I stood up quickly, almost knocking the chair over. After taking a few steps, I suddenly remembered Tiffany’s father’s presence in the room, which in hindsight was ridiculous since I was listening to him talk just a few seconds prior.

              I turned back around and bowed, saying, “I’m sorry for being rude, but I have to leave right now.”

              When I looked back up, he was smiling warmly. “Of course you do. Go, and thank you for being so patient with me,” he said. Now that I saw it, I could see another resemblance between Tiffany and her father: they both had really similar smiles. Maybe that was why I found him familiar.

              “Thank you,” I breathed out, turning around and sprinting out the door. “Tiffany!”

              She was down the hall, running in a manner that was much too cute for this situation. I ran after her, lamenting my lack of athleticism. It felt improper to move around so erratically in a place as exquisitely decorated as this one but disregarded those sentiments, comforting Tiffany being on the forefront of my thoughts.

              It was only because of the delay in the automatic doors that I managed to catch up with her; before she could rush past the second set, I lunged forward and grabbed her arm.

              “Fany, wait,” I said, already breathless. She stopped in her tracks right in front of the last sliding door, her back turned towards me, unmoving.

              “Taeyeon…?” Her voice was soft, frail, all the qualities that I didn’t associate with Tiffany.

              “Let’s move aside,” I suggested, pulling her to the side. She offered no resistance, following me listlessly. When I turned her around to face me, I felt my chest squeeze, breath abruptly leaving my lungs.

              “Taeyeon…let go…”

              Her whole face was stained with tears, her eyes shining, reflecting the dim lighting from the restaurant. Her eyes were cast downwards, desperately avoiding eye contact with me. She looked more vulnerable than I have ever seen her: more so than in front of that lady at the mall, more so than at the beach when she was getting harassed.

              Tiffany’s words echoed through my mind. ‘I ed myself’ … ‘I ed myself’ … honestly, I couldn’t believe it. My initial instinct was to refuse to believe it, but knowing Tiffany, she had no reason to lie. Not only that, but so many other things made sense: why those men harassed Tiffany, Tiffany’s reactions to the men, even the scary-looking rich lady who I had surmised was Tiffany’s coworker from a previous job and why Tiffany was so afraid of her.

              How long did she endure the pain of her past, all alone? If only I had met Tiffany earlier … if only I could’ve helped her more … the thought frustrated me. How hard it must have been for Tiffany … to what lengths did she go through just to survive? It only made me admire my girlfriend that much more.

              Still, even with those thoughts in my head, the horrible lingering sentiment existed: that Tiffany has had with other men before. That she gave her body away like that—I felt like an evil person just for having these thoughts, knowing that her actions were a result of other people’s influence onto her teenage self, but they existed nonetheless.

              But if I was having all these thoughts, what must Tiffany be thinking? If just knowing what Tiffany went through hurt me so much, how much did it hurt the actual person who experienced it?

              “Fany, what’s wrong?” I asked with shaky breath, discovering that I too was on the verge of tears. Stop this Taeyeon, I have to be strong for her this time.

              “D-Don’t you hate me? Don’t you find me disgusting? Aren’t I such a hypocrite, saying all that about hating lies while lying to you all this time?” she cried, her voice breaking.

              “No! No, what do you—of course not!” I said, pulling her into a hug without a second thought. While it wasn’t the first time seeing her sad, it was my first time seeing her so broken. How could Tiffany say that? It broke my heart that much more that she even thought that: I could never—never—hate Tiffany, or even dislike her. Was this what she was afraid of? “I could never hate you, or even dislike you, Fany. I hope you realize this,” I said in a desperate attempt to convey my thoughts to her, hoping, praying that she could understand the depths of my emotions towards her with those few simple words.

              “Didn’t you hear me though?” she replied, not so much as responding to my embrace, “That I-I’m…I’m a sl—”

              “Stop that.”

              I cut her off with a firm voice, pulling back enough to directly look into her eyes. “I won’t let you talk about yourself like that. You’re not—I mean, it doesn’t make sense—” I groaned, stopping myself mid-sentence. I could say that, it most certainly wouldn’t help; why was I so bad with words? “I mean, I don’t care what your past is, I don’t care if you think you’re a hypocrite, I love you because of you. If the you that I fell in love with already experienced all those horrible things, what makes you think that just learning about your past will make me love you any less?” As I said that, my overactive brain conveniently compiled on a list of answers to my rhetorical questions, so I hastily followed it up with, “It’s not like I fell in love with the you from five or ten years ago, I fell in love with the you that’s in front of me.”

