She knows me through and through.

Hara was my next door neighbor since we were kids, the untouchable beauty who I fell in love with at a very young age. Even as she would throw insults and snide looks my way, all I could think of was how beautiful she was. I was always the kid on the edge of the crowd, the one who everyone avoided because I was too quiet, too weird, too whatever they were not. She knew me, though, whether she admitted it or not. She has always known me more than anyone else.

She knew me in middle school, when I was the kid with big dorky glasses and the awkward smile who who just wanted to dance. I always tried to talk to her back then, but she woud laugh behind her hand and whisper to her friends about the nerdy kid who liked her. I never had a chance and I knew it, but it didn't stop me from at least trying.

She knew me in high school when I fell into my depression, afraid to talk to anyone about my family issues. My father and mother fought all the time and she could hear them from her house next door, and I was sure she told everyone she knew about it all. The looks I would get in the hallways the day after a big fight, the snide jabs that people would make as I passed, they were about things no one should know but she and I. And yet I still couldn't make myself dislike her, even when she was hanging on some guys arm and laughing at the jokes they made.

She knew me in senior year, when I finally got up the courage to ask her to go to prom with me and she turned me down by laughing in my face. It hurt, badly, and it was the last time I tried to talk to her. My life was at an alltime low then, and I had asked her even knowingwhat her answer would be. It wasn't like my life could get worse by her rejection.

Then came that fateful night. 

Two weeks after I graduated high school, I was talking to my mom in the family room of our house, telling her my plans for moving to Seoul and trying to go forward with my music. She was sad but she said she understood; I had never been the greatest of students and there truly was no way that she thought I could graduate university. The surety of her voice as she admitted that stung a bit, but I could at least admit that music held far more sway over me than school. As she was giving me her permission, my father came barging into the room, drunk as could be and spoiling for a fight.

I left the room, heading upstairs even as the two of them began their typical argument. I was so beyond used to it that it didn't even affect me, so I simply closed my bedroom door and began to pack my suitcases. I knew what I needed to do, I knew what I needed to take with me; the last three summers of working odd jobs hadn't been for naught. I had saved a good amount of money and when I got to Seoul I would find a cheap place to stay until I got my music going. No one knew me in Seoul, no one who could judge me for being the shy, weird kid from high school. I just needed a chance, that was all, and  fresh start way from everyone, including Hara.

Especially Hara.

The loud crash from downstairs shocked me from my thoughts, and after just a moment of hesitation I figured I needed to go downstairs to make sure everything was okay. They fought all the time, yes, but had never broken anything, and I felt an uneasiness settle over me as I opened my bedroom door to creep out into the hall. Silence reigned, an eerie silence that told me something was terribly wrong before I ever got downstairs to see it. I moved silently down the stairs, my heart in my throat as I wondered what had happened; rounding the corner into the hallway that exended off of the living room, I found the answer.

My father's body lay crumpled along the wall, my mother standing a few feet in front of him with her hands over her face. Her body shook with silent sobs, the sight breaking my heart, but all I could truly focus on was my father. Blood streamed down his face from the gash in the top of his skull, his head tilted at a wrong angle, his eyes open and glassy. I heard a choked sound and finally pulled my eyes away from him to my mother once again.

Her arms were covered in bruises and scratches, her left eye rapidly turning black and swelling closed, and around her neck were the unmistakable marks of hands that had been strangling her. My father had always been violent but not so much to this extent. I took a small step toward her, intent on comforting her. Her eyes were wide in shock, staring at me as tears fell down her cheeks and little cries came from .

"I... I didn't..."

The tableside lamp lay broken at her feet, the bit of blood on it cluing me in right away that it had been the weapon she had used to break him off of her. It must have been all she could reach, he was choking her and she had to stop it. But.... she had killed him... my mother killed my father.. but she had done it to save her own life. I shook my head as I tried to process it all, trying to rationalize everything that had happened, then finally just reached out and gathered her into my arms to hold her tight. 

"It's okay, Mom, we'll figure this out."

We both knew that she couldn't go to the police