"What’s this?" Jessica enquired as she barged into my room.

"This?" I asked back without turning from my search for a shirt.

"This!" she said. Her cold and angry tone of voice, one that I hadn’t heard for a while, made me turn around. As I saw what she was holding in her hand, my stomach dropped and I almost pass out. She threw me the bag of heroin pills and asked me again "What's this, Yuri?"

I felt my throat closing in and I couldn't breathe. I needed to get out of there so I got up from the kneeling position and tried to leave but as I was about to reach the door she blocked my way.

"You said you weren't using anymore! I trusted you and you broke that trust, AGAIN!" she screamed at me.

I hung my head in shame. I had broken her trust before and she had given me a second chance even if it didn’t look like a second chance, she had stayed with me.

She sighed. "How long?"

"Four months" I whispered.

I started using when I cheated on Jessica with Yoona, Jessica didn't know anything back then. I don’t even know why I cheated on her. I think it was to spite her, to prove to myself that she didn’t control my life. I was so stupid.

At first, I started using as a form of distraction, to distract me from the pain. The pain of making a mistake that could destroy everything, the pain of knowing that Jessica would found out sooner or later. But then Yoona moved away without telling anyone why and Jessica, the ever curious, started digging and I couldn't stop.

Jessica found out and it killed me.

When I consumed I forgot. Forgot the fact that Jessica was staying with me but it seemed like she was on the other side of the planet and the fact that she was punishing me by kissing other girls in front of me. But soon my problem solver became a problem itself, I started to consumed not to forget but to not get sick from the withdrawal, and I couldn't tell Jessica, I didn't want to let her down.

"You have to stop… or I'll leave!" she demanded.

"I can't… I'll get sick" I replied, trying to make her stay, pleading her to understand.

'"This is your chance to prove to me that you really love me, Yuri" she said with a softer voice, running her hand in my cheek.

"Don't leave me" I pleaded with tears in my eyes.

"I don't want to leave you but this situation went too far, Yuri!" she took my arm and leaded me to the mirror.

"Look at that... you're killing yourself"

I looked older, the once healthy tan skin now a several tones paler, dark circles around my eyes that make it look like I hadn't slept for months and noticeable more thinner body. I looked almost like a zombie, like a junkie.

"And I'm not going to sit and watch that happen, not anymore." She said crying.

She took a deep breath trying to compose herself and started "Like I said, this is your chance… you have to choose… me or… that!" she said pointing to the bag that was left on the bed.

I didn't respond.

Noticing my silence, she sighed. "I'm going to leave now, call me when you make your decision" with that she kissed me on the cheek and was gone.

 

(Jessica’s POV)

 

Two days after I found Yuri’s addiction, I was awake by something buzzing, I looked at the clock that read 3:30 and answered the phone without looking to the id.

"Hello" my voice was hoarse from sleep.

"Sica?" I heard a broken whisper coming from the other side of the phone.

I looked at the id and realized that was Yuri. She hadn't called me since I had made her the ultimatum about the drugs.

"Yuri?" I asked worried, afraid that she had made something stupid.

"I need you, Sica!" she said louder than the first time she spoke but still not above a whisper, it seemed like she couldn't speak louder than that.

"Where are you?" I asked getting out of the bed and getting dressed as fast as possible.

"In my room" was the replied.

"I'm coming, don't get out of your house and don't hang up the phone, ok? I'm coming" I said franticly.

Already dresses, I tried to wake Tiffany, my roommate, so she could cover for me in case our manager appeared.  "Come on Tiffany!" I said shaking her "I need you to cover for me"

"Where are you going?" Tiffany said with only one eye open.

"I need to go to Yuri's and I need you to cover for me" Tiffany already knew about Yuri's problem with drugs and agreed right away to cover for me with our manager.

"Yuri?" I called as I left my dorm.

"…yes!" she sounded like she was in pain and that fueled me to get to her dorm as quickly as possible.

“I’m coming”

 

 

I got to her dorm 20 minutes later and let myself in with the copy of the key that Yuri gave me in case of emergencies.

When I stepped inside the dorm, I had to wait a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the darkness that involved all room. I crossed the hallway as calmly as I possibly could and reached Yuri's bedroom door.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly opened the door. When I got the door completely open I wasn't expecting to found what I found.

The room, like the rest of the residence, was in total darkness but the light of the moon that entered through a window made it more back lighted. Yuri was on the floor, on a corner of the room, curled in a ball. She looked so small.

 As I got closer, I noticed that she was all sweaty and silently crying. It became clear to me that she was coming down from her high of heroin and with months of continuous use I knew that it would be really painfully for her.

I sat on the floor next to her and pull her to my lap where she continued crying not saying a word, only whimpering from time to time.

