Karina ends up getting alcohol poisoning.

Too many martinis and Moët (oh, and a handful of sleeping pills) vacates her in the emergency room where bustling doctors pump her stomach. Sadly, they don’t have any medicine for a broken heart. It’s already the near end of the semester — not that she cares, sadly, she’s given up on academics for the time being — and she spent about two weeks in the hospital. Her mother doesn’t know what to say and Winter doesn’t even bother anymore. Karina wonders all day, every day, where Jeno disappeared off to. She’s heard how he was the one who found her unconscious on the floor and called an ambulance but even now that doesn’t move her. She’s a young alcoholic in the making, facing reality has made her come to this simple epiphany: alcohol has been there for her more than Jeno ever had. Smiling bitterly, she craves a real, strong martini. Maybe she’s so far gone in delirium, she doesn’t even pay attention to what the nurses who flitter in and out her room say. She doesn’t even bat an eye when the grey-haired doctor reveals to her how she’s lucky she’s still alive. All the lectures fall on deaf ears. What would they know? Through drinking heavily she can at least breathe.

“What do you think about rehab?” Winter tearily asks one evening. She’s brung flowers and a fruit basket with her, their mother refuses to see her eldest daughter like this.

Karina scoffs around the straw of her Mexican Coke bottle. She smirks down at her hospital gown and all the tubes attached to her arm. “What? Don’t like the heroin chic look on me?”

“Yah, I’m the one who cracks jokes. How can you even try to be funny in this situation?”

Karina resents Winter’s teary gaze but musters up a believing smile. “Hmm. I can be sober if I really wanted to, you little brat. Don’t worry about me and take care of umma.”

Winter shoots the elder a suspicious grimace. “Why are you so nice all of a sudden? You must be really sick if you don’t have the strength to be the grumpy old hag that you are.”

“I prefer being a witch than a hag,” Karina’s surprised she can actually chuckle at Winter’s deadpan expression. Then again, when was the last time she felt like herself? She stares at her pouting younger sister and wonders why she never bothered to keep up with her anymore. Knowing this brat, she’s probably made a lot of friends. She was always a social butterfly, just like appa—. . . Karina, you’ve really done it this time. How could you nearly die from alcohol poisoning? Why does it feel like déjà vu? The more I think about it, the more embarrassing this is. I’m so pathetic now, even I don’t want to deal with me. She sighs and idly rubs at her temples. “Just make fun of me like you usually do. Tell me how I let some stupid playboy ruin my life.”

“Momentarily,” Winter quickly corrects, “He only momentarily ruined your life.”

Cue to an eye-rolling Karina. “Thanks, I feel so much better.”

“Unnie. . . This isn’t forever, right?”

At one point I believed in forever. Not anymore. “I’m sorry. I really, truly am. It’s just that this past couple of weeks it’s been so hard for me to skip a day without drinking. Being sober was seriously hard, I couldn’t do anything if there wasn’t a drink in my hand. . . It felt like the world was being so cold to me, everything was unbearable and I couldn’t fall asleep.” She blinks back tears as Winter’s sobs begin to increase. She thinks they’re both pitiful. And regretfully, Karina misses both her parents. It’s so predictable and annoying, she misses life before it revealed it’s ugly fangs and ruined the fairytale naivety of her adolescence. A single tear drop rolls down her dried cheeks. “I just wanted to be loved. . . Is that such a bad thing?”

Winter shakes her head meaningfully. “No. You’ve been through enough already. We all need a little bit of love, don’t we?”

For the first time in what seems like years, the two sisters share a hug.

Much to her surprise, later that day Jeno also visits her. Karina pictures black roses, black cigarettes, but most of all, his smoldering black eyes. In the sweet age of her twenties, he had stole her heart like a store robbery with the loaded guns of his charm and poetry. With pretty words full of sugar-coated lies, he always acted like he would give her everything. Now she wants rum, gin and tonics, and vodka. She wants escape. She wants oxygen. Not him entering her room so awkwardly and pretending to be caring for her sake.

“Karina,” He starts hesitantly, remaining by the closed door where they keep a safe distance, “It’s a relief you’re okay. . Do you know how scary it was for me to walk in on you passed out on my living room floor? I thought. . . I thought you were dead. You really scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” She dryly retorts. Under her icy gaze, Jeno involuntarily squirms. They both know that she wants to know exactly where he’s been.

