As Jin made his way back toward the gym, the only thought that managed to anchor itself in my consciousness was this: If I let him leave, I will never recover. Living with eomma - growing up in the shadow of the divorce she's never bounced back from - must have played a role in my thinking.

But honestly, I wasn't thinking. I was acting on instinct. I was acting in the manner of a person hanging from a cliff by  their fingernails. It wasn't a calculation I made as I decided to run after him so much as it was the illustration of  fact. I couldn't let go.

"Get back here!" I shouted, running after him. "What is wrong with you!" I grabbed him by the arm. "What the hell?"

He stopped. He turned and gave me a look that said "I am way too bored to answer you question." Like he was a celebrity and I was a crazy fan begging for an autograph. Later, I realized his head must have been pounding. I don't think I ever fully comprehended how consistently his head was hurting at that time.

He sighed. "We're not good for each other." He sounded like he was reading from manual. "It's not good for us to be so intense about each other. It's high school. We're too young for this kind of relationship."

Only certain words penetrated my thinking. Had he said "good"? "Intense"? "Young"? I didn't understand how those were bad things. My skin felt dead, the initial pain in my gut transforming into numbness as it spread down to my toes and then made its way up to my face.

Jin was looking at the sky now, as if he were taking orders from the low clouds, which looked pink in the ambient light from the streetlamps. His jaw was tight, his eyes squinting.

And I was getting dizzy. I was starting to sway. I was going to have sit down, I knew that, but I also knew I couldn't move. As long as I stayed right where I was, the verdict on this conversation was still out. There was still a chance I could get Jin to explain himself, to change his mind. To get him to admit this was only an incredibly cruel joke.

"But -" I struggled to remember his words, and when I couldn't, I just said simply, "I like the way I feel with you. I thought you liked it too." My eyes had started to sting. To fill with water. There was a bitter taste in my mouth.

Jin looked at me, grimaced, and looked away. He mumbled something I couldn't understand.

"What was that?" I asked. I might have shouting. I guess I was acting angry, though inside I was drowning from feelings it was hard to name. I noticed the freshmen looking over at us. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"It's not a joke," Jin said.

I tried again to breathe and found I couldn't. "This - Jin - this hurts. I can't believe you'd hurt me like this."

"You need to believe it. I thought maybe . . ."

"Maybe what?"

"No. Maybe nothing. Maybes are over. I just need to walk away from you." He turned back toward the parking lot. "You need to be alone, to have me not be with you."

"No," I said. I was cold now, and I crossed my arms, my corsage brushing the inside of my right elbow, a reminder of how recently things had been good. 

"Trust me," he said, and he laughed a little bit.

"Trust?" I repeated. "You're laughing?" The combination struck me as so absurd I felt  a full rush of anger, which this time, thankfully, I knew  for what it was. I couldn't believe it, but eomma was right. Shinhye too. How could I possibly have given over so much of myself - my happiness - to someone who didn't even want it?

"Were you thinking about breaking up with me when you picked this out?" I shouted. I ripped the corsage off my wrist, and when Jin turned, I held it above my head, like a challenge. I cringed to realize that beneath my anger I was still hoping he'd come back to get the flowers, to get me.

But he didn't.

Instead, he held up both hands, like he was surrendering, showing me he wouldn't take the corsage  back.

So I threw it. I threw it as hard as I could and I stormed past him, back into the dance.

˭̡̞(◞⁎˃ᆺ˂)◞*✰

I was crying by the time I reached the gym. I brushed the tears away and skidded across some loose straw, nearly falling. Through the pulsing lights, I scanned each clump of bad dancers for Shinhye and found her nowhere. I didn't see Jaehwan either. They weren't by the snack table, or the registration table, or the DJ, or the bleachers.

And then there Shinhye was in the hall, on her way back from the bathroom. "Shinhye!" I shouted, tears streaming down my cheeks. I was choking. Snotting. Seeing me, she pulled me right back into the girls' room with her.

I never wear makeup, and once I was in a brightly lit space with a mirror, I could see that the mascara eomma had helped me put on had run, leaving raccoon-like half-moons under my eyes. Shinhye grabbed some tissue from one of the stalls and started wiping my face. Her diamond glistened under the lights. "What," she said. "Happened." This was a command.

I only got as far as saying "Jin" before my eyes began to well up again.

"Jin what?" she said. "Did you guys get into a fight?"

"No," I said. I sniffled. I blew my nose. "That's just it. It came out of nowhere."

"You're crying like he broke up with you," Shinhye said. "Omo, did he?"

I cried harder. Shinhye ducked into a stall to grab more tissue. "That's impossible. He's so into you. He's annoyingly into you."

"Not anymore."

"No," Shinhye said. "You misunderstood."

"There's no question," I said. "He couldn't have been more clear. I threw my corsage at him."

"Oh, boy," Shinhye said, sighing deeply in a way that let me know she understood how grave that was and also that, given the circumstances, she would have done the same exact thing. Good old Shinhye.

Or at least, I thought she was good old Shinhye until she said, "You've got to go talk to him."

"What?" I said.

"You can't just let him walk out on you at a dance like this. You've got to make sure you understand what's really going on, and not just whatever line he fed you."

"Later," I said. " I can't do it now."

"Later," she countered, "he'll have his story all set. If you want to know the truth, this is your moment."

"You think he's still even here?"

"Maybe he's with Jaehwan."

"Where is Jaehwan?" I said.

"He's on the roof. Everyone's up there."

And then suddenly, I understood.

"Omo," I said.

"Omo?" said Shinhye.

The roof.

With Shinhye a step behind me, I threw open the door, jogged down the hall from the bathroom, and careened around the corner into the lobby, where, without even checking to make sure a chaperone wasn't watching, I opened the door to the stairs leading to the roof that Jin had shown me so long ago and started to climb.

The roof. It was all about the roof. It had been all about the roof all night.