a/n remember a while ago I told you to stop. it's because of this chapter. I've changed my plans dozens of times but for some reason, this one has been the same since chapter 2. As much as it hurts, I have to do it. And I am really truly sorry.

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“The train to Hongdae is approaching” the announcement rang through the station. The platform was crowded with people, all headed their separate ways. To work, to home, to their family, to their friends. None of them seemed to care about the emotional turmoil I’m facing. Why would they.

“Vernon…” I slid my hand out of his.

What is he saying.

I know what he’s saying.

“It’s ok Elena,” he smiled. “You already told me how you feel. I just wanted you to know how I felt,” he shrugged his shoulders.

A family with four little kids rushed on to the platform and got in line with their mom.

I should go too. But I can’t. 

“I’m just curious though,” he looked at me.

I’m frozen.

“If I asked you straight out, would you deny it?”

He’s keeping me here with his gaze. 

The train pulled up and people filed off.

I stood up to leave. 

“Would you deny it Elena?” he stood up and grabbed my wrist.

This is too much.

I see myself reflected in his eyes. Not happy or sad or in awe. I look absolutely terrified. Why though. That doesn’t make sense. Why would I be scared. He’s just a kid.

His eyebrows furrowed, like a puppy begging me to just throw him a bone. Anything to make him feel better. 

I wrenched my wrist away.

“I’m…not sure,” I said backing away to the subway door. I just about tripped over the kids as I got on. 

The doors closed with a hiss and I leaned against the windows, refusing to turn around and see his face.

 

I leaned my head against the frame.

Wow Elena.

Just wow.

I’ve had my phone back for less than 24 hours. 

I planned on fixing all the relationships I scarred.

And instead,I’ve made two of them worse.

Well, not necessarily worse.

But different.

Joshua and I aren’t a thing anymore.

And Vernon just confessed…something.

I think?

He never actually said the words. 

But he asked me to.

And I didn’t deny it.

Why didn’t I deny it.

I want to bang my head on the subway wall but that would make a scene of what is already a scene. I’ve been out all night. In the wind. My makeup is probably everywhere and my hair a mess and my clothes wrinkled. 

I hugged my stomach.

This is why I hate nice boys.

Why can’t they just be mean to me so I have a reason to hate myself. 

Instead I hate myself for being mean to them.

My phone buzzed.

Sam.

Why is Sam calling?

The picture of us at fat camp, arms around each other smiling, beaming, radiated with each ring.

I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. 

I shoved my phone in my pocket.

He has Kimmy. He’s not alone. He’s fine. 

It’s 5:30am. Probably wants tie advice.

I’ll talk to him later.

I just want to be alone.

Today is an injection day. 

Mom is probably already in the hospital with Emmaline.

I’ll just go back to the hotel and sleep this off. 

Because sleeping off emotions is what I do best.

 

---

 

“Elena! Elena!” Someone was yelling my name.

The curtains are half closed, leaving only the sunset to peak through.

Did I sleep all day?

“Mom?”

She sounds frantic.

Emmaline.

“Mom, is everything ok?” I shot up.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, remote on her lap, hand over . 

I joined her, wiping the dried mascara from my eyes. It hurt.

A helicopter view of a massive car accident. Taking up the entire street, dozens of cars and buses and taxis. Flipped over, on their sides, windows smashed in, smoke rising. Like a horrific game of tetris.  

“How’s Emmaline?” I grabbed her arm.

She took her eyes from the television and stared at me. Eyes welling up. Oh no mom crying. I have one reaction to that. My eyes welled up too.

“Emmaline is fine,” she whispered my cheek. “I just worried that all your friends were safe.”

“What do you mean?”
She put a strand of hair behind my ear. The same strand Vernon did earlier. 

Vernon.

Maybe I should cut it off. It has only caused trouble.

“I was just reading to Emmaline at the hospital and the nurse had to run out. Every doctor called to the ER. I saw people being wheeled on carts outside,” she put her hand to again and sighed deeply. “I didn’t want to scare Emmaline, so I let her sleep and came home to watch this.”

Video shots to doctors in masks wheeling carts with bodies on them to ambulances.

Korean running along the bottom, asking that people check on their families.

A taxi driver with a scratch on his head talked to a reporter.

Wait.

I recognize him.

He narrated the graphic scene caught on a stoplight’s camera.

It started with just one chicken delivery guy going too fast. He bumped into another cab who got angry and bumped him back. He spun out and a bus tried to dodge his path, only to flip 90 degrees across the street just as the light turned. People not paying attention started to go, and rammed into the bus, causing it to fall on its side.

During rush hour, with nowhere to go, car after car rammed into each other, from both directions. The bus spun and tossed from side to side.

There were no survivors.

How terrible.

I grabbed my phone off the bedside table.

Oh my god.

 

13 missed calls. 

From Sav.

 

Sav: Elena where are you

Sav: Please answer me

Sav: This is important

Sav: Oh my god Elena this isn’t about us. This is about Sam and Kimmy.

 

---

 

Outside the doors to the ER, everything is dark.

The lights may be on, but my heart,  my eyes, what seems like my soul, is clouded.

Aren’t you supposed to be given some last words.

What happened to death bed confessions.

