Waste

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"A waste, what a waste,

What a waste to be so alone."

It was a Saturday morning two weeks later that she realised just how deep Seungwan’s issues truly went. She had not known what it would be like until it hit her. Yet there was something oddly life affirming in it. Something that made her feel like Seungwan was closer to her, more attuned. As if their shared existence included every aspect of their lives, the up and the down, bad and the good.

She awoke just after nine in the morning to a thin string of sunlight from the blinds. Seungwan was still asleep, back to her. Joohyun took a while to lie and appreciate her. She was so beautiful. The rise and fall of her chest, the soft sound of her breathing, the pale tenderness of her back through her shirt. Joohyun placed a delicate kiss between her shoulderblades and pushed the covers back and climbed out and went on through into the kitchen to make breakfast.

She never heard Seungwan stir at all, which was strange. Usually she would be up the earliest of the two of them. She brushed her teeth and then she fried up bacon and eggs for herself and made a coffee and ate at the table in silence. The day looked chalky and distant and likely it would rain and the world appeared at once like something stencilled out of graphite, like a false impression of what the world should look like. She finished her breakfast and her coffee and listened. Only the clock. After a while she went and showered and changed and sat writing out poetry and still Seungwan did not get up.

The email came just after eleven. She had not expected it at all. She read it three times before sending a reply and when she went into the bedroom to tell Seungwan she was grinning ear to ear. Seungwan was awake, sat there resting against the headboard and browsing her phone in silence. She glanced up at Joohyun in the doorway and said, ‘What?’

‘You’ll never guess who I just got an email from.’

‘Who?’

‘Wendigo Books. They said they were willing to reschedule the meeting and had a slot open for me next week if I could make it. And I said yes. I think they still want to publish my poetry.’

Seungwan smiled weakly. ‘That’s great,’ she said.

‘Maybe ditching them that day wasn’t so bad after all.’

‘Well it helped me as well. So maybe not.’

Joohyun looked at her. The silence felt sacred, as if there was something enormous being hidden. ‘What’s up?’ she said.

Seungwan shook her head dismissively. She looked almost embarrassed to speak. Joohyun came and sat beside her on the bed and turned to her said in a gentle and loving voice, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s just…you know. One of those days.’

Joohyun encouraged her to continue and she did. ‘My depressive moods,’ she said. ‘I get ups and downs. With the new medication thankfully these past six months or so have been a lot more up than down, but still. Every now and again I get like this. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just one of those things. It’s just a mental thing. Goes hand in hand with the anxiety. There’s not a lot that can fix it, if anything. The medication already tries that and, well, it only gets so far. Guess it’s one of those “live with it” things. I’ve been doing that for a long time.’

Joohyun just smiled at her.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.

‘There’s nothing to be sorry for.’

‘I feel like I’m bringing the mood down or something.’

‘You’re not.’

‘I’m really happy for you. I mean it. And I think you’re going to get that deal. If they bothered to email you after you literally ditched them then they must be super interested, right?’

‘I guess so,’ said Joohyun. She spent a minute just appreciating Seungwan again. How lucky she was.

‘Sorry,’ Seungwan said.

‘Stop it.’

‘I feel like I should do something other than mope around your apartment. I feel like all I’ve been doing the past few weeks is taking advantage of how good and kind and giving you are, and not doing anything in return. And I know what you’re going to say – you’re going to tell me to knock it off. You did last week when I confessed everything to you.’

‘Those pancakes were really good, to be fair. Made me forget everything.’

Seungwan smiled a hollow smile. ‘Sorry,’ she said again, distant and empty. ‘It feels like I’m almost purposely dragging down your moment like this. I wish you’d told me tomorrow or something.’

‘We could always pretend.’

Seungwan ignored her. She said again, ‘I’m really happy for you. You deserve this more than anyone, for everything you’ve done. Not just for me. You’re so talented and so hardworking and so diligent and I love you. And I wish I felt differently than I do right now. I really do. I’m sorry. I know all I do is say sorry, but I am.’

‘Seungwan.’

‘I’ve done it again. Gone and made this about myself. Being selfish, like always.’