“It’s okay. If anything, I should be apologizing for coming to see you only now.”

“Have you spoken to her?” Karina’s surprised she’s brave enough to even talk right now. Jeno in front of her lulls her into disillusionment. In Jeno’s eyes, Karina sees Wendy.

“She won’t take my calls,” He somberly replies and Karina winces at the obvious disappointment in his voice. It makes her go mad, has every vein in her body ready to pop.

“You humiliated me.”

The way Jeno stares at her — she already knows, she’s the villain again. “You never loved me.”

“Yes I did,” Scandalized, her feline eyes narrow menacingly.

“You loved yourself. Just like me,” He remorses, shaking his head regretfully. “We were only in a relationship where we loved ourselves instead of each other. When I came to that realization, it was enough for me.”

“Stop talking like a crazy person, I’m not in the mood to hear this gaslighting crap,” Karina balls up the cottony bedsheets between her cold fingers, and it’s taking every inch in her not to jump over and claw his heart out. Livid is an understatement. “Just say you wanted my body you cheap jerk. You sick jerk. Was my love overcompensating for something? Maybe your girlfriend’s affection couldn’t fill the void your absent parents left so you needed my attention too. You were always so greedy for me then pretended you weren’t depressed from loneliness. You’re miserable and pathetic.”

Jeno swallows painfully, right hand going up to clench at his chest. “You’re right, I am miserable and pathetic. I’m heart broken. Karina, I never wanted things to turn out this way.”

Karina hisses, glare harshening. “You’re shameless.”

“You have to believe me. I didn’t. I feel so awful about everything, I haven’t been able to sleep or eat, I’m a wreck—”

“You’re a wreck?? I’m a wreck! Look at me!! I’m literally in a hospital gown with an I.V attached to my arm and you’re the wreck!? Get the hell out of my sight!”

“Karina, please calm down—”

“No!” Karina points an accusing finger at him in simmering fury. “Don’t you dare try to tell me what to do. You put me through so much crap, y-you — you and I are different so don’t put me in the same boat as you! My life revolved around you, I was living like a corpse because of you! Every single minute my mind was absorbed by you. How dare you? You dumped me because I told Wendy about us? So you think you done nothing wrong? Are you really the victim here, Jeno?”

A silent thunderstorm unfolds across Jeno’s unreadable expression. For a moment, he’s unable to say anything. The Jeno in this hospital room is a stranger, an imposter whose relentless gaze feels incriminating. Karina watches him not saying anything, a part of her perishes in the burnt memories of their passionate escapades. Now, he looks frigid. Colder than ice. Love? What love could make a scratch on him?

“. . . Yes, okay, I was wrong,” Jeno starts with a heavy sigh, “I went about the situation horribly and I mistreated both you and Wendy. But you’re not even trying to understand me, no, even if I say it you’ll refuse to relate even though I know you’re the same.”

“What are you talking about?” Her voice is so venomous and sharp like a knife to his throat. Jeno can’t believe that same voice used to whisper sweet nothings and promises of eternity in his ear.

Bruising black and blue, bleeding straight from the heart, he continues. “You love love. Before, you said pain makes love free and beautiful. That’s me. No matter how much you worshipped me or how much Wendy adored me, I was full of so many anxieties. Being loved by one person isn’t enough. Maybe that’s fine for some people, but for me it didn’t seem possible. I didn’t know what to do, everyday I felt guilty and conflicted but losing you seemed too much to handle.”

Confusion sours Karina’s darkened expression. “So you just wanted to keep me around so I could worship you? Wait — . . . you were serious when you said in our relationship you only loved yourself?”

“Can you say you felt loved by me? Or do you sincerely feel that you loved me? Didn’t you just want my eyes on you? Long talks? Company? Is winning another person over the same as loving someone? We were physically attracted to one another and didn’t want to pull away. Even now it’s driving me crazy, I don’t know if what we had was a fantasy or a reality. What was I doing during that time, I can’t remember anything else other than you.”

“I loved you,” Karina pats her chest for emphasis, right where her matching broken heart displays for showcase. “That’s why it hurts so much. I don’t accept that we were being egotistical narcissists just blindly doing whatever we wanted to do, that’s an insult to the times we spent together. I won’t let you stain something so special to me like that.”

“Karina, what were we doing?” Jeno cries out in frustration. “We were out of our minds! I was cheating on my girlfriend and you didn’t care!”

