I don't really know how long it takes for people to start feeling normal again after someone dies. But I think I expected Taehyung to bounce back faster because he's confident. I have to remind myself that he's already emotionally scarred, and that some of his cockiness is just for show. So when I see him sinking into what I fear is depression after Yoongi's funeral, I wonder if I should say or do something to help him. I just don't know what, exactly.

He tells me he'll be okay, that he just needs time to get over it. When I ask if he wants to grab something to eat after work, he says he might be too tired. He does look tired. He apologizes a lot. That doesn't seem like him - at all, honestly.

Appa tells me not to push him too hard. I'm not exactly a pushy kind of person. But after what seems like an endless stretch of Taehyung's melancholy, I'm starting to wonder if I need to start nudging. But Anna echoes appa's advice, telling me to give Taehyung some space. And what's even weirder is that for once, I'm the one who doesn't want to be alone. I guess Anna can sense this or something, because she's been asking me to hang out a lot. Our prework breakfast dates at IHOP are now becoming a routine. A definite bright spot of my day. It's helped to get my mind off Yoongi - and stopped me from worrying so much about Taehyung. Sort of. It doesn't soothe the funny ache in my heart when I think about him dealing with all of this on his own. I wish he'd let me help. I wish he'd talk to me. At this point, I'd give my right pinky toe for one of our good, old-fashioned arguments. Can you miss someone you see almost every day?

A couple of weeks after Yoongi's funeral, at 6:45 a.m., I'm awakened by a series of buzzes. It's my phone. Who's texting me this early? My first reaction is panic, because, let's face it, life has been a ty lately.

Taehyung: Wake up.

Taehyung: Waaaakkkkkeee uuuuppp.

Taehyung: How late do you sleep, anyway? You need an alarm clock. (I'd like be to that alarm clock, actually.) (God, please don't let your dad pick up your phone.)

Taehyung: Come on, sleepy head. If you don't wake up soon, I'm leaving without you.

I type a quick reply: What's going on?

Taehyung: Good surfing, that's what.

Me: You mean, surfing for you?

Taehyung: That was the idea. So, are you coming to watch me surf?

Me: Try and stop me.

I'm so excited. I throw off the covers and jump out of bed. Okay, so maybe this isn't a romantic invitation, because a few more texts tell me where I'll be meeting his family, but I don't care. I'm just relieved that he sounds cheerful. My only problem is Anna, my breakfast date this morning. She's already up, and when I texted her to ask for a rain check, she asks if she can tag along. When I don't answer right away, two more texts follow -

Anna: Pretty please?

Anna: I really a chin-up.

Me: ??

Anna: A chat. Girl talk. Yeah?

Normally, I'd say sure, but I haven't spent time with Taehyung since the drama marathon after the funeral. What if he doesn't want a big audience? I consider the best way to handle it as I get dressed, but my mind keeps wandering to Taehyung.

When I head out, the fog hasn't cleared. The place I'm meeting the Kims is a spot a couple miles north, just up the beach from Secret Garden. It's pretty out here. And though it's not crowded like the beach at the boardwalk, I'm surprised to see anyone at all this early in the morning. Apparently, it's a popular surf spot, because a dozen other vans are parked along and several other onlookers gather, including a couple of people walking along the beach with their dogs as the waves roll and crash.

Clearly, this wasn't a private affair. I even see Markesha, the president of MIIS's drama club, who Anna introduced me to at the bonfire party. For a moment, I remember Anna, and tell myself I need to text her back, but Mrs. Kim waves me down, and she's brought donuts. I don't want to be rude, and she's in a great mood, so I put Anna out of my mind for the time being and silence my phone.

While I make small talk with Mrs. Kim, I catch a sight of the rest of the family. Mr. Kim is in training mode, unloading a board with Eunjin, and barking commands. But I'm having trouble paying attention to anything but Taehyung. If there are any traces of melancholy left on him, he's packed them away. It's a new day, and I can see the change in the way he walks across the sand, the way he holds his head high. He's ready to move on.