10 minutes later she broke the silence “I threw the drugs in the toilet" she looked up at my eyes and I could, for the first time in almost three days, see her face. She looked ill and her brown eyes were full of tears. "I choose you, I'll always choose you" she said with so much sincerity that left me speechless.

"I'm going to get you some help. You're going to be fine, ok?" I finally said.

"Don't leave me" she said and tightened her hold on me, like she was afraid that if she didn't hold me that I was going to disappear.

How did it come to this? How much do I have to suffer to be happy? How could she do this? These were the questions that didn't want to leave my mind. I was so distracted in trying to punish her, to get even for her mistake, that I didn't even realize that she was getting deeper and deeper in a hole of self-destruction. How could I do this to her?

 

 

(No one's POV)

The next day, Yuri was admitted in a rehab clinic where she was going to be a part of a 3 month plan to treat her drug addiction.

In the first 4 weeks she wasn't allowed to have visits so she couldn't see Jessica anymore. In those weeks, Yuri had therapy group meetings and was seen by a psychiatrist.

In her first session with her psychiatrist, Yuri spent it all in silence and the same happened in her second meeting, she just stared out of the window watching the clouds passing by.

"Are you going to talk today?" asked her psychiatrist, Choi Sooyoung, on her fourth week of program.

"Maybe" Yuri replied, uttering her first word to her psychiatrist.

"How are you feeling today, Yuri?" asked Sooyoung, observing her patient like she always did.

In all weeks that had passed, Yuri would just enter her office, sit in the same place of the couch and look out of the window. At first, Sooyoung tried to get her to talk, but soon realized that if Yuri didn't want to talk she wouldn't talk and there was nothing she could do to make her, so the only thing she could do in that daily hour was observe. And she was learning a lot just by observing.

"Better" was the only answer.

"Why are you talking today? It's today an especial day?"

Yuri paused for a second, a faraway look making itself know on her eyes like the one Sooyoung had seen a lot on those past four weeks.

"No" she finally answered.

And the meeting continued like that, Sooyoung asking vague questions and Yuri replying with monosyllable answers.

"I heard you playing the piano yesterday. Can you write music?" Almost on the end of the session, Sooyoung finally asked the question that she was dying to ask. After hearing Yuri playing the piano, she was almost sure that she could reach her if she could get her to write some kind of music.

"A little bit" Yuri replied, this time looking right into Sooyoung's eyes trying to gauge what the other girl was planning.

"I want to challenge you to write something, anything" Sooyoung said.

Yuri spent a few seconds in silence, pondering the challenge until she reached a decision. "Ok" and she turned to look out of the window again.

As the session ended, Yuri walked out of the door and quickly made her way to the visits room.

Unknown to Sooyoung, that day was the day that Yuri completed her first month of rehab, and was the day that she would be allowed to see Jessica again.

At first their reunion was awkward, Yuri didn't know what to say and Jessica just looked at her face like she was looking for something.

"I think this is going to do us good" Jessica finally said not taking her eyes from the other girl’s.

"I hope so" Yuri said and shifted her eyes to the table, which was the only thing separating her from her girlfriend.

"Hey" Jessica tried to get the youngest girl's attention, not succeeding; she grabbed Yuri’s hands, which were folded on top of the table, in hers "We're going to be ok".

"Do you really think so?" asked Yuri looking into Jessica's brown eyes. The eyes that she had yearned to see for a month. The eyes that anchor her on her darkest days and give her hope to get better.

"I know so" Jessica said giving Yuri a smile, hoping that the girl could see the truth in her eyes.

They spent the next half an hour catching up when one of the nurses came to warned them that they had only 5 minutes left.

"So this is it?" said Jessica standing up from the chair.

Mimicking Jessica, Yuri also rose. "Yes…hum… I just wanted you to know that when I get out of here, I'm going to have something for you"

"What is that going to be?" asked Jessica with a smile and eyes full of curiosity

"You're going have to wait, my dear"

 Pulling Jessica to her, Yuri hugged her.  "I love you" she whispered in Jessica's ear.

Tightening the embrace, Jessica only replied "I know…"

 

The next 2 months were spent with Yuri composing her song in every free time she had, having group meetings ,the daily meetings with Sooyoung where she now talked, and Jessica’s, her mom’s and sometimes one of her friends visits.

On those months Yuri progressed a lot. She started to talk about her deeper problem. About her past, her issues with her father, her problems with Jessica and learning a way to find solutions to her problems without the refuge of drugs or alcohol.

And when her time was up she had her song ready.

 

 

(Yuri's POV)

 

When I got out of rehab, my mom went to pick me up, much to Jessica's disappointment; she insisted that she wanted to pick me up because she had a surprise for me.

