FINAL: I NEED TIME (IT’S MY MISTAKE)

    » only fools do what i do, only fools fall

i am tired of this place, i hope people change

i need time to replace what i gave away

Yerin hates this town.

The little huddle of quaint houses is a lie; a postcard-worthy image that Yerin thinks should really just stay within pictures. Half the town is brick walls and perfectly trimmed lawns - but the other half, the other half is dirt poor, and unabashedly so.

White picket fences and perfect families don’t exist here - except for one.

The Tuan family’s house is always bustling with noise, and maybe that’s why Yerin likes it. It’s better than her house, anyway; the only noise she gets to hear is the screaming of parents who haven’t yet seemed to figure out that if the puzzle pieces don’t fit, then maybe they’re better off apart.

When the screaming is done it’s dead silence, and Yerin hates that more than she hates this goddamn town.

The Tuans are about the only people she can stand, and their eldest son is the only person in her grade she could give half a about. Everyone else is too busy trying to keep up with their facade of Perfect Lives and Perfect Grades and Ivy Leagues.

and my hopes, they are high, i must keep them small

“Hi Yerin!” Joey beams brightly at her, and Yerin tiptoes to ruffle his hair, because even if Mark’s little brother is taller than her, he’s still younger than her, and therefore she gets to ruffle his hair. He laughs and bends down to make it easier for her, and Yerin can’t help the smile spreading across her face.

“Let me get Mark for you,” he smiles. He turns, takes a step up the stairs, and yells, “MAAARK!”

Yerin laughs, and Joey grins as Mark appears at the top of the stairs, hair a mess and rolling his eyes at his little brother. “M’here,” he says gruffly, but Yerin can hear the smile in his voice as he comes down the stairs. “Hey.”

Mark is handsome, tousled dark hair that looks chestnut brown in the light, with captivating eyes and a heart-meltingly sweet smile. But Yerin has known him since the fourth grade, and she’s learned to control the ba-dump her heart gives whenever she sees him.

“Hi,” she greets, and Mark smiles back, never one to be too keen on words. Joey wanders away, back to his breakfast (he’s the only person she knows that actually eats breakfast), and Mark grabs her by the hand and drags her out the door, chuckling when she yelps in surprise and stumbles after him.

Mark is her best friend, and just a friend, but his grip on her hand is what keeps her hopeful, that one day he will look at her the way she thinks of him.

She knows better, though, because Mark is better, too good for a girl like Yerin, who lives on the other side of town, away from brick walls and perfectly trimmed lawns.

though i try to resist, i still want it all

Mark is popular at school, but Yerin’s the type to keep to herself. Every year it takes Yerin two weeks to convince Mark that she doesn’t mind eating by herself, and senior year is no different.

She really doesn’t mind, but it’s still nice the first two weeks when Mark comes by with questionable cafeteria food and plops himself into the seat in front of hers, giving her puppy dog looks and trying to convince her that it’s for the greater good and that she should switch lunches with him.

(If Yerin was nine, she would’ve. But Yerin is seventeen now, and Mark can it.)

She asks him why he still gives cafeteria food the benefit of the doubt when it’s been four years and the food still looks like churned up garbage. Mark blanks, furrows his eyebrows, and gets smart after that and starts bringing in his own lunch.

i see swimming pools and living rooms and aeroplanes

Yerin spends more days alone and Mark spends more days…

Well, not with her, and she chalks it up to him being popular. There’s really only so much time he can allot for her, and to Yerin it makes sense, so she doesn’t question it. It isn’t until prom season comes at her in full force that Yerin realizes Mark hasn’t spoken to her in weeks.

He asks her to come over, and Yerin has the foolish hope that he’ll ask her to prom.

Then Mark speaks, and her hopes fall like dead weight, crushing her.

Yerin feels like she can’t breathe, and for the first time, she forces herself to smile at Mark.

“You’re.. you’re asking who?” she manages to get out, and Mark is quiet normally, but this time it’s different. He never blushes, even when he’s embarrassed, and Yerin’s heart has a little trouble keeping up.