He's donned a sleeveless black-and-red wet suit, and it's clinging in all the right places. Standing next to Mrs. Kim, I'm afraid to look too closely all at once, but hot damn. I catch his eyes once when his mom's busy chatting with Markesha, who is apparently friends with Eunjin. I can't wink, so I just look him up and down and mouth, Wow. He gives me a spectacular smile in return. He's so cocky; the boy knows how good he looks. I roll my eyes, but I can't stop smiling, and he loves the attention. He could build sandcastles on the beach and never even surf one wave for all I care. Mission accomplish.

After that exchange, his focus shifts. I notice the moment it happens. He's stretching, both him and Eunjin, legs and arms, normal stretches and weird jumping. They're both super limber. And the entire time, his eyes are on the water. He's calculating the big waves. Timing them, or something. He checks his watch occasionally, but mostly he's watching the water and checking the sky. He's very intense. I like him this way.

There's some sort of surfing etiquette I don't understand, but I can tell Taehyung and Eunjin are waiting their turn. And I can also tell that the other surfers aren't very good, and some of them are giving up and clearing out. After a minute, mr. Kim gives his wife a head signal.

"Okay, girls," she says to me and Markesha. "We're going up there."

"Up there" is a short hike up a massive sand dune that gives us a great view of the ocean. From here, we can see the waves rolling in much more clearly and all the other surfers who are either surfing on the smaller waves closer to shore (not impressive), or trying to ride the bigger waves farther out and not lasting very long. The ocean is eating them alive. Now I'm a little worried.

"they're not surfing those, are they?" I ask. The big waves looked smaller and flatter from the beach.

"You bet your sweet patootie they are," she says, all fierce mom pride. And from the looks of the crowd gathering behind us to watch, she isn't the only one interested in the show.

I hope this is a shark-free zone.

Eunjin's in mint-and-black, and she goes first. She lies flat on her board and paddles out, and that takes longer than you'd think. Taehyung gives her some distance, but he's paddling now too. The farther out they go, the scarier it gets. They sometimes disappear under the smaller rolling waves, like speed bumps in a road, then reappear on the other side.

"Have you seen them surf before?" I ask Markesha, taking a bite of donut. I hate to break it to Mrs. Kim, but this is no churro or moon cake.

"yeah, I live down the road, so I see Eunjin surf a couple of times a week. Sometimes I go watch events, if they aren't too far. I once rode down to Long Beach with the Kims. Remember that?"

"Sure do, Kesha," Mrs. Kim says, watching the water.

"What about Taehyung?" I ask.

Markesha nods. "I've been watching Taehyung compete locally since he was, like, thirteen. he used to have hair a bit shorter. All the girls in our class had a crush on him."

Mrs. Kim sticks out her bottom lip, looking sentimental. "he was such a sweet boy. My little prince."

"Oh, and we'll be watching all of Eunjin's surfing heats together on TV," Markesha says excitedly, reaching around me to tap Mrs. Kim's arm. "Maybe we can have viewing parties?"

This surprises me. It hadn't even crossed my mind that Eunjin will be that professional. Now that I know her, she just seems like a good-natured kid who chews a lot of gum and drools when she falls asleep on the couch, which is what happened that afternoon at their house.

Eunjin and Taehyung are both floating on their boards, bobbing in the rolling waves. I'm not sure what they're waiting for, but everyone is tense. Before I can ask what's happening, Eunjin's mint-and-black suit pops onto her board. She's standing, crouched on her board, and cutting through a massive wave I didn't even realize was there.

There she goes!

She's like a beautiful bee, zipping through the water, making tight zigzag motions that seems to go on forever. I can't believe she can ride the wave for so long. It's crazy. How is this possible? Seems like it goes against nature.

"Yeah, Eunjinnie!" Mrs. Kim calls out to the ocean, clapping in time with all of Eunjin's zigzagging. "Go, baby, go!"

By the time Eunjin finishes, she's so far on the other side of the dune, it's going to take her five minutes to walk back to us. No wonder these kids are in shape. This surfing gig is exhausting.