“Jeno, you said you loved me! I take that to heart! I don’t just give myself away to anyone!”

“So what? I had to have loved you so you can protect yourself and your pride? When you say things like that it makes me think we were loveless even more. We were drunk in this makeshift happiness and blinded by our lust for each other. It was a pseudo romance, no? Are you proud of the love you gave me? Is that something to brag about?”

“You crazy sicko,” Karina growls, she refuses to take the blame alone. If he did nothing wrong, then she did nothing wrong too. If he’s innocent, she’s just as innocent. “Don’t flip this on me.”

Jeno studies her exhausted state, dull complexion, sunken cheekbones, and crimson rimmed eyes. She lost so much weight from the last time he seen her. Anyone on the sidewalk could notice she wasn’t well. Fighting with a sick person like this only makes him tired of himself more. “Sorry. We’ve both done enough, there’s no point in arguing like this.”

What are we even saying? What are we talking about? Everything sounds like nonsense. I don’t want to be ruined. I don’t want to be made into an example either. I know you didn’t love me, I known it from the start, so what exactly was I doing by entertaining you? My pride and ego allowed this? And you’re saying yours did too? We sound ill and pathetic and lonely. “I don’t understand you, Jeno. I don’t even know why you’re here. You already walked away from me once. It’s clear to me who you prioritize more.”

What Jeno says next has Karina back where she started: the repetitive, hellish cycle of his love.

“You told me if I ever left you would beg me back.”

“Do you think I’m not human? Will I not bleed if you prick me? Of course, I have to stop drinking and quit smoking eventually. But I also have to quit you.” Maybe all the booze was serving as a replacement for Jeno instead. A cup of XO to serve in the absence of his hugs and kisses. Even when he was physically in her presence, he wasn’t with her. She wanted to be drunk with him — off of him — and never leave his side. Back then, she thought if she went crazy because of him it would be okay. Love justified everything. His lies were her medicine. Now, she debates if she can endure much more for him. Is not having him worse than death? What kind of thoughts are these? Instincts feel more like a disease. His mannerisms and gestures infilitrated her heart so easily, maybe she was always a pitiful loser. She can smell the heady cologne covering his body in an invisible veil. It nearly brings tears to her bloodshot eyes. “I was drunk, couldn’t you tell? I was begging for a dream that would never come true. And now I’ve woken up and faced reality. You and I are destructive, toxic, and bad for each other. Wanting you who doesn’t want me is very toxic of me. And you know what, maybe I am a selfish woman with a big ego because I’ll never let someone else degrade me like this — especially you, Jeno. You may need to be with two people to feel good about yourself or mentally sane, but I’m even more narcissistic because I love myself too much to ever get with someone like you again.”

When Jeno slumps in a defeated position, he mirrors more of an ugly duckling than a beautiful, elegant swan. This is the last time they’ll see each other yet Karina feels numb. The thorns of the black roses constricting her heart neither tighten nor loosen. She never knew spring could be so cold as she watches Jeno’s back exit her hospital room.

A month after the semester ends and the early beginnings of summer settles in, Karina is surprised to look up and see a curiously smiling Son Wendy tapping on her shoulder.

“U-Uh, hey?” She splutters lamely, watching as the sunny 23-year-old takes a seat across from her in the outdoor patio of some cafe near their campus. It’s been a long time since she’s seen Wendy, she anticipated them having some kind of confrontation but honestly after giving up on the semester Karina resorted to stubbornly cutting off all contact with anyone from school.

“Long time no see,” Wendy replies as if they’re longtime buddies. She even orders coffee and a tiramisu eclair for Karina — which goes untouched. It’s amazing how healthy and full of life Wendy is, she doesn’t look nowhere near someone who’s just been through a devastating, traumatic breakup. Karina cringes inwardly.

“Um. . . Do you mind if I. . ?” She gestures to her unlit Marlboro Beyond and she hates how Wendy’s mature mannerisms makes her feel like a nervous, little child.

The elder promptly nods. She’s something cool and stylish within all that warm energy she excludes — maybe that attracted Jeno tremendously. “Go ahead.”