              Tiffany pushed against me in an attempt to escape, but I gripped her unrelentingly, squeezing her tightly in my embrace. “Don’t you understand? I’ve already … with other men, with strangers…” I felt my arm muscles tense up. An inexplicable anger and frustration filled me; not towards Tiffany, towards the high schoolers that bullied Tiffany into ion. “I’m dirty, Taeyeon; an angel like you can’t associate yourself with someone as dirty as me. I can’t give you my first time, or second time, or even third time … dating me means you will never get to experience all the normal couple things you deserve. It’s better if you just broke up with me and—”

              The rest of her sentence was drowned out by such an inexplicable fear that I found my oxygen supply brusquely cut off; it was like someone had stabbed a dull, jagged knife into my chest and twisted it, causing an abrupt squeezing pain in my lungs. I wanted to grasp at my chest to quell the pain but found myself frozen, stricken with fear of the thought of Tiffany leaving me. Was I not enough? What went wrong? Was this going to be the same as it was in middle school? No, Tiffany isn’t that kind of person; but if that’s the case, then it had to be me, right? What did I do? Should I have—

              I regained my senses when I felt something warm, something wet, something familiar on my lips … Tiffany?

              My eyes went wide as I checked and discovered that, sure enough, Tiffany’s closed eyes were just centimeters from mine.

              Just as quickly as the kiss was initiated, it ended. Tiffany had a sort of wistful look on her face, one that spoke of regret and sorrow. “Taeyeon, don’t look at me like that, you’re going to break my heart,” she said, her words accompanied with a melancholy giggle.

              “Wh—What?” I stammered, utterly confused as to events that transpired in the last few seconds.

              “You know Taeyeon, you really are amazing,” she said, grabbing my hand as I just continued to stare at her, dumbfounded, “If you had just said something like ‘I would never break up with you!’ or ‘Tiffany, don’t even think that!’, I wouldn’t have believed you fully. But instead, when I suggested that, you looked so scared that you looked as if you were about to pass out; I didn’t mean to scare you, but it’s really reassuring that you value me that much~”

              Tiffany’s signature smile returned to her face before long, granting me immense relief. There was no need for Tiffany to know that my immense lack of self-confidence was what had wrought my reaction. If she interpreted my weakness as her comfort, who was I to tell her otherwise?

              “Um, we should move somewhere else,” I said, looking around uneasily; thankfully, there wasn’t anyone around whom we might have bothered, but I didn’t want to stand around and wait until that happened.

              I grabbed her hand and walked outside, Tiffany obediently following me. Honestly, I had a million questions running through my head, but I held back, knowing the subject was probably a sore one for Tiffany. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop my overactive brain from thinking about them: was she really popular at her previous workplace? How did she even find a brothel, having just come out of high school? Was her work personality much different than her normal one? Did she … did she enjoy it?

              It felt like no time at all before we arrived at my house.

              “Taeyeon?”

              I looked back as I reached for my key.

              “Do you want me to, um, talk about it?”

              YES, my brain screamed. However, I knew better, simply smiling and shaking my head. “It’s a sensitive topic for you, right?” I said as I turned back around to open the door, although honestly, the primary reason was to have an excuse for avoiding eye contact with Tiffany before explicitly lying to her, “If you don’t want to talk about it, then I don’t want to hear about it.”

              The lock clicked open and I pushed the door forward, the metallic gate to creaking open.

              As we stepped into the house, Tiffany’s spoke up again. “You don’t have to lie for my sake, Taeyeon.”

              I froze on the spot, subconsciously squeezing Tiffany’s hand.

              “It’s ok Taeyeon, I’m not mad at you or anything,” she continued, smiling warmly, “I just figured that you were really curious, which I can understand. I’ll tell you; you are my girlfriend after all, you deserve to know.”

              “Are you sure?” I cautiously inquired, her answering with a firm nod.

              After we had settled in my bedroom, Tiffany sighed deeply before starting. “Taeyeon, I have one more thing to admit, one more secret that I’ve kept from you that you need to know.”

              I nodded with bated breath.

              “We knew each other in our childhood.”

