Chapter XVIII: The Expectations

‘Call her.’

Jiyong stared at the phone from where he sat on the couch and wished he'd stayed at work. He would have, had he not been too exhausted to think. He needed to relax and escape before he blew a gasket. His secretary and everyone else in the office had ordered him home.

So here he was, at eight o'clock on a Friday night, trying to watch a movie, but even the action flick wasn't enough to capture his attention tonight.

He eyed the phone again. What could one little conversation hurt? Dara was going to have his baby. He just wanted to talk to her, make sure she was doing okay, and ask if she needed anything. But he was afraid if he called, he'd head straight over there. And the moment she opened the door, he'd sweep her into his arms. And then he'd be right back where he was ten days ago.

No, he'd already let Dara down as easily as he could and he'd set his family straight that everything was over between them. Sanghyun was doing great, better every day, from what his mother said and from what he'd seen himself. If everything went as planned, he was getting out of the hospital Wednesday.

And Dara wasn't going to contact him until she was ready to deliver. She'd made that clear in the note she wrote on that lab report she'd forwarded to him. She'd let him go just that easily, and hadn't even called. She was probably over him already.

So everything was downhill from here. Except that he was going out of his mind. But better him than her.

Hauling himself to his feet, he crossed to the phone and called Top.

"Hey, what are you doing tonight?"

"Jiyong? Is that you, man?"

Jiyong could hear a woman whispering something in the background and wondered if he'd called Top at a bad time.

"Yeah, it's me. I didn't realize you had company though. Why don't you call me back tomorrow?"

No, Uh, it's okay. Listen, remember Minah? You met her outside that Italian place a few weeks ago?"<

When he was with Dara. Jiyong remembered her, but was surprised Top did. Most of his girlfriends didn't last two weeks.

"Yeah."

"Well she's here tonight, and she has this gorgeous friend, a real knockout man. She's a friendly girl, if you know what I mean. Why don't you come over? We'll get the two of you together, have a little party."

Jiyong considered the kind of party Top had in mind and wondered why he couldn't muster up any enthusiasm about it. Wasn't his excuse for wanting Dara was because he hadn't has in eighteen months? So where was all that libido now?

"Actually I'm pretty tired." He said.

"I think I'll go to bed."

"Man, what's up with you?" Top demanded.

"How long are you going to mourn? You're turning into a freakin' hermit."

"I'm just not interested in getting in on with some girl I don't even know, that I don't."

"Give her a chance. How do you know you don't want her until you've seen her? I'm telling you, she's hot!"

"I'm married!"

"You're in love again, that's what you are. Only you're too stubborn to face it and too scared to let go of the old and bring in the new."

Anger flashed through Jiyong, causing his hand to tighten on the phone until the muscles of his arm stood out in relief. If Top had said that to his face, he might have hit him.

"What the hell would you know about it? You're so afraid of commitment that you won't take the same girl out more than three times in a row. Neither will you date anyone deep enough to tempt you to have a real relationship."

"Hey I'm not the one with a thorn in my paw, buddy. And I'm not going to give you the target you want. You've been spoiling for a fight ever since you broke it off with Dara. Why don't you make it easy on both of us and call her?"

Jiyong opened his mouth to make a retort worthy of all the anger and frustration stewing inside of him, but Top hung up, leaving him with nothing but a dial tone.

Slamming the phone down, he cursed aloud and dialed Dara. She answered on the fourth ring, just before he expected her machine to pick up.

"Hello?" She sounded as if she'd had rushed for the phone.

"It's me." He said, and held his breath, hoping for…something. What he got was silence.

"I want to see you."

"Why?"

Jiyong blinked. "What do you mean why? I'm…I just have to see you."

"Sorry." She said.

"It's not in our agreement."

And then she hung up.

"What do all the blood and X rays reveal?" Dara sat across from Dr. Forte in his office at the hospital. It had been thirteen days since the transplant. She'd finished all of her finals and felt fairly comfortable that she'd passed two, but the others? She couldn't say.

They'd been difficult. She struggled through and done her best, but she didn't know if she'd succeeded or not. Grades hadn't been posted yet. There was a chance they'd be up today. If not, then later in the week. But Dara was more worried about Sanghyun. The doctors had been running tests all week, checking for cancer cells. Dara dug her nails into her palms as she waited to hear the results.

Dr. Forte smiled.

"We agree that Sanghyun's prognosis is very hopeful. I don't have to warn you that things can change." He said, raising a cautioning hand.