Releasing a breath she didn’t know she was holding captive, Karina exhales and allows her cigarette’s end to kiss the dancing flame. She didn’t picture sitting down with Wendy to be this nerve-wrecking, she was usually focused and sturdy but now Wendy’s fixed gaze makes her transparent, everything falls away. Of course, those same eyes had to have pierced Jeno at one point. And yet he still entertained Karina as if he was so unattainable and full of mystique. Karina holds back a humorless grin, and of course, she knew the game and still played it. He was a burning house and she lived in it. A burning house full of. . . Filth and violence? melancholia? Mutilated uality? She blinks back to the present. Wendy’s intense glance is unbearable. “I’m sorry about everything. . . About what I’ve done to you. . . It was wrong and horribly selfish of me. I only told the truth because I thought he would choose me over you.”

Ironically, concern spills from out of Wendy’s eyes. “We can talk about that later. I heard you got alcohol poisoning. Are you feeling better now?”

No, she can’t handle kindness from this woman — can barely afford it. “Have you heard from him?” Karina knows she’s being incredibly shameless. Doesn’t deserve Wendy’s cooperative patience and astronomical empathy. But if she’s not devouring Jeno’s heart, she’d rather be on Jack Daniels and right now she has neither. Maybe she’s a cold-blooded narcissist incapable of being loved and giving loved. Maybe that’s what Jeno is, too. Both of them so lovesick or love starved that they become damaged in the end. In her flickering mind, he appears as a marble statue. She has so much trauma, so much hysterical rage and no place to put it down.

The answer comes from Wendy’s phone vibrating against the tabletop. Even though it’s face down, they both know who’s caller ID is flashing across the screen. Karina watches in silence as Wendy lets the phone ring.

“. . . Has he mentioned anything about me?” Karina is exhausted after that unanswered phone call. Wonders if Wendy’s heart is on life support but she can’t tell because the elder’s calm expression hides everything. “I know he probably told you it was a meaningless fling but I really, really loved him. I loved him more than I loved myself and I don’t know if it’s capable loving two people at the same time, but he confessed his love for me many times—”

“Boys are surprisingly simple-minded, Karina. Attraction and interest are two different things,” Wendy cuts her off with no trace of malice, but what she says has Karina fearing the worst. She heavily puffs around the sweet cigarette between her quivering fingertips.

“What did he say??”

An apologetic look settles upon Wendy’s face. “. . . In one of his texts he said that he was curious about what kissing the beauty mark on your chin felt like.”

Who knew a broken heart could break twice?

“I was the one who was cheated on, but the most pitiful one is you.”

A painful breath hitches in Karina’s throat. “Are you going to take him back?”

Wendy hums pensively and swirls the hot coffee in her cup. “Some people can’t be tied down to relationships.”

It’s the same thing Winter said, Do you think that guy was made for relationships? “Was he always like that? I mean. . . What do you think of Jeno?”

Wendy takes a sip of coffee before carefully placing the tiny cup back on the saucer. Her right eyebrow slightly ticks and somewhat of a pained smile lines her pink lips. A reel of various emotions runs through her face; peacefulness in a breezy field while admiring a pansy, panic striking while fleeing a rapidly spreading forest fire, serenity produced from calming chamomile tea with a good book, and the cloak of alienation that late-night regret brings. “On stage he always struggled between being proud of his performances and despising himself. He believed he was the best ballet dancer but at the same time hated his dancing. I never really understood how poorly he took feedback yet gravitated towards harsh critique. He didn’t know how to accept compliments well, it was the meticulous perfectionist in him.” She sighs, placing her chin in her palm. “I wanted him to be proud of himself the same way I was. But sometimes it was so hard to reach him it was as if he already put up a wall between us. And then suddenly, he would come around and drown me in overwhelming affection.”

Karina’s chest swells. It’s all so familiar. Every word she utters is so familiar.

“I thought maybe it was because he was shy or had difficulty expressing his emotions, but now I don’t know anymore. I don’t think I ever really knew what kind of person Jeno was. What was real? What was fake? These kinds of questions constantly keep me up at night. I wondered if maybe all those traits were aspects of his personality, but even that’s ambiguous,” Hearing Wendy speaking so quietly and honestly, Karina finally realizes how messed up this is. How messed up she was acting. But then again, what if it didn’t have to be her — Jeno could of cheated on Wendy with anyone and smacked a label on it calling it l o v e. Karina thinks she might actually cry when Wendy earnestly gazes at her again. “For you it was a few months. But for me it was forever. I wanted to. . . We planned our entire future together down to the color of our first child’s walls. It’s so silly because he was always getting excited by himself and I felt touched by his enthusiasm. Now I’m wondering if it was guilt that made him act that way. Or maybe he really believed we would get married and have children. Or. . . Maybe he was too good at fooling people into thinking they were loved by him.”

