CHAPTER 1: The Mistake

We were floating on grass. The blades tickled our limbs as our chests heaved for air. My eyes were closed but I knew that Zelo was grinning too. It was unusually humid. The sun shone bright and bold, with eerie tufts of grey peeking through the clear blue from afar. It would rain later in the day. I remember as though it were yesterday.

We had spent the morning looking for clovers over in the green pastures by the river. The grass there was taller, so we had to get on our knees and look real close. Some days we would crawl until our knees bled. But that didn’t matter because with every lucky clover you find, you’d get a wish. That day we only found one. Zelo did anyway. I snatched it and ran, knowing that he would have never caught up to me. I ran faster and faster, hearing his voice fading in the distance.

“Here you go,” I placed clover in his open palm. He was now on his back, his breath much to erratic to utter a reply. He smiled at me as I joined him and let the breeze soothe my aching muscles and cool my skin.

“I’ll catch you one day. I'll run past you. You’ll see,” he said under his breath. I smiled and closed my eyes, concentrating instead on the thumping of blood in my ears. Before long, both our heart rates dropped as our minds drifted away into the unconscious.

“It’s raining,” the little boy shook me awake.  

Zelo pulled my to my feet and we both ran, still dazed from our nap. The rain began to pour down fast. The soil beneath felt like mush and the splash back had our shoes drenched in mud. By the time we got there, the river had risen so high that it had devoured part of the wooden bridge.

“We should just go find shelter,” I told him.

Zelo started laughing, “I didn’t know you were so chicken.”

He began to cross, grinning at me and urging me to come too. But before I could, it broke. The current was so strong that it brought both the bridge and Zelo with it.

I didn’t scream. I froze. It was all over in a second. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I think I knew at that point that Zelo was gone.

I ran as fast as I could up the green pasture, so fast that my hair whipped into my face as the rain poured harder and harder. I got on my knees. I got on my knees and crawled because clovers hid beneath the tall grass. And I felt it in my gut that maybe – if I had just found one, I could have wished Zelo back.

I didn’t see him after that. I didn’t go to his funeral and say good bye one last time. I had lost the most important person in my life. My friend, my first love. But it was so surreal that I still thought he was at the house next door. Arguing with his big brother. Helping his single mother. And I wanted to keep that feeling alive even if it was a state of denial.

The bang family moved soon after. Mother told me that it was simply too hard for them to stay. And so they left.

Still, not a day goes by where I don’t think of them. The guilt I feel for not seeing yongguk and his mum before they left. For not apologizing.