“You think you can escape me, I’m always going to be here, even when you least expect.”

What the hell? Where am I? I was floating, but I was lowering down. I felt this heaviness pushing me down. I could barely breathe.

“I will always find you.” That voice, don’t tell me……

“Look above you.” I looked up and saw not Seung-hyun, but Kris. He opened his eyes, but they weren’t his. The face and everything was his, but the eyes and voice were not. Kris glared down at me and reached for my throat. He started choking me and my body fell straight to the floor. I tried to get away, but his grip was strong. “Kris, please stop, I trusted you!”

“You trusted me?!?! Are you stupid, I’m just like him! You can never escape your past, you will always have it with you.”

“STOP IT! PLEASE!!!”

“NOOOO!” My body shot up from my bed. I could feel sweat trickling down my forehead. My breathing was heavy and I put my hand on my chest, feeling my heart slowing down. Thank goodness, it was all a dream. I looked next to me and saw it was 9 o’clock at night. I must have been out of it.

I quickly remembered the argument I had with Kris, and I felt sad for attacking him like I did. He didn’t really understand what I was feeling, but he shouldn’t have been trying so hard to understand my issues. It wasn’t his business in the first place. Yeah, why should I feel guilty, he should be apologizing for being so damn persistent. Why can’t he be like a regular step-brother and just ignore me? I got up, but I quickly collapsed to the ground. My body felt really weak, but I realized why. The dreams, they were coming back. Everytime I had nightmares of him, I ended up feeling so fragile that every movement felt like bricks attached to my body. I tried so hard to lift myself and walk to the door.

I headed to the kitchen, but for some reason, my appetite left as quick as it came. Before I could head back to my room, Kris appeared out of nowhere. “Hey (Y/N), I’m sorry for not backing off. It is your business and I shouldn’t have been a jerk over it. It’s just I wanted to be nice to you, so that maybe we…..”

“Save it! I don’t want anything from you. We may be becoming step-siblings, but I’m not in the place where I can trust you. You shouldn’t have kept asking and making me feel guilty for not telling you. It’s better if you don’t know. Let’s do each other a favor; we barely acknowledge each other’s presence and we go about our ways, got it?!”

I can’t believe I said that. How much of a could I be? Once again, the guilt was coming to me, but it was worse. Gravity left my knees and I fell onto the floor. Kris ran to me and helped me up, but I pushed him away, “Get away from me, I don’t need your help.” I could see in his eyes that I really offended him, so he just let go. “Fine (Y/N), do what you want, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ll just be on my way.” Kris left me and I could hear him slam his bedroom door. What have I done?

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The few days went by like a blur. My mom asked me if Kris and I were fine, and I would tell her it was okay. However, Kris and I didn’t exactly show that we were okay. He and I shared milli-second glances, and only spoke if our parents spoke to us. When it came to me, my dreams were becoming nightmares everytime I fell asleep. Either Seung-hyun or Kris was attacking me, or I’d see myself as I used to be, weak on the ground with tears slipping down my cheeks, my body with bruises. I even saw myself overdose on the pills and alcohol like I used to, but this time I would see myself dying from it.

When it came to school, I decided to sit far away from Kris, but this feeling in my chest was making me miss him. I wanted to be near him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to trust him. I couldn’t. But why did I miss him so much, why did I want him so bad? We didn’t even walk together home anymore.

During lunch, I was sitting with Dara, trying to forget about Kris, but I ended staring at him like a fangirl. I’m surprised he didn’t notice, but Dara did. “Why are you staring at your step-brother, is everything okay?” “Huh? Oh yeah, it’s just our parent’s wedding is tomorrow and I guess I’m nervous is all.”

“Hey, don’t worry. It’ll probably be a good time. Oh dang it, I was going to ask you, tomorrow is the School Arts Festival downtown where each school submits their greatest works to present to judges. Winning schools get a certain amount of money donated to support their art program, you wanna come with?" Funny thing is I remember that Festival. Back in Busan, our school would always participate, so we’d fly out to the occasion to enter our work of arts. We’d end up winning all the time. The last time I went…..

FLASHBACK:

“Seung-hyun, come on, they’re doing the judging. Seung-hyun held my hand and we raced to the judging table. He looked at me and said, “Our school is gonna win, especially with your drawing.” I had drawn a photograph of two lovers looking at each other, as the sun was setting. It displayed the man cupping his love’s face gently as he looked lovingly into her eyes. Back then, that was my fantasy, I wanted that to be Seung-hyun. We awaited the judges announcement and I was anxious. Seung-hyun wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay. Trust me baby.” I looked at him and believed his words, he made it seem it all would be fantastic, we had no worries.

Our school won and we cheered to the heavens. My drawing was the deal-breaker for the win. Seung-hyun lifted me off the ground and spun me around; I wrapped my legs around his waist since he was so tall. I kissed him with all my heart and he returned the favor. His perfect lips always felt so soft against mine, I had to force myself to pull away. “See, I told you it would be okay.” I held on to him and kept that moment forever drawn in my mind. “Seung-hyun, I love you, I really do.” He looked at me and touched his forehead on mine, “(Y/N), I love you more than you know, even if I hurt you somehow, I want no one else but you. I need you in my life, without you, I have no clue what I’d do.” I kissed him back and said, “I know you do, but I believe you won't hurt me. And I promise you I will never leave you.”

FLASHBACK END.

I looked at Dara and sighed, “I’m sorry Dara, but I gotta help all day with the wedding and get ready for the celebration. I wish I could go though.” “Oh it’s okay (Y/N), but if you can, can you give me one of your drawings, so we can use it for the festival?”

“Sure, that’d be no problem. I have one piece I worked on last night. It came to me when I was dreaming.” The dream happened to be me standing in the middle of a field. The ground was dry, and only two roses were on the floor. I picked up the roses, one dead and one alive, and started crying. Even though I tried to rid myself of the dead rose, I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. I felt sorry for the rose that was alive. I pulled out a black-and-white drawing that depicted a girl looking down at her lap. She held her tears in a puddle in the palm of her hands. In the puddle were two roses, one that was dead and one that was vibrantly alive.

“Let me guess, she’s holding on to something, particular a love she can’t forget?”

“Huh, how do you know?”

“(Y/N), I’m pretty good with analyzing the purpose of different arts. In the drawing, she’s crying because of the feelings that both roses gives her. The dead rose, a past love, is someone she can’t let go even though the life, meaning the love for, of the rose will never come back again. The alive rose, meaning a new-found love, is vibrant and ready to be hers but she can’t seem to accept it because of her hanging on to the dead rose. Her feelings are conflicting her and causing the puddle to grow even more until both roses will end up drowning due to her not letting go of either one.”

I was astonished. She easily captured what I created.

“Why’d you dream this?”

“Not so sure.” I think I’m sure though. I couldn't stop dreaming of them.

“Well it’s completely amazing. We definitely might win with this!”

Quickly the bell rang and school proceeded. However, my mind kept wandering. Why was I hanging on to him, Seung-hyun was my past. But, who was the alive rose, was it supposed to be someone in the future that could be my forever or was it…..