‘Stop it.’

She shifted against the headboard and ran a gentle hand across Joohyun’s cheek with a soft smile and said, ‘Sorry. I’m so proud of you.’

‘Don’t be stupid. That’s really stupid.’

‘What? What is? Being proud of you?’

‘No,’ Joohyun said. ‘Everything you’ve just said. Everything about you being selfish and bringing the mood down and ruining things and ruining my moment. It’s all just stupid.’

‘Why?’

‘Your mental health always comes first. If you’re ever feeling down, even for a moment, just talk to me, okay? I’m always here for you. Always. Doesn’t matter if it’s four in the morning and you’re on the other side of the world in Dallas, or if I’m in a meeting with my publisher, or I’m at work, or I’m, like, I don’t know…at a theatre or something.’

‘Why would you be at a theatre?’

‘I don’t know. It was an example. What I mean is, I’m always, always here for you. And I’ll always listen. Doesn’t matter how small you think it is, or how much you think you’re being a nuisance or bugging me or whatever, because you’re not. I’ll always be here to help you, because you’d do the same. You’ve already done the same. Don’t think that just because I don’t mention it as much or it’s not as outwardly obvious because I don’t have a public-facing job that you haven’t helped me just as much. Probably much more. It’s probably why I still feel like I owe you such a debt, really.’

‘What?’

‘There was a time very recently where I thought I’d never love anybody again. I know I’ve told you this before, but I feel like I want you to know now fully, because of everything you’ve said about feeling guilty. About taking and never giving back. Well, you have. You’ve given me more than you could ever fully know. You’ve given me back the happiness I’d lost a long time ago. You’ve made up for years of my life I spent in misery, angry at myself and angry at others and at the world and hurting and wanting nothing more than to just shut myself off from the world forever. To ignore everyone.

‘That was a lot more recent than I’d like to admit. And then you came along and you made me feel things again, like an actual human being, and it felt right. I felt wanted and accepted. I didn’t have to hide, or be ashamed of who I was, what I was. What I still am. I don’t have to hide. I can be proud of being me. You’ve helped me with that. Just because I don’t say it as much doesn’t mean I don’t mean it. So if you ever – ever – need anything from me, you just tell me. Don’t even think twice about it. You know how you’ve said that I’m the only person that you can be comfortable around? Even more than Seulgi and your parents?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, there you go. Doesn’t matter how insignificant you think it is, because it isn’t. Not if it gets to you. You don’t have to suffer in silence. I love you, Seungwan.’

‘I love you too.’

She smiled again. There was a solemn sadness in Seungwan’s eyes that broke her heart. It told her that same sadness would never truly disappear. It would stay with her for life, like an uncanny and bitter foretaste of something that would never come to a head, could not be fully resolved, a sort of prewarning for some wretched dormancy of spirit. ‘I think we should go for a walk or something today,’ Joohyun said. ‘Maybe go for a walk along the river.’

Seungwan smiled apologetically. She looked so very tired. So exhausted with everything. ‘I kind of feel like just staying in,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Okay,’ Joohyun said. ‘Whatever you want. Today’s about you. Hey, I’ve got a better idea anyway. I’m feeling like we order in a bunch of food and watch a bunch of movies with the lights off. Just you and me. Maybe get out a couple candles and make it cosy. I haven’t sat down and watched anything since, like, last Christmas.’

‘Sure. That sounds good.’

‘Okay,’ Joohyun said again. She kissed Seungwan softly and smiled and Seungwan smiled back, and all she could think in that moment, small and fleeting and then lost, was:

Don’t even lose sight of that smile. Don’t ever let it go.

The movies were stuff they found on Netflix.

Sat on the livingroom couch with the blinds pulled down shut and the bedsheets draped over them. Boxes of half-eaten chicken and fries and garlic bread on the coffee table. Tall plastic cups of iced tea. A bucket of popcorn. A lavender-scented air purifier in the shape of a wooden onion and two Roman candles flickering delicately and smelling of vanilla. Curled up together, Joohyun with her legs stretched out and resting on the table edge and Seungwan’s head resting gently in her lap, fingers locked, silent and smiling.