              Even though I had already surmised about this and figured it was a possibility, to hear it from Tiffany’s own lips was a shock in and of itself. The cogs in my mind started spinning, connecting the little bits and pieces together: undoubtedly, Tiffany was the ‘Stephanie’ I knew from back in my time in America. However, Tiffany changed so much: the Stephanie I recalled was always the slightest bit chubby, but now she was skinny to the point of being able to see a few of her bones through her skin. Still, was that why I found her so familiar when I first met her? If we were friends once before, it made sense that we could become friends again so easily. But also, was that why I found Tiffany’s dad so familiar? Because I, too, knew him via Tiffany? Or was it just that Tiffany and her father shared a similar smile?

              “I recognized you right away and I really couldn’t believe it; I was in love with you as a child, or at the least liked you a lot, so it was always like a fantastic, far away dream of mine to reunite with you. But when I saw you again in that bar over a month ago, I remember feeling like I was in a dream; I had to pinch myself over and over before convincing myself that it was reality, and it was only after that man started flirting with you that I came to my senses and found the courage to approach you. However, it was also then that I made up my mind: if you didn’t recognize me, which I found highly likely, then I wouldn’t reveal this bit of information to you until I told you about my past.  The reason was because I was too ashamed of myself, and I feared that if you were reminded of me from your childhood, that you would inevitably question my recent past.

              “On top of that, my memories with you in my childhood was the happiest point in my life. I treasured them immensely and felt that, somehow, if I told you the truth about our past, my recent past would taint those memories. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

              “It was because you left so suddenly that I became … you know, so aggressive in my relationships.” I smiled; it was a dangerous thing for my heart whenever she was being ‘aggressive’, but I was genuinely thankful for her. After all, from how insecure I was, it was my saving grace—my daily reminder that indeed, our relationship was real. “It was always a scary concept to me, loving someone but not ever having the chance to tell her because of my own cowardice. So from then on, I told myself that should I ever fall in love again, I would actively pursue the relationship and hold onto it with an iron grip.

              “You know, actually, when we were young, I didn’t know Korean that well, so when you told me your name, I found it hard to pronounce and instead just called you ‘TaeTae’. You corrected me many times, but I insisted on calling you that because I found it cuter. I’m not sure if that seemed familiar to you, but that’s were that nickname came from.” I found myself smiling again. The nickname did seem familiar, but again I always had trouble placing my finger on the mark; it was one of those ever-elusive, just-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue memories that frustrated me, so learning its origin was satisfying to say the least.

              “Wait,” I said, coming to a realization. My memory, in general, wasn’t that bad: so how was it that Tiffany remembered all of this, but I didn’t? “If you remember all of this … I wonder why I couldn’t…”

              Tiffany smiled brightly in response. “Those memories were of my first love, after all; even if they were from way back then, when our brains were still undergoing major development, those memories were invaluable to me, so I held onto them fiercely. I don’t blame you for not remembering: not only were we really young back then, but I also looked much different then as opposed to now.

              “There’s one other thing that I wanted to tell you about: the reason why I reacted the way I did when you confessed to me.” I nodded, pulling the memory from my brain: I remember panicking a lot due to her petrified expression, wondering if I messed up or if I shouldn’t have spoken my mind after all. “I’ve had many, many, dreams about you with me in that kind of situation; after some time though, these dreams started taxing my brain because it was always so horrible to wake up from those dreams, realizing that it wasn’t real and that I missed my chance long ago, and I sitting in my bed to cry for a few minutes. Having those dreams always drained the energy out of me would ruin the rest of the day for me, sometimes even the next few days. So when you actually confessed to me, I was scared and had to check with myself that I wasn’t dreaming before responding to you.”

              An uneasy feeling bubbled within me, guilt stirring my consciousness. It was my fault that Tiffany had these bad days, my brain seemed to tell me. Maybe it wasn’t fair to say it, but it certainly felt like it was true.

              My memories of ‘Stephanie’ were hazy at best, but what was undeniable was that it was a generally nice feeling. I could tell that I liked Tiffany as a child too, but something like love … back then, I don’t think I ever felt anything like that with her. Could that be another reason why I didn’t remember Tiffany after meeting her: she not only looks different but acts differently as well?

              “But I think I’ve stalled long enough. About my life after high school: you want to know about that, right?”

