“I’m getting married today.”

 

The words almost stick in his throat. Jae never thought he’d tell her this. Actually, he always thought she’d be the one he married. He’d always dreamed it would be her. So this confession hurts him as much as he thinks it would hurt her. The feeling in his chest could be compared to the sensation of being stabbed in the heart.

 

And because of this Jae is torn. He loves his fiance but this woman was his first love, this is the woman he had confessed his greatest fears to, the woman he confided his hopes and dreams with. And he still loved her.

 

He would always love her.

 

“This must be a shock to you. I never even told you I was engaged. I guess I was a bit scared of how you’d feel. Actually, I was afraid of hurting you but, we can’t avoid the fact anymore.”

 

Jae scolds himself inwardly. He is such an idiot. Telling the first love of your life that you were getting married to someone else was probably the worst thing he’s ever had to do and he was already messing it up. Sighing he tries to make light of the news, grinning at her.

 

“You would love her. She’s just like you in some ways. She’s stubborn and witty, and she even loves dipping her fries into her milkshakes just like you. She’s actually funny though, and very introverted. I don’t think I would have ever noticed her if your brother hadn’t insisted we go out. It’s funny ‘cause he tagged along on the first few dates, she was more comfortable with him around and I felt foolish, like a third wheel but it all turned out for the best.”

 

Jae’s smile softens as memories from four years ago begin to surface. However, the more he remembers the more older memories begin to flood in. There’s a pang of guilt that churns his stomach.

 

Jae found her on the bathroom floor, hunched over the tub. He almost called an ambulance this time when she didn’t respond to his first few calls. When he got her on the bed he tried again to wake her. This time spilling a bit of water on her face. She murmurs something unintelligible  through the high and smiles.

Jae’s heart calms its insistent beating and he drops down on the floor beside her bed. She woke up six hours later. She wasn’t really awake through, her eyes were open but they were fixated on something beyond the white walls of the room. She was seeing something that wasn’t there. Even when Jae  waved a hand over her face she wouldn’t respond to him.  

He held a piece of beef  towards her, it dangled from his chopsticks.
It was a piece of warm seasoned meat with a slab of some spicy sauce he knew was her favorite. But she didn’t move an inch. Even when he called out for her to open she just stared at him with those big round, bloodshot eyes of her.  

Looking at him, but not seeing him.

He grew angry then. He grew restless and bitter and he would have done anything in that moment to save her from this demon.

Jae shudders at the memory. “I almost fell into that hole in your life,” he thinks out loud.

 

“Jimin don’t you see what this is doing to you!”

She walks out of the room, slamming the door in his face. He isn’t going to let her get away easily this time. Not without a fight. Opening the door he rushes through following her to the kitchen where she is drinking a glass of water.

“You’re delusional, you're not thinking about how this is affecting you. You hardly sleep, you hardly eat! You don’t laugh anymore or tell jokes, you’re almost a completely different person now and it’s scaring me Jimin… I mean… Do you even know what day it is? What year?”

“Jae! You are suffocating me!”

There is a moment of silence where the two stare at each other, each angry with their own reasons and willing the other to understand them.

“I don’t have a problem Jae, if anyone has a problem it’s you, because you don’t understand me. You think I’m sick but I am the happiest when I’m-”

“When you’re what? High? How are you happy, you’re barely conscious.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then make me understand Jimin,” He walks up to her, wrapping his hands around her elbows. She is cold beneath his touch.

“How?” she whispers.

“I don’t know,” Jae takes her into his arms wrapping his sturdy arms around her shoulder and holding her tight. Willing her to hear his jagged heartbeat, She was breaking his heart and didn’t even seem to care. They were silent for a long time, so long he thought she’d fallen asleep in his arms the way she had done so many times before.

“I could… I could show you.”

Jae frowned and pushed her shoulders back so he could see into her eyes. And he knew. Right then and there he knew that she would never give it up. She was even willing to go to extremes, willing to curse him along with her and kill any chance of a future he might have.

And for a split second Jae almost caved. He almost said yes. Had her brother not walked into the house at that moment he just might have.

“You were never thinking about tomorrow. And you were the same as me… just, on your knees.”