Damn, bullseye. Karina lights another cigarette. She wishes Wendy would stop bulldozing her with rationality and wisdom, with the emboldened truth that was in front of her the entire time. Maybe he was too good at fooling people into thinking they were loved by him.

“He always said we were the same. . . Did destroying me mean destroying himself, too?” She brokenly whispers.

“A needy, co-dependent person who lives for love and laments in the heartbreak is not someone you can build a home out of.” If only Wendy knew that was too late. Karina wonders what kind of sane person would live in a burning house. She’s not sane. She can’t be. She loved that house on fire, and if she could, she’d live there endless times for eternity. “It’s best if he focuses on ballet and whatever personal issues or family matters he has. You should work on yourself and live life without regrets.”

Karina’s confused eyes scan her. “Why don’t you just curse me or hit me?”

There’s a twitch of the mouth as Wendy smiles wearily. “I already did. You don’t know how many scenarios I imagined.”

“So. . . You’re willing to forgive me?”

“. . . I managed to survive Jeno this time. Thank-you for telling me, that was a close call,” Wendy reminds Karina of bonfires crackling warmth, friendship bracelets, and resilient sisterhood. Regretfully, she thinks in another universe they could’ve been good friends. “Even if you thought you would gain him, you didn’t lose anything. You shouldn’t want to be with someone like that.”

“That feels like a diss towards me.”

“Karina, even though I should want nothing but bad things to happen to you, I just want you to heal and come out of this a better person. I can’t say the same for him.”

Karina finally breaks down and cries. She’s a heaving, sobbing mess under rain of envy, splitting despair, and gratefulness. It’s a sick joke that humors her: missing him before the breakup and missing him now feels the same. The tears of a clown. Laughing out loud doesn’t sound bad either. Sometimes situations are so terribly screwed up and horrendous that laughing from defeat and shock may occur. As Wendy quickly presses napkins to her puffy eyes, she can’t help but want to drown viciously in Moët.

In the nighttime, that’s when Karina sits in her room and reminisce the most. Maybe not tonight, but someday, she’s hopeful she’ll recover from the atrocity of her actions. Her mind is haunted by flavored menthols over olive skewered martinis, late night drives with hip hop playing in the background, and her diamond earrings discarded in Jeno’s bathroom sink. She used to draw thick smokey makeup on her eyelids and sport the tightest minidresses, now the memory is a painful concoction of embarrassment and shame. Lately, she doesn’t care for manicures or lipstick — nonetheless glittery lipgloss. She contemplates buying nicotine patches in the morning and even going to the gym. Maybe her estranged relationship with her mother can be repaired. Maybe she’ll get to find some kind of inner peace and stop missing the chaos. What did I mean to him? The pain isn’t hitting as it did before, somehow speaking to Wendy seemed to be more therapeutic than Karina anticipated. Waiting, and longing, and yearning was and is all she’s ever done. She deems herself pathetic. Unworthy of noble love. She can’t wait to embrace the days where longing isn’t sadness. Where she can be a dry medium of neither dying in anguish or ecstatic in saccharine happiness. Maybe Jeno was a dodged bullet, maybe it was a close call for her too. The first time he said he loved her, it was an ending credit to her mental health. To her pride. To her life. Off to the races. Karina shivers, what the hell were we doing? Wendy’s words keep writing themselves like a manuscript in her brain. The elder was so intelligent and independent. Karina wants to be like that. She wants to be that kind of woman that won’t be scorned by tainted love. Did she love? She’s always wondering, did I love? Her snowflake obsidian eyes wanders up at the indigo night sky colored by city lights. This lonely night is breath-takingly beautiful. 

Maybe the goddesses will bring stars for her sake. Karina chuckles at the thought and shakes her head.

Silly girl. Was I being mysterious in my own way? Maybe he couldn’t understand me. What kind of person becomes controlling and wrecks havoc in the name of love? Just what kind of twisted person did I become to end up pathetically missing someone bad for me. No. . . I’m bad for him too. We both were wrong. Being with him again might push me over the edge. Losing could be winning, and winning could be losing. In the wrong place, I missed my step and almost fell. . .

(à la folie — to insanity).