"But for now Sanghyun's body seems to be accepting the new marrow with a minimum of problems."

"Does that mean he can come home as planned?"

"He's had a little jaundice. We'd like to keep him an extra two days so we can make sure his liver continues to function properly, but I don't see any reason why he can't go home on Friday. I think children recover much more quickly in their own environment. Just watch him closely for any sign of rash or fever."

Dara couldn't believe it. That was it? After spending nearly a year in and out of the hospital and nearly one hundred days straight during this last stretch, Sanghyun might be well enough to come home on Friday? That was only three days away! She'd been hoping for it, telling herself to plan on it, but deep down, she'd feared something would happen to snatch that homecoming away.

"For good?" She asked.

"Unless something new crops up. Of course we'll have to keep him on steroids and immune suppressants for a while, just to make sure his body doesn't end up rejecting the graft, but I think you can handle that at home.”

Tears sprang to Dara's eyes, happy tears, the happiest she'd ever shed.

At long last, Sanghyun's ordeal might be over. Wiping her tears away, Dara stood.

"Thank you."

She said. She would have hugged him, but there was still the desk between them, so she shook his hand instead.

"Don't thank me." He replied.

"I won't take credit for those who survive just as I won't bear the blame for those who go the other way."

‘Come on, come on.’

Dara chanted silently, sitting in front of her personal computer in her guest room/office on Thursday and using her mouse to click on the test result for Pharmacology 6030. The cursor turned into an hourglass and grew and shrank until finally a list of names appeared on the screen.

Dara started scanning, looking for "Kwon." before remembering that she hadn't changed her name on any of her school stuff.

"Park…Park. Here it is." She clicked on it and after another second with the hourglass, four words appeared on the screen.

Park, Dara Grade: B.

Slowly, Dara let her breath go. She'd been right. She'd passed pharmacology without any problems. Combined with her other tests from earlier in the block, she could even end up with a A- for her final grade in the class.

Amazing.

But Pharmacology had been the easiest exam. She had to pass all her exams in order to move on to her third year. Still nervous, she backed out of Pharmacology and clicked on the test scores for Art of Medicine, then Science of Medicine, and finally Hematopathology. She'd received a C a B- and a C-, respectfully.

She could slip though by the skin of her teeth, if only she managed to do well in Neuroanatomy. Biting her lip, Dara waited for the score of her last final, the one she'd worried about most, but when the list of students appeared on the screen, her name wasn't there. Had something gone wrong? Had the computer been unable to score her exam? Her stomach knotted. Oh no! Had she forgotten to put her name on her score sheet? Surely not!

Grabbing her purse, she ran out of the house, jumped into her car and thank heaven when it started right up. She wasn't sure what kind of office hours her professor kept now that school was out, but it was barely three o'clock in the afternoon. Maybe she'd be able to catch him.

The campus was almost empty. Dara had no problem finding a parking space or making her way to her professor's office, where she found him hunched over his desk.

An older man with salt and pepper hair and warm, dark eyes, he looked up and she knocked on his open door. She bowed and apologized for interrupting him.

"Ms. Park. I thought I might hear from you." He smiled.

Dara prayed it was a good smile.

"Hi Professor. I just tried to check the score for my final exam on the Website, but…"

"It's not there." He finished.

"Come in, I'd like to talk to you."

Setting down his pen, he pulled a folder from underneath the avalanche of paper and began thumbing through it. When he reached Dara's exam, he pulled it out of the stack and set it in front of him, then motioned for her to pull up a seat.

"Neronatomy can be a difficult subject." He began, but couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. Her mind had shut out everything around her-everything except the 59 percent scrawled across her paper.

She'd failed.

The small Indian restaurant smelled of the yellow curry that Dara liked so well. She stood at the entrance, close to the clatter coming from the kitchen, and searched the dining room for her uncle and CL. They'd insisted she meet them for supper tonight, while Lee was in town for Sanghyun's homecoming, to celebrate if she'd passed her finals or to sympathize if she hadn't.

Spotting them sitting not far away, waving to her, she told the approaching hostess that she'd already found her party and made her way through the crowd.

"Sanghyun's what's important." Uncle Lee said, watching her face as she approached.

"He's coming home tomorrow."

"Right." CL echoed.

"And if you didn't pass your exams, there are plenty of other things you can do with your life."

"Well it's kind of mixed news." Dara admitted, sliding into the booth next to her uncle, across from CL.

"I passed all my finals except neuroanatomy."

CL arched a worried eyebrow. "Which means…?"