Chapter 23: Nearly Just

I look at her carefully in the haze of daylight. We are standing in the living room of my childhood home, and everything is the same as it once was. The ornate wallpaper, the high ceilings, the long drapes framing the tall windows, and the paintings as they hang, watching like spectators at an arena.

“We have to go, Taeyeon.”

“Go where?” I ask, gazing around the room. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s waiting.” She nods toward the window, but the light from outside is so incandescently bright, I cannot see past it.

“Right now? What about Sooyoung? What about…Tiffany?” A sudden bout of urgency swells up in my chest, so I step forward and grip her by the shoulders. “Mum, I have to tell Tiffany that I’m leaving. Is she here?”

“She’s not here,” My mother shakes her head gravely, pursing her lips. “But you love that girl. Don’t you?”

I open my mouth and then stop myself. Tiffany. The only thing that keeps me afloat. The smile that reaches into my chest and snatches all the air away. Her eyes with their lunar quality, guiding me through the darkest of nights and days.

“I love her more than anything in this world.”

“Then let her in. You will not find another.”

A gunshot. Immeasurable pain spreads through my body. I look down at my hands, dripping with red. My mother is lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. My father is lying beside her, and they’re looking up at me with their lifeless eyes, asking me why I never did anything.

Gunshot.

“Taeyeon? Taeyeon!” I open my eyes to see a ceiling that I’ve never seen before. Tiffany is staring down at me with the utmost concern in her pretty eyes and my pulse is thrumming in my ears.

“Tiffany,” I say, only to find that my mouth is horribly parched. I attempt to sit up, but she puts a gentle hand to my shoulder and guides me back down.

“The doctor needs to do some checks on you. So, just stay put. He’ll be here in a minute.” She cups my face in her impossibly warm hands, staring at me, smiling in a way that has my heart doing strange things in my chest. “You were having a bad dream.” She says quietly, my cheek affectionately.

“Have you been crying?” I question, still considerably disorientated, but noticing the red rims around her eyes and the flush on her skin. I sit up again before she cans stop me, albeit a little too quickly, and the starts room spinning. “Why is there a needle in my arm?” I groan, my face probably turning some shade of green.

“I told you to stay put.” She chastises softly and leans my aching head onto her shoulder. “And you’re hooked up to an IV. You went through a lot last night.”

“I’m sorry.” I mumble hoarsely. I close my eyes, running the memories from yesterday back over in my mind and suddenly, I feel even more nauseous. “Where am I?”

“My guestroom.” A knock resounds from the bedroom door. She lifts my head into her hands and gives me one last smile. “That’s the doctor. We’ll talk after he’s gone.” And then she plants a chaste kiss to my forehead which causes my mind to spin once more. “Come in.” She calls toward the door before standing up.

The door opens and a man with a friendly face peeks his head into the room. “Taeyeon,” He smiles. “I’m glad to see you’re finally awake.” I look at him a little apprehensively as he enters the room and closes the door behind him.

“Taeyeon, this is Junsu.” Tiffany introduces. “He’s an old friend of Donghae’s who also happens to be a doctor. He came to your rescue when you fainted.”

“I fainted?” I gaze between them both, confused.

“I’ll explain everything after Junsu has done his final check up on you.”

“Alright.” I swallow and nod, trying to calm myself.

“You want me to stay?” she asks. I answer silently with a nod, avoiding her eyes, realising all that has unfolded in the last 24 hours. Tiffany rounds the bed and sits next to me on the mattress, and I can’t understand why she’s still here – still right by my side despite the grief I gave her yesterday. The heavy weight in my gut tells me to run again; tells me to wait until Junsu has removed the drip from my arm, and then sprint out of here, away from Tiffany and her pretty picket fence house and all the feelings that crowd up against the bounds of my chest whenever she’s near.

“Hey,” Her hand on my forearm grounds me. “You okay?”

I swallow around the lump in my throat as my eyes flicker toward Junsu, sifting through his bag, fixing a stethoscope around his neck. “I don’t know.”

“Just breathe.” She says quietly. “You’re fine.” And the way her fingers smooth over my skin so softly makes me believe her.