When we arrived home, my mum almost demand that I close my eyes and after some protest I relented and closed them. She leaded me to the living room where she sat me on a bench and finally allowed me to open my eyes.

When my eyes opened I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was sitting in front of my grandfather's piano. I looked at my mom and raised my eyebrows in question.

"Miss Choi thought that would do you good and I thought why not? So I went to your grandmother's house and she gave me permission to take it" she explained.

That night I asked Jessica to come over, so I could show her the surprise I promised her two months ago.

"Hi" I said as I answered the door.

"Hi back" she said getting in. "so where's my surprise?" she asked all exciting. I swear she sometime acts like a kid.

"First I wanted to tell you some things, ok?" she nodded and I leaded her to the couch on the living room.

Sooyoung had advised me to come clean to Jessica. Tell her about the drugs, about Yoona, about everything. She had told me to be myself and open up completely to Jessica so that was what I was going to do.

Taking a deep breath I started "I loved you since the first time I saw you, do you knew that? It took me two years to pluck up the courage to speak to you and I was so scared of the way I felt, you know, loving a girl. I learned to pretend to not care to make it feel normal. I slept with guys to make it go away but it didn't work. When we got together, it really scared me because you were the one person who could ruin my life. I pushed you away. I made you think things were your fault but really, I was just terrified of the pain." I was, at this stage, crying so much that I had to stop and try to pull myself together.

"It's ok" Jessica said taking a hold on my hands. I looked at her eyes and I could see that she was about to cry too.

"I slept with Yoona, to kind of spite you for having that hold on me and I'm so stupid for turning into drugs…I couldn't stand it. I didn't want to be a slave to the way I feel about you. Can you understand? I love you. I love you so much it's killing me"

There was a pause after I finished and a beat later, I felt her lips on mine. The kiss was hard and urgent and held all the things that she wanted me to know.

"I love you too" she said while she kissed me.

After a few minutes of kissing I pushed her softly away and informed her that "Maybe now is the time for the surprise"

She nodded and kissed me again this time slowly, all the urgency of the first kiss had melted away and now the kiss was slow bit still passionate.

We got up from the couch and I leaded her to the piano.

"You have a piano?" she asked.

"It was my grandfather's”

We sat on the piano’s bench, our sides touching.

 “So Sooyoung asked me to write a song while I was on rehab… I never wrote a song before but this was what came up. I wanted you to listen.”

She nodded.

“Before that, I wanted to thank you for everything, for being with me through it all, for supporting me and for being my safe haven. Thank you”

“No, Thank you for staying after I punished you, I was so horrible to you but you still stayed. I shouldn’t have done that, we should have resolved our problems together and not by seeing who could hurt the other more. I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry I made you turn to drugs because you couldn’t turn to me. I’m so sorry” Jessica started to cry hard.

Seeing my girlfriend in distress, I pulled her into arms. “It’s ok” I reassured her, kissing the side of her head.

When her cries subsided, she kissed the side of my neck and started to pull away.  “We both made mistakes, but those mistakes will make us stronger. Ok? I love with all my heart” I proclaimed.

Jessica wiped some of her falling tears. “I love you too, with all my heart.”

I smiled, like I hadn’t smile in a long time. Giving my girlfriend a last kiss, I turned to the piano’s keys and started to play.

Mmmm... Mmmm... Mmmm...

You by the light
Is the greatest find
In a world full of wrong
You're the thing that's right

Finally made it through the lonely
To the other side

You said it again
My heart's in motion
Every word feels like a shooting star
I'm at the edge of my emotions
Watching the shadows burning in the dark

And I-I-I'm in love
And I-I-I'm terrified
For the first time
And the last time
In my only life, life

This could be good
It's already better than that
And nothing's worse than knowing you're holding back

I could be all that you needed
If you let me try

You said it again
My heart's in motion
Every word feels like a shooting star
I'm at the edge of my emotions
Watching the shadows burning in the dark

And I-I-I'm in love
And I-I-I'm terrified
For the first time
And the last time
In my only life, life

I looked at her locking my eyes on hers.

I only said it
'Cause I mean it (ohhhh)
I only mean it
'Cause it's true

So don't you doubt
What I've been dreaming
'Cause it fills me up
It holds me close
Whenever I'm without you


You said it again
My heart's in motion
Every word feels like a shooting star
Watching the shadows burning in the dark

And I-I-I'm in love
And I-I-I'm terrified
For the first time
And the last time
In my only life, life, life
In my only life
 

As the song died down a silence involved the room. I turned to her to see her reaction, to find her with a goofy smile on her face and tears sliding across her face.

“I’m so glad you’re back” she said as she pulled me to her.