I took a deep breath as I tried to relax. It’s not easy to think about how miserable your early years were.

Maybe the word miserable isn’t the right one to describe my childhood memories. I mean I barely understood what was happening around me.

Clueless fits better.

Definitely.

Cause I had no idea that things could get worse.

And sadly, they did.

I roamed around the house as I desperately tried to find my old photo album.

Jackpot.

It was under my bed probably hidden there in one of my attempts to forget about the past.

Such a week girl I am.

I sat down, my back resting on the cold wall as my feet reached to the desk. I slowly opened the album, hands slightly shaking, palms slightly sweating.

I exhaled the breath I was unwillingly holding back as my eyes landed on the first page.

Pictures of me, smiling at the camera, photos taken years ago.

I chuckled as I noticed how carefree I looked.

The old Chaerin had no worries. No problems. No fears to face.

How much I wish I never grew up. I wouldn’t have ended up like this. But maybe, this is the way it was supposed to happen.

Someone has to be sad for someone to be happy.

The balance of life, right?

We can’t have it all, but how come I have nothing?

I already know that I’m just trying to distract myself from actually seeing again those photos.

It was not supposed to be this way, but it is so why not just moving on?

I silently continued smiling at the pictures until I reached the school photos.

It weren’t that many though. I never took group photos unless we had to.

It’s not like I didn’t want to, it was them, since the beginning.

Here I go with the blaming again.

Damn it.

I had promised myself that I would never play the blame game again.

It was definitely not their fault.

I did it on my own.

The first photo was at the first grade on primary school.

I was smiling shyly as my eyes were glued on the floor.

I was staring intensely down as I refused to look up at the camera.

I was ashamed.

It was a class photo. It means that all children had to attend the ‘photo-shoot’ cause we only did it once a year.

I was wearing black sweaty pants and a black shirt with a black cat on it.

I remember that my classmates used to tell me that I looked like a widow.

That one hurt.

But it’s not like I had the choice of what to wear.

It was what my mum dressed me like.

My hair was short and darker than they are now.

My skin was as always pale. Not just pale, I looked like a sick person. It was terrifying!

I looked at all the young faces, recognizing them all, until my eyes landed on a particular guy.

You probably already know who I am talking about, right?

Yes, Jiyong.

The boy that has been giving me a heartache for years now.

 The blond one that keeps messing with my head.

But I don’t think he ever understood anything.

He was to naïve.

And I was too shy for my own good.

He was smiling brightly, one arm around his best friend, the other one making a ‘v’ sign.

He was surrounded by his big group of friends.

How ironic. I bet most of them were around him just for his money.

Did I forget to mention that he was pretty rich?

Of course he was.

Like being extremely good looking and popular wasn’t good enough.

I signed as my finger touched the photo.

It touched his face, imagining that it was him in reality.

I closed my eyes tightly fighting the tears back.

Maybe if I had confessed this wouldn’t have happened.

Maybe.

But how could I when I had this major inferiority complex?

When I was around him, I always felt like I wasn’t good enough.

And probably I wasn’t.

The story talks for itself.