* * *

“Okay,” Junsu says, sitting back a little, hooking the stethoscope back around his neck. “Everything seems to be all good. It doesn’t look like you’ve sustained any concussions or trauma, which is very lucky.” He slips his hands into a pair of blue rubber gloves. “The last port of call is removing the IV and that’ll be me done here. This may be a little uncomfortable.” He warns.

I look away and pinch my eyes closed. Tiffany laces her fingers through mine as a sign of reassurance and without a second thought I tighten my hold on her, needing her to anchor me down. My stomach churns at the feeling of the needle sliding back through my skin, the sting seemingly magnified more than normal.

“Done.” Junsu announces. I slowly open my eyes to find him patting a small round plaster onto the area where the needle had once been. He stands to dispose of the needle and his gloves. “Now, I know I said you haven’t sustained any permanent damage, but, you will, however, feel rather weak for the next few days. I’m prescribing you paracetamol for any headaches and a whole lot of bed rest, food and liquids.”

“Why did I faint?” I ask, watching him as he clips his bag closed. “It’s never happened before.”

“My guess is exhaustion.” He supplies thoughtfully. “I was told that you haven’t been eating much, and you also seem to be lacking in sleep. And Tiffany tells me that you’ve been going through a fair amount of emotional and mental stress lately. Put all of that together and your body is bound to shut down at some point.”

I lower my head, speechless, unaware of how much strain I’d been putting my body under.

“Thank you so much, Junsu.” Tiffany says, rising from the mattress. I trail behind them as she walks Junsu to the front door. “You’re a life saver.”

“Anything for an old friend.” He smiles as Tiffany unlocks the door for him. “And Taeyeon, if you start feeling faint again or anything out of the ordinary, don’t hesitate to call me.”

I nod as he bids farewell, and when the door shuts, Tiffany and I find ourselves enclosed in a kind of suffocating silence that has never settled between us before. Even the lock sliding into place seems to knock against my eardrums rather painfully.

And when she turns to me, she does it slowly – with hesitance. Something inside me says that she’s just as scared as I am. But another, louder, part says that it’s me that she’s scared of.

I open my mouth, but I find that whatever words that I’m about to speak just die immediately, right at the back of my throat, and then they lay there, like heavy, motionless weights.

“I know.” She says as my jaw clicks shut. But I’m not sure what exactly she knows. “We have a lot to talk about.” She rubs at her arms as if it’s cold.

“We do.” I admit, swallowing around a heavy lump.

She nods slowly. Her eyes flicker from the carpet to my face and it’s like the connection of our eyes brings the invisible wall of apprehension toppling down, because she opens her arms to me, and after a few steps I find myself pressed tight against her body.

“I’m sorry.” I mumble into her neck. “I keep messing everything up.”

“It’s okay, Tae.” She squeezes me, and it just feels right. For the first time in my life, it feels alright. It feels okay to not be okay. “Just don’t ever do that again.” She pulls back slightly to look at me, but I keep my arms locked tight around her. Gently, she runs her fingers over the contours of my face. “I really thought I’d lost you.” She whispers.

“Me too.” I say with a tenderness that I won’t ever show to anybody else. I gaze into her eyes and feel a sudden sense of sureness – a sudden sense that this, her, we’re safe.

The noise of a kitchen timer seems to switch some kind of lever in her mind, because there’s a shift in her eyes. Wetting her lips, she removes my arms from around her. “Like I said,” she steps away, creating space between us. “We have a lot to talk about. But let’s have some breakfast first. You must be starving.”

The smile she gives me is fleeting.

* * *

“I made too much food, didn’t I?” Tiffany asks, pushing some scraps of bacon around a pool of maple syrup with her fork.

I cast a glance around the breakfast table, over-flowing with multiple plates of various breakfast foods, and suppress a smile. “I mean…maybe a little too much. But I’m hungry, so it’s okay.”

She leans her head into her palm and stares down at her half-empty plate. She’s been quiet since we started eating and it’s not Tiffany’s usual easy quiet – it’s a thinking kind of quiet. I can almost hear her brain ticking over in her head.

“I’m sorry.” She sighs.

“It’s fine.” I assure, unsure what she’s apologizing for. “You can never have too many pancakes, right?”

She looks up at my jest and smiles a little. “It’s not like you to joke.”