The crowd on the sand dune explodes into applause and whistles, and I clap along, too. mrs. Kim rotates her hand in the air, egging them on. "That minty fresh girl is going to win it all," she tells everyone around us, and some of them high-five her.

She's so proud. Everyone's smiling. It's all exciting, but now I'm watching Taehyung, because he's paddled out just a little farther, and that makes my stomach drop.

Mr. Kim comes bounding up the sand dune, eyes on the water. How long has it been since Taehyung's surfed like this? I'm suddenly nervous. If he crashes, or whatever it's called, I don't want him to do it in front of me and be embarrassed later. I can't handle that. I want to look away, maybe make some excuse, like i got sick from the donut and had to leave. I can hear about it later.

Then he pops up on his board.

Too late. Can't look away now.

His wave is bigger than Eunjin's. His stance is different from Eunjin's. He rides the board up the curling water, up, up, up . . . (please don't fall!) and at the top, he's - HOLY MOLY, he's flying up in the air, board and body! Impossibly, on a dime, he turns the board one hundred and eighty degrees, sharply. Then he rides the wave right back down, smooth as glass, white foam kicking out from the tail of his board like the train of a wedding dress.

"YES!" Mr. Kim bellows, holing up his arm.

The crowd behind me shouts along with Mrs. Kim.

It's happening so fast. That was just one move, and though Taehyung doesn't take his board up in the air again, he's already made turn number two (crouching low at base of wave, wait, wait . . . rides up again), and whoosh! Turn three! Now he's riding back down, still going, arms out for balance, like fins.

Eunjin's style was fast and quick, full of spunk; Taehyung is slower and his moves are grander. Poetic. Beautiful. He's cutting through the water as if he's painting a picture with his body.

I didn't know surfing looked like this.

I didn't know Taehyung could do this.

He makes the last turn at the end of the wave, a baby turn, because there isn't much wave left to ride, and then neatly comes to a stop where the sand rises toward the beach, the wave washing all around him, as if the ocean found him shipwrecked and is delivering him safely to shore.

The crowd roars.

I crush my donut in my hand. "Wow," I say in amazement.

Mr. Kim turns around, smiles at the crowd - smiles! - and kisses his wife before running down the other side of the dune to greet his son. Mrs. Kim picks me up in a bear hug. For a woman who isn't an athlete, she sure is strong. When she puts me back down, she cups my face in her hands and, shockingly, kisses me straight on the lips. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I knew you could get him out here."

"I didn't do anything," I say, flushing with excitement and a little embarrassed.

"Oh baby, yes you did," she says, her eyes shining. "He hasn't surfed like that since the shark."

☜(⌒▽⌒)☞

Taehyung surfs nearly a dozen more big waves. He screws up once, falling off his board pretty hard trying to pull an aerial "alley-oop." Mrs. Kim blames the wipeout on the wind. but otherwise, he's pretty much a demon. He and Eunjin engage in a friendly sibling competition, and it's awesome. After a couple of hours, word has spread, and a hundred more people or so line the beach. My throat goes hoarse from cheering.

When it seems as though they're slowing down - both the waves and the surfers - Mrs. Kim tells her husband to call her "babies" back to shore soon. She doesn't want Taehyung overdoing it and injuring himself. Mr. Kim grunts and seems dismissive, but he slowly makes his way back down the dune. I guess Eunjin was right when she said her mom wears the pants in their family.

Someone taps me on the shoulder. "How are they doing?"

I turn around to find Anna, dressed in a yellow romper and oversized rose-gold sunglasses. is arrow-straight, matching the tense line of her shoulders. She is not a happy camper.

"Anna," Mrs. Kim says cheerfully. "You should have come earlier. Taehyung was on fire."

Anna smiles at her, and it's almost genuine. "Is that so? I'm sorry I missed it. Took me a bit to find out where they were surfing."

"You could have called me," Mrs. Kim says absently, only halfway paying attention.

Anna aims two bladelike eyes on me. "It's fine. I texted Taehyung and he was more than happy to let me know."

Omo. "Anna," I whisper. "I totally forgot to text you back."

"No big deal. I'm not exciting enough, I suppose," she says, and walks away.