Times like this she savoured the most. The silence of it all. Life could be so hectic she rarely had the energy to stop and make time for the smaller things. The gaps – holes. Leaves falling in the path of the sun. The yellowing of the grass in the park. Rainfall on the bus shelter rooves going pitter patter. The warmth of good coffee on a bitter autumn day. Paperwinged birds dancing on the telephone poles. Bad movies on Netflix with her girlfriend, hand in hand, her hair, not saying a word.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to slow down. Things will come and they will do so in time and there is no need to rush. To rush is to let the beauty of it all pass you by. She brushed the back of Seungwan’s hand softly and Seungwan said, in a whisper, ‘Thank you.’

When the movie was finished she nudged Seungwan up a slight and grabbed the remote and flicked to another page of movies and began a new one. The chicken had gone cold and the fries were limp and tasted awful but the popcorn was still good. She ate a mouthful and passed some to Seungwan and sat back with a smile that would not leave her face for a long time. Seungwan lay in her lap again, small and beautiful and very loved.

Halfway through the movie she realised the sun had bled away and it was growing dark. There were motes of dust turning in the narrow shift of moonlight where they had left the curtains open just a slight. Seungwan had been so silent for most of the afternoon Joohyun thought more than once she might have fallen asleep. The movie played on but she paid it little attention. Just sat ensuring Seungwan was as comfortable as possible. That she knew how cherished she was, how cared for. Perhaps some would have called it a day wasted but Joohyun knew in her heart of hearts as sincere as anything that it was just the opposite. That there had never quite been as productive a day as this. That silence could be in some strange order of paradox the loudest thing of all.

Seungwan shifted in her lap and nudged herself upright and smiled thinly. Joohyun forced a smile back. She thought of so many things and each of them broke her heart all over again. Could it be resolved? Brought to a conclusion? Could this sadness within Seungwan’s own heart be ever truly categorised?

The painful and bitter truth was that there was no reason to it, never had been, and that made it all the worse. There could be no attempt to fix that which could not be understood as having been broken in the first place. No root cause to search out. Her happiness existed on its own metronome, coming and going, forever in flux. One day right and one day wrong. And what made it worst of all was how Joohyun knew this and how Seungwan herself knew this and how nobody else seemed to.

Joohyun glanced at her again. Sat there with her legs curled up and her blonde hair pooled over Joohyun’s own shoulder like thin yellow silk. Wearing nothing but her underwear and a thin cotton shirt that was two sizes too large and almost down to her knees when she stood up. Small and silent and smelling of Joohyun and their bedsheets and popcorn and pale in the dark and pale when the glimmer of the movie’s reflection twinned up in her distant eyes.

What would Sooyoung think of this? What would anyone? That turned her heart darkest of all. That perhaps Sooyoung would understood or somebody like her would but not all of them. There would always be one or more contrary to this that would deem her problems lesser than the action undertaken to attempt to solve then. Probability as a force of the universe ensured this and inhered in the principle. It was this as an unshakeable truth that Joohyun could not reconcile with. The world seemed to her to lack a certain colourful empathy. Seemed to have been missing a kindness to it. She looked at Seungwan again and as the movie played on quietly she thought perhaps her own life had also been absent that same kindness for a very long time.

They went to bed sometime after ten having done nothing but watch movies and eat takeout food. It stank of fried chicken and lavender from the purifier and vaguely of the vanilla Roman candles burnt out to thin cindered stalks. Seungwan hadn’t even got dressed. As she climbed into bed and smiled a soft and tired smile Joohyun brought them both coffee and sat beside her sipping it slowly against the watery glare of the bedside lamp with a certain minor satisfaction in her heart at having done all she could.

Seungwan finished her coffee and set it down on the table and Joohyun leant over and did the same. ‘Are you okay?’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ said Seungwan with a smile. ‘I’m good. Thank you.’

Joohyun was silent. She Seungwan’s cheek and kissed her and smiled back. Thinking:

What part of this was wasted? None of it. None at all.