RILIE (SEPTEMBER, 2011)

After nearly twenty hours of flying, I haven’t yet closed my eyes once and is running strictly on black coffee. As soon I’m out of the airport terminal, I make my currency exchange for American dollars, purchase a roadmap in the nearest trinket store and rent a car, speeding straight towards the South Rim.

      I feel tremors rolling off of my body as I approach closer to my destination. It’s crazy, really, because I realize that I don’t even know who offers the photo shoot, which day they will be having the shoot or exactly which section of South Rim they will have the photo shoot on. I have no phone, no acquaintances ... I have nothing except for the thread of hope for a miracle: one that will allow me to somehow reach the South Rim in time to reach Changmin.

      A few minutes later, I begin to slow down my beat-up Volkswagen and coast along the bank of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, mindlessly searching.

      A holler from directly ahead jerks my eyes wide open, and I immediately stomped on the brake to prevent injuring the Asian man standing just a few meters away.

      “You are trespassing a reserved area,” he shouts in coarse English, “Please leave!”

      Hope ignites like fire in my chest and I shout back in higher volume. “Is this the photo shoot with Shim Changmin of TVXQ?” I ask impulsively. “If it is—I’m a friend of his, I’m here to visit him.”

      “Right.” He stands where he is, not a bit convinced by my statement.

      “Look, why don’t you tell him my name—it’s Rilie—and if he denies the fact that I’m his friend, you can kick me out.”

      He still stands his ground, and I regret my emergency brake from earlier. I should have just run him over and barge into the photo shoot; it would have involved much fewer complications. Provoked by my own insane thoughts, I start the ignition and shift the gear into “Drive” again; a spark of panic crosses the Asian man’s face as he waves his arms at me submissively. “Hold it!” I wait for him to go on, “look, it’s nothing against you, alright? I can’t let you see him even if you were really his friend. Max specifically instructed that he doesn’t want any visitors right now. Unless it’s a visit from the other member, Jung Yunho.”

      I feel a sickening churn in my guts as I process this information.

      Is this it, what I’ve crossed an ocean for? Yunho really means the world to him, and he really is determined to mend their friendship by shutting me out. I don’t blame him for never wanting to see my face again, but I feel as if I have just been shredded into a thousand pieces. I have no right to scream—I want to desperately, though. The thought of will never seeing his face again and only being left with the memories of sitting next to him cuts me to the core.

      I don’t say anything to the Asian man as I drive away from the photography site. Still half in a stupor, I loop around the margin of the Grand Canyon mindlessly. For the past hour that I’ve been driving, I have never even paid attention to the spectacular view: the golden, jagged contours of the rocks, the precarious yet dynamic levels of the cliffs...

      I slow down the drive and eventually cut the engine as I immerse myself in the striking prospect of nature. The thin line of the silver river is buried deep within the groove in between, a real-life reminder of the ugly fissure that I have torn between Changmin and Yunho.

      I feel cold tears wetting my cheeks as I surrender under the sublime evidence of nature. Huge gusts of wind sweep over the rocky land, sending specks of dust fluttering into the cloudless sky. Maybe it’s the dry heat that has me parched, maybe it’s because of the exhaustion from traveling, or maybe it’s because of the raw pain that I have swallowed for so long... I start to wail—frightening shrieks leaving my chapped lips—releasing all the sorrows that I ever wanted to tell to someone, anyone. No one is around, I’m sure of it, so when I overlook to the other side of the Grand Canyon, I feel a scream climbing up, its volume accumulating in my throat, the truth I’ve feared for so long finally escaping—

      “Shim Changmin! Where are you? Come back. I LOVE YOU, OKAY?”

      Then I whisper to myself, “...and I’m sorry I’ve been too terrified to let you know.”

      I stand where I am for a few more minutes, feeling the sunlight caressing my arms and kissing my cheeks.  The heartbeats that ensue are thunderous and deafening. I feel my heart finally opening up as the last drop of tear dries at the corner of my eye—I’m finally ready to go, and to let go.

      I turn and stroll towards my car, where I prepare for my departure back to where I truly belong: the university.  

      I take the time to prolong the drive back to the airport, feeling tranquil and impossibly light: the lightest I have felt for months. After I release the weight buried deep inside, I’m suddenly very aware of the breathtaking scenery and every aspect of life.

      So this time, when a man in a ridiculous, gaudy print tux and flipped collar waves at me from the side of the highway, I take notice right away and ease the pressure on the acceleration pedal as I squint my eyes at him in the blinding sunlight—

     Even with garish make-up smeared around his eyes and gelled hair styled into a single spike, it’s the face that I’ll never fail to recognize: it’s Changmin.

      My fingers begin to tremble against the steering wheel. I know he isn’t a mirage and I know it’s those one-in-a-million miracles that we are able to somehow meet in the midst of one of the biggest canyons in the world. It may have meant something, back then, when I still am not ready to loosen my hold onto this complicated mess, but now I can’t involve myself and make the same mistake twice.

      I bite my lips—hard—and drive past him without a second look, holding back the emerging tears again.

      “Rilie! RILIE!” I hear him shout in that signature high-pitched voice of his as I cruise farther away. My entire body begins to