              I considered my response extremely carefully before nodding, figuring she wouldn’t grant me any favors should I lie again.

              She nodded, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before beginning. “I came to Korea at the start of my sophomore year. As my father said, he provided me a bank account with enough money to last all of high school, including food, rent, tuition, transportation, a bit of entertainment, everything. Theoretically, at least.

              “When I came to Korea, my Korean was still really poor and I had a terrible American accent; not only that, I was shy due to being in what was then a foreign country to me. I had no one to rely on, and the workload in South Korean schools was much greater than what I was used to, so the combination of everything: bullying from others for my accent and my shyness, stress from dealing with mortgage and bills and everything else, not knowing how to deal with an explosive increase in schoolwork, all of it accumulated into a bunch of stress that I relieved by eating. A lot.

              “My money was also spent on some other things I tested to relieve my stress: concerts and fan meetings, luxurious vacations, even…” Tiffany stopped, a troubled look on her face. Before I could comfort her, she continued on, “even drugs. All of it caught up to me eventually, and as I started getting bigger, my bank account was getting smaller. Of course, already being a primed subject to bullying, my classmates started also bullying me for my weight: even my teachers, whom I before found at least some solace in, started criticizing me harshly for gaining so much weight.”

              I felt my fists tighten in anger. I wanted to shout, to scream in rage, but I dared not interrupt Tiffany. How evil—how horribly evil were these people to bully such an obviously vulnerable girl? While I had my fair share of experience with South Korean high school gossip, the fact that it never affected me meant that I never realized how severe it was. But for even the teachers to act this way … if only I could’ve been there for her, somehow … if only I could’ve found her earlier and protected her, Tiffany would’ve have had to go through all the difficulties in life she was forced through. It frustrated me to no end, but I somehow managed to keep it inside my small body.

              “Around the start of senior year, the money in my bank account had run out: I had absolutely no money to pay for my rent, my bills, my food, nothing. I ditched the bank account the first chance I could as it was my only connection to the man I despised, not having done so before because it was my lifeline. I was forced to significantly downgrade my living space and spent most of my time in libraries so I wouldn’t have to pay for heating and electricity bills. I began skipping a lot of meals every day, even though it was extremely painful for the me that was used to eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to, and before long, I became incredibly skinny—much more so than now.

              “Nothing changed with my social standing in school, though. I was already known as the loner girl who was an easy target to bully, so when I went through rapid weight lost and became really skinny, the boys started to lust over me, even those with girlfriends. Because of this, negative rumors started to spread: for example, that I had seduced and slept with a girl’s boyfriend, and the girls started to hate me even more. Girls in passing would try to trip me and push me and call me ‘’ behind my back while the guys ually assaulted me, grabbing m-my—my and even s as they passed.”

              Tiffany rarely stuttered: I realized that this was probably something she forced herself to learn given her circumstances and was something I always admired her for, but the fact that she did so just now was a clear indicator of the trauma she experienced from that memory, if it wasn’t already clear from her troubled gaze, her trembling lips, and her tensed arm muscles. I placed my hand over her fist, to which Tiffany looked over at me with a startled expression that morphed into a relieved one. As angry and frustrated as I was, I had to repress those emotions and to reassure her, comfort her. If I was feeling these things, how must Tiffany have felt? Biting my lip was all I could do to keep myself from just screaming or crying in frustration.

              “I’m here for you Fany,” I told her. She nodded and continued shortly after.

              “At this point, I was too scared of the teachers to tell them what was happening, and of course reporting this to the police or anything was too scary of a task. What if they just laughed me off and asked for evidence? I had none: even if I wanted someone to appeal as an eye witness, because of how unpopular I was, no one would help me. In fact, the contrary would probably happen; so I just bit my lip, closed my eyes, and dealt with it.

              “By the time I finished high school, I was in major debt. By graduation, my grades were just barely passable, so I knew that trying to find some kind of academic-related job was pointless: I also didn’t have the financial supporting to pay for college, so I knew my only option was to find a job in the workforce. And as I said earlier, the young impressionable me was taught by my peers that the only redeeming quality about myself was my body; that on top of my impatient debtors who actually pressured me into ion was the reason why and how I entered the industry.”

              Tiffany stopped there, looking at me like she was seeking my approval to continue. Proud of myself, despite everything, for picking this up, I replied, “If you feel comfortable, then continue; otherwise, don’t force yourself.”