What happened to dramatic goodbyes and promises.

What happened to heartbeat monitors raising and lowering with the patient’s health as they make their way back from the brink of death.

What happened to final phone calls and holding hands.

Aren’t those things supposed to happen.

Aren’t you supposed to be given those things?

I put my head in my hands.

There aren’t tears anymore. 

Only painful salt streaks.

Sav and Hampton on either side of me.

Clinging to each others hands, they slept on my shoulders.

Having cried to each other for hours.

There’s supposed to be time.

There’s supposed to be suspense.

Even if the people end up dying, there’s supposed to be a lead up, a story, and an epic before the sad ending.

It’s not just supposed to…stop.

It’s not just supposed to be over.

Life isn’t just supposed to end.

People aren’t supposed to be alive one second and then not the other.

That’s not what happens in the dramas.

Or the movies.

Or the books.

But no matter what is supposed to happen and no matter how much my shoulders wrack or the number of tears I shed—that doesn’t change the fact that Kimmy’s parents are still sleeping. On the other side of the world. And won’t hear for hours.

Or the fact that Sam has no one to contact anyway. That the people who care about him most are right here already.

It’s not fair that he wouldn’t survive but his phone would be perfectly intact, glass screen unshattered, in his pocket.

It’s not fair that a person with zero guilt, who had only done good things in his life should lose his life, so quickly and violently.

The moment I think it’s impossible to cry anymore, somehow my body finds the tears and spills them out.

 

Sav had been at the hospital with Wonwoo getting his weekly treatment. 

Turns out she had been checking on Emmaline all the time. 

But with Emmaline not knowing about our falling out, she had no reason to tell me.

Sav heard the commotion, just as mom had, and stepped out to see the problem.

In typical Sav fashion, she demanded to know the names of the people passing by. 

In their white sheets.

Most were still being identified. 

But she saw a green tie floating out beneath one of the sheets.

And she knew.

In her heart she knew.

And when she demanded he be searched, the doctors had no choice but to comply. And she got his phone.

And it was true.

 

And I had slept through it all.

There weren’t any last minute words to miss, but if there had been, I would have missed them anyway.

And he had called me earlier.

What if I had answered.

The what if kept pounding.

Where were they going. If I had answered the phone, would they have stayed home? Would I have just met them somewhere? 

Would they still be alive?

 

I know this isn’t my fault.

But I can’t help but feel like I’m a part of it.

Because what if.

 

Other families sat around in the hall too. Moms, dads, children, grandparents. All caught up in our own grief. Not imagining how anyone else’s could be worse than our own, but also knowing that it was all the same.

A little boy kept asking grandma where mommy was.

And every time it hurt.

Every time.

 

A nurse with deep bags under her eyes came out of the locked doors and walked down the white cold linoleum floors in a straight line. Probably headed for the bathroom. Or the vending machine. We had given up hope of good news hours ago.

 

Sav and Hampton were incredibly sad. 

But they didn’t really understand.

They knew him for a year. They knew him through me.

But they didn’t actually know.

They didn’t know what he’d been through in his life.

They didn’t know because he’s not the type to tell.

Those secrets only came out around the campfire, after your third weigh-in, when you’re so physically exhausted all you have is your raw emotions left and you spill them out to the fat girl next to you and she listens because she’s hurting too.

Too bad she didn’t listen this morning.

Or you’d still be alive.

 

“Where’s mommy?” he asked again.

 

I can’t do this.

I really can’t do it.

This is my fault.

I killed them.

I didn’t. 

But I did.

The guilt I felt when I hit Sav.

That’s nothing. That’s ecstasy. Compared to now.

Actually, that bridge doesn’t sound like a bad idea. 

Anything to stop this hurt.

The pain that makes my lungs stop.

 

There’s a potted tulip in the window.

How can it still be blooming?

Doesn’t it know what just happened?

With Sam’s smile gone, nothing should be allowed to be beautiful.

 

His phone buzzed in my hands.

 

Channie: hyung, today where are you?

 

 

Oh my god.

I let out a loud gasp. 

Wet on my shoulder.

“No one has told them,” Sav whispered, wrapping her arms through mine.

“You didn’t even tell Wonwoo?” I asked.

She sighed. “He’s not strong enough right now.”

 

Is anyone really strong enough for this?

Because I’m not.

I can’t take this.

 

Channie: I’m sorry to be needy hyung.

 

He switched to Korean.

 

Channie: I always only received from you. And I’m sorry. But I feel nervous for some reason. Where are you?

 

It physically hurts to breathe.

I felt Hamptons nails dig into my arm. 

He must have been awake too.

The three of us are all partially awake and partially asleep. In a living nightmare.

 

Channie: hyung I want to thank you in person but we are going on stage now. but thank you for helping me the other day with you-know-what. 

 

I can’t do this.

“I’m sorry,” I stood up and put the phone on the seat.

“Ellie where are you going?” Sav held on to my hand.

“I just, need some air” the last part was just a whisper.

 

How are there still tears left.

Sam is the only person I could cry in front of.

And he’s the only person who truly made me laugh.

He was the most sure thing in my life.

The one who was always there.

Who took me in any state.

Because he’d seen me in my lowest.

And now he’s gone.

 

Who would take me now.