To my best friend.

Remember, you are not alone.

We will always be here for you.

Jiyeon.

Some choices I made were bad. Only I was strong enough to live with the consequences. It almost destroyed me as a being, but somehow, with the people who stayed by my side and helped me… I managed to get up and strengthen myself. I managed not to only survive but live.

I was a good girl. My parents loved me so much because I was always on the top in my class and I didn’t let myself be influenced by crazy relationships. Unlike my sister, Shinhye, who gets failing grades all the time and she's always been a bad girl ever since she started dating Yonghwa. She skips classes just to meet her out-of-school youth boyfriend, Yonghwa. And who knows what on earth they are up to while away from school? Yonghwa’s an orphan, but I heard he earns money by singing with his band in a bar. He lives alone after his parents passed away, but Shinhye often visits him or sleeps with him. They look so in love, and I could see it even by the way they smile on camera (with their pictures posted on Shinhye’s Facebook). I can't blame either of them. I have a boyfriend too, and I guess I was just lucky that his parents’ were strict and disallowed him to do stupid stuffs.

"Ji, you don't understand. Yonghwa is my first boyfriend, and my last! I don’t want to leave him alone, and I don’t want to say no to him! I know what I’m doing and I like what I’m doing! Don’t you have someone you like too? If you really like someone, you wouldn’t be able to leave their side! Being with him means the whole world to me. " Shinhye shouted at me when our parents weren't home. "And I'm older than you so please stop telling me what to do!" She added.

"Shinhye, he’s an orphan and he doesn’t even go to school! Mom and Dad doesn’t like him so why are you forcing yourself to him? Why do you keep on following him around?”  

"You don't know anything about him so stop judging him!" Then she left crying.

Recalling all the words I had said before still makes me feel bad. That’s a side that I really hate about myself, I judge people without even knowing a single thing about what kind of person they are.

And it’s not like my boyfriend is perfect just because he’s going to school, lives with strict parents and gets good grades. Although I know my boyfriend can be a little bit crazy sometimes… like cutting himself once when I broke up with him.

"What? You want to break up?" I remember Myungsoo asked, stuttering. It was our second anniversary. I don’t know why exactly I had to break up with him on the day of our anniversary… I just somehow felt so distant from him and I didn’t like it. I thought I wanted space, or worse, end everything between us. "Why?" He asked.

"I'm tired…” Okay, when I said that, I really meant it. Who wouldn't get tired of an over-protective boyfriend? He doesn’t even let me talk too long with other guys even to my best friend.

"But I don't want to break up," that moment I saw a tear escaped his eye. Myungsoo looked so sad, broken and pitiful. "I love you, Jiyeon. I love you so much.” His words were so sincere just like when he first asked me out, but I wanted them to escape my ears.

"We're over." I remember turning my back on him that day, purposely throwing away the doll he gave me for the anniversary.  I can still remember how bad I was for breaking his heart.

I didn’t hesitate.

Until one day, I suddenly received a call that Myungsoo was trying to commit suicide. Worry rushed through me, sweat began to drip down my forehead and my hands went cold. Confused whether I was worried about him or worried it was my fault and I should be guilty: or both.

I quickly went to the hospital only to find him lying on a plain white hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. My best friend, Seungho, had arrived there first before me.

"I think he's mute," Seungho said as he stood up from his seat in front of Myungsoo; his eyes shifted to Myungsoo who looked as if his world was crashed by the lizards.

"What happened?" I managed to asked, holding back my tears.

"I found him in his apartment trying to cut his wrist, which he did successfully. I told him to stop and he said he won’t stop until you explain to him why you're tired of him," Seungho sighed. "H-He's really serious about you, Jiyeon. Are you serious about him too?"

Am I? I thought at the very moment. I loved him, that's why I became his girlfriend... But there's something wrong with me. I thought so. I didn't like it when Myungsoo gets jealous; every time he protects me (more like keeping me away from new people) to the extent that I wouldn't have new friends or people doesn’t want to ask for my name anymore. I hated it every time he gives me goodnight text messages or just some random lovey dovey messages. I hated how showy he was for his feelings… I thought it was so childish, and it was not fair because I didn't want to be like that to him.  

But seeing Myungsoo so lost and lonely felt as if I lost a part of me too.

I loved him. I will always love him even if he’s being over-protective.

"I am," I answered in a low voice; not that I was unsure of it but because I was afraid to admit it. "I love Myungsoo."

It lasted for three days until Myungsoo was back to his old self. And we were back together again.

Well, people make mistakes. People say the wrong things sometimes. And people sometimes… aren’t just as perfect as they once thought they are.

It was at night in November when our parents decided we should go spend our dinner in my uncle’s house. Uncle Shihoo was a nice person, he’s been living alone for the past two years after the death of his wife. Mother used to tell me about his love story with his late wife, and that he’d decided long ago that nothing lasts forever (so he made as many girlfriends as he can in just a year to make him feel better and pleasure himself). But mother always thought that a nice man will always be a nice man, that’s why we decided to visit him that night and bring him food so he doesn’t have to cook.

November. I went ahead of them right after class.

Everything just changed.

I was knocking but no one answered. I noticed the door was not locked though, it was slightly opened at least an inch. I didn’t want to just barge in without an answer but calling out for my uncle’s name many times already either means he’s not around or that something’s bad happened. So I went inside, no one was there.

I decided to just wait in the couch and leave a text message to my mother that I was already home.

In just a few minutes, I heard footsteps coming in the house. 

"It's probably him," I mumbled to myself as I rose to greet my uncle come in. The first thing I smelled was alcohol. His big figure was approaching me.

"Hello---" I was frozen. The person in front of me didn’t look so nice at all. I thought for one moment that it was only a dream. I shivered down my spine upon realizing I came at the wrong time.

Uncle Shihoo was drunk. He had a sharp scissors pointing straight to my neck.

He gripped my wrist tightly as my eyes widened in horror. The scissors he was holding was now pointed down to my abdomen, and I wanted to shout for help but my voice wouldn’t come out. I felt so scared. I was so scared I only wished it was a dream. God, where did this man come from? I thought.

I yelped.

"Don't shout. Don't move. Or I'll kill you." He threatened me, breathing alcohol. I couldn't move. He attempted to touch me, and for a moment I struggled to get off of him.

Until I just couldn’t move anymore.

The room was just filled of my cries.

I was screwed.

For life.

I was ruined, and humiliated.

I hate myself. I've become nothing. I felt so dirty.

I couldn’t even fight for myself. It was so humiliating, and I knew that memory will always be there.

That terrible nightmare.

My dreams.

My friends.