“Come on Hyuk, I know you’re awake. Let’s go for a run together,” Jaemi insisted as she tugged on his arm in a feeble attempt to get him out of bed.

                “What? I can’t hear you. I’m sleeping,” he answered with his eyes closed. She dropped his hand and sighed agitatedly.

                “Fine, I’ll just go by myself,” she declared, earning a lazy thumbs-up from Hyuk.

                She sighed again and muttered harmless insults towards him on her way out. He caught a few of the words she said and he quietly chuckled to himself. He reached over to Jaemi’s side of the bed only to find it empty and he suddenly regretted his decision to not go running with her. He lifted his head to check the time and groaned upon seeing that it was barely 8 in the morning. He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but he was wide awake thanks to his girlfriend’s annoying habit of exercising in the early morning.

                Already feeling lonely, he blindly reached for his phone to send her a text.

are u having fun? where are u running right now?                                                                       8:03 AM

                  He rolled around in bed for a bit while waiting for her to reply. He began to get frustrated when she didn’t reply. He knew that although she acted really sporty and athletic because she was the model for a sportswear brand, she actually had the athletic abilities of a rock. After a few more minutes without a reply, he started to get worried. There was no way Jaemi would actually be running for that long. Just as he was about to get out of bed to go look for her, he heard the sweet sound of his ringtone.

8:29 AM                yes im having the time of my life. What about u? is being a lazy glob fun?

8:30 AM                and Im running by the river right now. y? do u want to join me? :)

                  He smiled, relieved that nothing bad had happened to her. He was constantly worried about her, just more worried at certain times than others.

Lazy glob? Me? No way ;) I wanted to kno bc I was just running by there and I didn’t see u so I thought u gave up and went into a café                          8:32 AM

8:33 AM                                ur such a liar! Go finish packing hyuk hyuk. I’ll be home soon enough

                 With that, he finally got out of bed, brushed his teeth and took a shower. Jaemi hadn’t returned by the time he got out of the shower, so he started throwing his things into his suitcase himself. She always said she hated helping him pack because it made her feel like she was helping him leave her, but he really liked having her help him because she was a lot neater than he was and she always remembered things that he would forget.

                 He sighed and started throwing his clothes into the suitcase, not caring to fold them or separate the clean clothes from the dirty clothes. He picked up a pair of pants and suddenly remembered his discovery from last night. He peered under the bed and smiled upon seeing that it was still there, exactly as he found it last night. He excitedly pulled it out from underneath, too impatient to wait for her to officially give it to him. Since it wasn’t even wrapped yet, he planned to put it all back when he was done and act surprised when she actually did give it to him.

                 He opened the box without any further delay and was quite confused by the contents. There was a sweatshirt that could have been for him, but wasn’t really his style or size. The box was also full of expensive looking jewelry that definitely were not for him. He picked up the sweatshirt and saw a little toy and a notebook underneath. He opened the notebook and quickly realized that it was Jaemi’s diary from before they met. He started reading it out of curiosity. He smiled to himself as he read the first entry about her first day of middle school; he pictured a young Jaemi sitting alone in her room, writing about her day. He quickly flipped through the book, causing a little Polaroid picture to fall out onto the ground.

                He grabbed it and almost dropped it again when he saw what it actually was. He felt like he couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. There was no way it was what he thought it was. He hurriedly skipped to the end of her journal and read the last entry.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry baby, but I only found out about you now. The doctor said there was very little chance that you would come out healthy. I’m sorry. I hope you understand why I can’t have you and I hope your daddy doesn’t find out either. He would have loved you very much. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I wasn’t ready to be a mom either.”

                His jaw was left hanging as he stared at thephoto like it was an alien or something, and not his girlfriend’s baby. His baby. Their baby. He fell onto the bed, unable to stand anymore. He stared at the date in the bottom left hand corner and felt about ready to pass out. She was carrying this baby just last year. They were only 21. He was in his third year of college and she had been modelling for less than a year.

