 15, this girl in our Biology class had taunted her with insults about her family to the point where she couldn’t take it.

“I heard your parents are getting divorced, Kang Ji Soo.” The girl had said. Arms crossed across her chest while her feet tapped against the concrete floor – if her tone hadn’t annoyed Ji Soo already, her stance definitely did.

I stepped forward then, shoving the girl just hard enough for her to slightly stumble backwards. “That’s enough.” I hissed. “You better back off. Don’t talk to her like that.”

“What is it to you.” Ji Soo had snarled back at her. I placed a hand on her arm to calm her down as I stared at the other girl in disgust.

“Nothing, just that its nice seeing that that pretty face - ” she gestured with her fingers at Ji Soo’s face in slow circular motions, “ - can’t save you from everything after all.” In her arrogant triumph, she smirked - just a small pouting of the lips; a narrowing of the eyes and a tilting of the head. It was so subtle, it was even more infuriating for us who caught a glimpse of it. This was the last straw to Ji Soo’s patience.

She had marched up to the girl in the hallway the next day in the afternoon, knocked all the girl was holding onto the floor, not forgetting to shove her into the lockers, before throwing her a satisfying smirk before stalking off. Of course, this didn’t go unnoticed by one of the teachers, and this act landed her in detention, but to this day she’ll say she didn’t regret doing that. It was Ji Soo’s way of protecting her pride, albeit it not being the best way to do so, she protected it in whatever small way she could think of, and dealt with the consequences later.

Her parents’ divorce really shocked her, although she had seen it coming. I was there when it happened, and I had always questioned why a girl who had never really received much love from her now broken family could be so happy even when the news had probably left her devastated and very, very lost. I tried my best to distract her from it, to prevent her from thinking about it excessively, but I guess she was very torn on the inside even though she didn’t show it.

She didn’t explicitly tell me why she did what she did, but from what I managed to gather through the continuous tears and hiccups, the reasons for her actions mostly boiled down to her parents’ situation. I was aware of it, but Ji Soo must have been a really good actress, for she hid and pushed all of her hurt and worry the divorce of her parents gave her to the back of her mind. Out of sight, out of mind, the saying goes. I guess she thought that going in and out of relationships would help fill the empty void in her heart that was left bear from her parents’ divorce. It was her way of coping with the pain. It wasn’t the best method, but she was lost, confused and only had one goal in her mind: to fill that empty void.

That night, she drank herself to sleep, drowned in the waves of misery and heartbreak she was so familiar with. My heart hurt to see her in that state, so I helped her in any way I could. I gently pried beer bottles from her when she reached for a new one, and eventually managed to coax her to go to sleep. Drunk Ji Soo was a handful, but drunk and depressed Ji Soo was even more of a handful.

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