“Soojung,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “Amber said Soojung would say yes, so…”

Yerin’s heart stutters, like it doesn’t know quite what to do, how to keep functioning, and Yerin nods, stunned. She always knew the day would come around that Mark found somebody else, somebody who wasn’t her, but she’s not ready for it yet.

Mark’s eyes have a happy light in them, and Yerin knows it’s time for her to let him go.

Except she doesn’t want to, and her heart only clings on tighter.

i see a little house on the hill and children’s names

“Go with me.”

Yerin looks up from her phone and stares blankly at Joey, like he’s announced that he has eleven fingers instead of ten. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Go with me,” he shrugs. “Mark is going with Soojung. So go with me. I know I’m not a senior yet, but you’re allowed to take juniors, and you deserve to go to prom. And, no offense, but you don’t talk to any other guys, so..” He grins that classic Joey grin, and Yerin stares at him a little longer, the friendly little brother of Mark going-with-Soojung Tuan, and she chuckles.

“Okay.”

i see quiet nights poured over ice and tanqueray

In retrospect, she should’ve seen it coming, that being childhood friends isn’t enough, because in high school, nothing is ever enough. She just figured they would last, and they did, up until senior year took a sharp turn, with prom sitting at the finish line.

If Yerin looks back on it, she still wouldn’t have a clue what happened, what changed, but she knows it has something to do with prom, and something to do with Joey, and perhaps even something to do with Soojung, but Yerin doesn’t have the answers and she’s not about to start looking for them in the palms of Mark Tuan.

but everything is shattering and it’s my mistake

“You’re what?”

This time Yerin is the one shrugging, a blush creeping onto her cheeks, “Joey asked me, and I figured, you know, why not?”

“It’s Joey.” Mark states, like that should mean something to her, and she smiles hesitantly at him, confused.

“Yes,” she says slowly. “It’s Joey.”

“Don’t go with him.”

His words strike a bad chord in her, and she gets the overwhelming urge to run, but Yerin is stupid and foolish and irrevocably in love with Mark Tuan and stands her ground.

She can already feel the regret sinking into her. “Why?”

Yerin has never been more confused in her life, never been so utterly baffled by Mark, who’s staring at her with hard eyes. He’s never looked at her like that before, and she doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the way his lip curls and the disdain starting to show on his face. “Mark--”

“Because he’s too good for you.”

Yerin thinks she heard wrong, but Mark’s expression isn’t changing. “What?”

His expression is cold, and Yerin steps back a little, uncertain. Mark is under stress, she thinks, he has to be, or he wouldn’t be talking like this. None of it is aligning in her head; the boy standing before her is Mark but he isn’t Mark, and that scares her. She wants to brace herself, but she’s not sure what for, just knows that this won’t end well.

“He’s too good for you,” Mark repeats, and there’s no emotion his voice. Yerin feels like dying; suddenly Mark’s Perfect Life and Perfect Grades and Ivy Leagues are glaringly obvious to her. Mark has never let her feel that way, but he’s staring her down with his words ringing in her ears, and the next ones have her entire world crashing to a stop.

“We’re done playing charity case, Yerin.”

If he says anything else, she doesn’t hear it.

She turns on her heel to leave, and a red hot anger seizes her, an instinctive defense mechanism that Yerin has learned after years of hurt. She whirls back around, tilts her head up, and looks him in the eye, because she absolutely refuses to let Mark Tuan go like this.

“ you,” she snaps, and there’s a glimpse of hurt in Mark’s eyes for half a second. It’s gone so fast that Yerin has no trouble convincing herself that it was never there in the first place, and she leaves, slamming his door behind her.

Yerin hates this town, because the quaint houses are a lie, and so is everything Mark Tuan has ever said to her in her life.

AUTHOR’S NOTE;

i’m only a little sorry that this is so cheesy and so cliche

part two coming up soon! ..probably

hope you enjoyed reading, please drop a comment! (or not idk up to you) c:

thank you for reading!