              This time, I was genuine; not only did I not want to reopen Tiffany’s psychological and emotional wounds, but I wasn’t exactly sure how much I wanted to hear of this part in my girlfriend’s life. Still, there was a deeper, darker, more curious part of me that secretly yearned to know it.

              Tiffany, perhaps picking this up, continued. “I’m sure you’re not exactly eager to hear about this part of your girlfriend’s life, so I’ll try to keep it simple. I was really popular: I’m not one hundred percent sure why, but I think it was a mixture of my foreign appearance, that I was still relatively young, the cheerful personality I used while working, and my body. At first, everything was fine: I found—” Tiffany stopped, cutting herself off as if she suddenly lost her voice.

              “What’s wrong?”

              Tiffany bit her lip in concern, something I found unnecessarily y. God damn it Taeyeon, this is not the time to be thinking such things.

              “You can trust me. Nothing you say will change the fact that I love you,” I told her.

              This seemed to do the trick: she nodded and took a few more seconds to herself before resuming her narrative. “I found solace in my customers. The amount of bullying I endured in high school took a toll on my mental health and feeling of self-worth, and in addition to having to live alone and deal with everything myself, I found an outlet to not only relieve all my pent up stress, but also regain a feeling, however artificial, of self-worth by talking to my customers, and also—” I could tell that she had suddenly changed her tone to more cautious, and while it was true that I found myself feeling jealous, I decided to ignore the feeling. This was in the past, after all, before she even knew me—or rather, before we were reunited. “—you know, flirted with them and even had … well, did it.”

              Tiffany cast her eyes down, pulling her hand away; however, I held firm, grasping her hand tightly. “It’s ok Tiffany,” I told her, “It’s not your fault.”

              Tiffany suddenly sniffled, her eyes releasing a single tear. “Taeyeon, why are you so perfect?”

              I was once again caught by surprise. “What?” was the only response I could muster.

              “You’re so forgiving, so kind, what have I ever done to deserve you?”

              I forced myself not to answer for a few seconds, not trusting myself to reveal how much I needed Tiffany, how necessary she became to my life, the real reason why I wouldn’t even have to consider forgiving Tiffany for something before doing so. It felt horrible to hide this from her, considering the fact that Tiffany was essentially baring her heart and soul, her very essence, to me; I wondered how I could be so evil to be this selfish, but still I found myself unable to do it.

              “I think the better question is how could you be so strong after enduring so many hardships,” I replied, covering the back of her hand with my free hand. “It’s been hard, hasn’t it?”

              It was then that Tiffany burst into tears, throwing herself into my arms. I readily accepted it, shifting so that Tiffany was in a comfortable position, the back of Tiffany’s head that rested on my right shoulder as she wailed, her body shaking uncontrollably.

              “Taeyeon … Taeyeon … I’m so lucky to have been able to meet you again…”

              Her syllables were barely distinguishable, her accent more prominent than ever, but I somehow understood her perfectly anyway. I found myself tearing up, the cool tickling feeling of my own tears sliding down my cheeks jarring me somewhat as my girlfriend, normally so strong and so brave, so passionate and bubbly, was reduced to such a vulnerable state.

               “You’re wrong, Fany. I’m the lucky one, having such a strong girlfriend like you.”

              I didn’t dare wipe my tears with either of my preoccupied hands, letting my tears slide all the way down to my chin as Tiffany continued crying, sobbing, in my arms. I could feel all the hidden sorrow, guilt, everything being released as the room echoed with her cries.

              We just stayed like this for a while longer, in each other’s arms.

Wow, so much background info :o

I know what some of you might be thinking: “Wow, it sure is a nice coincidence that Tiffany and Taeyeon just HAPPENED to know each other in the past”, right? There’s a reason for this: if you thought this was all I had to reveal, just sit tight and let the story play out >:) there’s so much more I have in store. I’ll just throw in a hint: it has to do with their parents.

By chance, was anyone able to guess that this was Tiffany’s secret, or something similar to this? I’ve dropped a few hints I think, and I even foreshadowed it in the first few sentences of the story if anyone remembers those :D

Anyway, as always, hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!

P.S. check out my facebook page https://fb.me/affkesujo; if you want notifications as soon as something new gets uploaded or updates on my process on the newest chapter, then go ahead and give it a like/follow! :D