My heart sinks. Something in me whispers to let Anna go, but another part of my brain is panicking. I get Mrs. Kim's attention. "Sorry, but I need to talk to Anna."

Mrs. Kim makes a shooing motion. "Go on, baby. They're just about done. I'll send Taehyung to find you after he's back to shore."

Quickly, I follow Anna away from the small crowd on the beach, down the sand dune, calling her name. She stops near a rock with a clump of yellow lupine scrub growing out of it. My throat is tight, and I can't look her in the eyes. She's so agitated, I can almost feel the emotion radiating off her like heat from a furnace. And she's never been upset at me. Ever.

"Why do you want to talk to me now?" Anna says. "You didn't bother to answer my texts this morning."

"I'm sorry!" I blurt out. "I was going to text you back, but -"

"I called two times" - she angrily claps along with her words to drive her point home - "after the texts. It went straight to voicemail."

I wince. My fingers itch to dive into my pocket and check my abandoned phone, but I resist. "It's just -"

"Easy to forget about your friend when your boyfriend is suddenly back it the picture. When he was moping, you had all the time in the world for me. But the second he calls, you throw me away faster than yesterday's news."

Shame and regret roll through me. "That's not true. I just got distracted. I didn't throw you away."

"Well, that's what it feels like. Don't think I haven't been here before with other friends. The second they fall for someone, the forget all about me. Well, I'll tell you what, Suzy Bae. I'm tired of being a placeholder. If you don't want a real friendship with me, then find someone els who doesn't mind being disposable."

I didn't know what to say. Don't know how to make this better. I'm a surfer, wiping out and drowning under one of those monster waves. Only, I don't think I'm skilled enough to get back up.

After a long, awkward silence I say, "I'm not good at this."

"At what?"

"Being close to people," I gesture at her, then me. "I screw it up. A lot. It's easier for me to avoid things than deal with confrontation."

"That's your excuse?" she says.

"it's not an excuse. it's the truth."

Why did I do this? If I could wind the clock back to this morning, I'd text her back and everything would be fine. Whether I actively or passively avoided Anna's texts, forgot them on purpose or unintentionally, none of it matters. I failed her. And maybe in doing so, I failed myself a little too.

I don't want to lose Anna. Somehow, while Taehyung barged in my front door, she sneaked in the back. I try to only thing I have left: the truth.

"You're right," I tell her, words tumbling out. "I took you for granted. I forgot about you this morning because I assumed that you'd always be there, because you always are. I can count on you because you're dependable. And I'm not. I wish . . . I wish you could count on me like I can count on you. I want to be more like you. You're not a placeholder for me, Anna."

She doesn't say anything, but I can hear her breathing pick up.

"I guess I told myself you wouldn't miss me," I say, picking up the yellow lupine scrub. "That's how I justified it."

"Well, I did miss you. You picked a fine day not to show. Because I really could have used a shoulder today," she says, still somewhat upset, but now moving into another emotion I can't quite put my finger on. it's hard to decode people when they're wearing big sunglasses and their arms crossed over their chest.

A wind whips through my hair. I wait until it passes, then ask, "Did something happen?"

"Yes, something happened," she complains. But now I can hear the distress in her voice, and when she lifts her sunglasses to rest them ontop her head, I see it mirrored in her eyes. "Jungkook's not coming back. He's staying in Korea for the rest of the summer. Maybe for good."

"Oh, man. Anna." My chest constricts painfully.

Slow, silent tears roll down her cheeks. "We've been together for a year. We were going to attend the same university. This isn't how life is supposed to work."

Tentatively, I reach for her, not sure if she'll accept me. But there's not even a heartbeat of hesitation, and she's throwing her arms around me, crying softly as she clings. Her sunglasses fall off her head and land in the sand.

"I'm sorry," I choke out, surprised to find that I'm crying along with her. "For everything."

My old therapist warned me that avoidance is a dysfunctional way to interact with people you care about, but now I'm starting to understand what he meant when he said it could hurt them, too. Maybe it's time I figure out a better way to deal with my problems.