 

Jae had grieved so many times. For as long as he lived he would never forget how much she suffered. The drugs had taken the love of his life away from him, piece by piece, tauntingly, mercilessly. Once she had been the girl with the brightest smile. Kind and gentle, yet strong willed and too smart for her own good. She was the one people came to for help, she was his lighthouse in the dark world. When his grandfather died she had been there for him. That was his first grieving. Had she not been there, the possibility that he would be in her place tormented him. Soon after that her parents died and they became dependant on each other, each living only because the other was there to encourage them on until one day she disappeared. And Jae grieved for what he was yet to understand. The night she finally came home Jae had tried to be supportive and understanding, not knowing the reason she had left him. Not knowing why he hadn’t seen her for almost a month. He’d tried to stick by her and then he found out where she’d gone and his heart had felt constricted trying to beat out of his rib cage. Then her new hobby began to grow out of control and with no way to break through the walls she’d set up around her Jae cried as if she were already dead. He could never forget the terrible change he witnessed, watching the person that meant most to him in the world going from the loudest brightest person in the room to the darkest.

 

This could not be the love of his life. But it was. And this had been their life now.

 

He’d had to endure a lot of pain during that time. They all did. Jae, Jimin, Brian...

 

“You know the lies they always told you about it being good for you, or that it wasn’t hurting you… And the love you never knew was there...”

 

So many people had supported her during the dark stage of her life. But Jae knew she didn’t believe them. She couldn’t understand the love he and her family had for her not when all she thought about and dreamt about and desired was that little black balloon that carried her “happiness” in it. She didn't want to listen to their help because she thought she was fine.
 

“What’s the things we never showed you? What more could we have done for you? Where was I lacking that you had to go to these extremes?”

 

They must have done something wrong. They must have forgotten something, some indication some action or words that would have shown the realness about their love for her and how much they cared. Jae must have not done enough for her and her hidden dedication and maybe that’s what killed her.

 

The thought had run across his mind before. For a year he spent wondering what he’d done wrong. Wondering if there really was something that, had he pursued, would have saved her. The addiction took away all of the good in her life, and made her go through a real dark period of her life.

 

But it hadn’t always been bad.

 

Before the drugs, before the death of her parents, before the death of his grandmother, before they graduated high school the world seemed to revolve around all the possibilities of the future. It was a quiet time, a time of reflection and figuring out who you are.

 

Jae had known Brian all his life, but he had never much noticed Jimin before. To Jae she'd been his friends sister. He'd done so many mean things to her over the years, treating her like she was another pesky sibling to keep in line. And then highschool arrived and she'd come back after a year away in America. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She'd filled out a little, just enough to give her curves and a fuller bust. She'd grown her hair past her shoulders and no longer looked liked a tomboy with that awful chin length haircut.

 

And now Jae could see how beautiful and unlike Brian she was.

 

Where Brian was funny, her jokes were humorless. Where he was quiet she was extremely loud. Where Brian was kind and kept his opinions to himself Jimin was honest and wouldn’t take crap from anyone.

 

But there was something about her that had Jae head over heels.

 

Maybe it was her smile. Or the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. Maybe it was the way his grandmother, the only other person he had in the world, became attached to her. Or maybe it was the way she made him feel, like he was needed, like he was important, like he was loved…

 

Jimin is standing by the window and Jae sits at his desk seething. He hated lunch time the most.

Brian goes on talking about the movie they saw yesterday but Jae can’t focus on any of the words. Doesn’t Brian notice all the guys surrounding her? Bothering her? Doesn’t he want to get up and scare them all away? Jae sure does.

Instead Brian continues to talk, oblivious or unconcerned about them.

Jae continues to seeth.

Everyday it was the same thing.

Boys from all corners of the school came to talk to her, they tried impressing her with menial ‘talents’, or tried buying her love with food and gifts. Jae hated it. And he hated lunch the most because that is when more of them showed up. Jae never got to eat lunch with her.

Unable to stand another second of her giggling at something one of them said Jae stands and mumbles something to Brian about forgetting something in the gym and he walks out of the classroom.

He walks all the way down to the courtyard and sits on the grass, willing the anger to dissipate.

It isn’t even a minute after he’s sat down that he hears the light footfalls of someone who’s probably run after him. Jae sighs,

“Look Brian I just want to be alone right now.”

There is a moment of silence and Jae mentally thanks Brian for not asking any questions on his sudden outburst.

“Should I leave then?”

Jae whirls around surprised to s