                He continuously read her journal entry, trying to make sense of it all and trying to come to terms with the fact that he almost fathered a child and he had no idea until now. He loved Jaemi with all his heart, but he couldn’t help but feel like she didn’t feel the same way. She hid his baby from him for over a year, along with everything else in the box. He looked at the rest of the contents of the box and wondered what Jaemi did when he wasn’t around. He wanted to slap himself for having any doubts, but it was hard not to.

                Hyuk was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t hear Jaemi come home. She guessed that he was probably still sleeping, so she went into her bedroom and dropped the two lattes she was holding when she saw him with her box out in the open.

                “H-Hyuk,” she muttered, her voice trembling. She could already feel the tears threatening to fall. Hyuk was never supposed to find that. She was supposed to live a perfect, happy life with him and take everything else to the grave.

                Hyuk looked up, hearing her call his name. She looked back at him with tearful eyes and a terrified expression.

                “Jaemi, what is all of this?” he asked, referring to the open box. He held up the sonogram and cautiously asked, “is this—is this baby—is this baby really ours?” He was already sure of the answer, but he needed to hear it from her. He needed to know how far she was going to keep lying and hiding things from him.

                She burst into tears at the sight of her baby. She hadn’t looked at it in over a year. She couldn’t look at Hyuk in the eye, but she knew he was staring at her and waiting for her to answer. She never wanted to tell him, and she still didn’t want to. She never wanted to talk about it again. Talking about it once with the room full of strangers was bad enough, she didn’t want to a repeat of that with the person she cared most about.

                “Answer me, Jaemi!” he shouted angrily. “Is this or is this not our baby!”

                “It is! Ok? Are you happy? It was our baby!” she shouted back. Her shoulders shook violently from trying to choke back her sobs. She wished that she hid it deep in her closet, or under a floorboard, or anywhere else so that Hyuk would have never found it in a million years.

                He didn’t mean to yell at her and he felt like trash from seeing her cry so much, but he wasn’t exactly in the right state of mind.

                “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you hide it from me? Did you think I wouldn’t want it?”

                Jaemi knew he was trying to mask how hurt he was, but he wasn’t very successful. She felt like the world’s worst person to ever live when she saw the look in his eyes.

                “Of course not Hyuk,” she answered, tears still pouring out of her eyes. “But how could I ever tell you? How could I ever tell you to drop out of your dream school and put all of your dreams on hold so you could come back and raise this baby with me?”

                “But why did you hide it from me for so long? Did you plan on ever telling me?” he interrogated.

                “Y-yes. Later. A lot later,” she answered almost too quickly. He bit down hard on his lip to keep himself from yelling at her. Seeing that she wasn’t about to change her answer, he indignantly declared,

                “I know you’re lying, Jaemi. I know because all you ever do is lie! You lie about eating, about where you’re going, about who you’re with, about how you're feeling! Everything! And I always look the other way because I want to think that there’s a good reason you don’t want to tell me the truth, but I don't think I can do that this time. So please, Jaemi, just this once, tell me the truth or so help me, I’ll take my things and leave and I don’t know if I’ll ever come back.”

                His threat definitely got her attention. She could feel the life being out of her. She was absolutely mortified that her mistakes had finally caught up to her and were about to cost her the best thing in her life. She wanted to tell him the truth, she had wanted to for the longest time, but she simply couldn’t because the fear of Hyuk thinking badly of her was too much.

                Hyuk felt like he didn’t know her anymore. It was obvious that she didn’t trust him anymore, and he wanted to stop trusting her too, but he couldn’t help but want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

                “Jaemi, I’m serious. I want to know the truth. I don’t care how bad it is; I just want to know. A relationship is supposed to be based on mutual trust and respect between two people. I tell you everything, why can’t you tell me?”

                Her mind was still numb. She could no longer separate the truth from what she forced herself to believe as the truth. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on her thoughts, but all she could think about was that she knew that things were going to turn out this way if Hyuk ever found that box. She was going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place and he would leave her.

                Hyuk let out a bitter sigh, seeing that she wasn’t about to respond any time soon, or ever. He hesitatingly picked up his half-packed suitcase and made his way towards the door. He paused only to look at her again, to give her one last chance. She stared back at him, tears flowing out of her eyes. Her brain grasped for anything to say, but the words never came.

                “I love you, Jaemi,” he said sadly before walking out the door.