I consider the brown in her eyes for a moment before answering honestly. “I don’t really feel like myself today.”

“Neither do I.” She sets her cutlery down after a moment and looks at me evenly. “Do you think maybe we could have that talk after we clean up?”

“Sure.” I breathe. “Need help with the dishes?”

She nods. “You wash and I’ll dry.”

It’s only when I stand up to help clear the table that I notice that the clothes I’m wearing are not mine. I pause, staring down at the pink t-shirt and blue shorts adorning my body in confusion. “…Tiffany?”

“Yeah?” She continues to stack the used plates into a neat pile.

“Whose clothes are these?”

She stops and looks up at me. Her face and her eyes dim immediately. “You were completely soaked when you showed up last night. I had to get you out of your wet clothes just in case you got sick.”

My ears are suddenly burning at the tips at the sudden wave of embarrassment washing over me. “O-oh okay.” Tiffany saw me in my unconscious state, and I can’t bear to even meet her eyes.

“I didn’t look,” She chimes, stepping forward to take the dirty plate from my hand. “When I was changing you, I mean.”

“H-huh? Oh, I didn’t uh, I didn’t think that you did-“

She laughs, big and bright. “Oh please, Taeyeon. Your thoughts are written all over your face.” She continues to chortle on her way over to the sink. She sighs in delight as her laugh tapers off. She gazes at me from across the kitchen island. “I’m sorry, but teasing you is fun.”

“Just wait ‘til I get my turn.” I mutter, only for her to laugh again; and I’m glad that I can make her laugh, even if it’s at my own expense.

* * *

“So, the doctor has prescribed her painkillers, bed rest and a lot food and liquids.”

I look toward the living room door as Tiffany enters, her phone pressed tight to her ear. She gives me a faint smile before looking to the carpet and humming in response to whoever she is talking to. I take the moment to drink the sight of her in; adorned in her oversized sweater and sleeping shorts, with hair pulled back into one of those messy buns, leaving the clean visage of her makeup-less face unobscured.

“He said that it was caused by exhaustion, lack of sleep and emotional stress.” With sauntering steps, she drops down onto the couch beside me. “Don’t worry, she’s fine, Sooyoung.” She lets out a puff of air and leans her head back to look at the ceiling as she listens. “Yeah, she’s awake.” She looks over at me after a moment and covers the phone speaker with her hand. “Sooyoung wants to speak to you?”

I swallow down hard and shake my head. She nods in understanding, lifting a hand to place atop mine in a manner that makes it the most comforting gesture possible.

“She’s actually gonna go for a nap now, Sooyoung. I’ll get her to text you when she wakes up alright? So, don’t worry. She’s totally fine.” She runs a frustrated hand through her hair. “I would let her go back to the orphanage, but the doctor said she should take it easy for the next few hours at least. And besides, I have some things I need to discuss with her.”

After a few more words exchanged, Tiffany hangs up the phone with a sigh before tossing the device onto the pillow next her. “She’s worried sick.”

“I, uh, I don’t remember a time when Sooyoung wasn’t…worried sick about me.” I allow myself to sink into the soft cushions of Tiffany’s soft sofa, almost wanting them to swallow me entirely. “Where is she?”

“A pipe burst in the kitchen at the orphanage, so she had to rush back early this morning.” She explains quietly. “She was here basically all night, though; pacing around worriedly like a madwoman. She could barely sit down.”

I hum, imagining Sooyoung’s figure stalking around Tiffany’s house through the thunder and lightning. “I see.”

“I wish Sooyoung could express her care for you in a better way.” Tiffany murmurers thoughtfully, and its then that I notice that she’s twisting a ring around her finger, a ring I’ve never seen before.

“I think…” I start, scratching at the back of my head, “it’s a two-way thing. Me and Sooyoung…we’ve never known how to talk to each other properly.”

There’s a tinge of surprise in Tiffany’s eyes as she looks at me, “I like it when you’re honest.” Her finger running across the bony bumps of my knuckles. “Which is good because, we’re gonna be doing that a lot more soon.”

“Honesty?”

“Honesty.” She confirms with a nod. After a moment, she shifts, pulling her legs up onto the sofa and turning to face me, my hand still held firmly in hers. “Like I said, we have a lot to talk about. So much happened not only yesterday, but throughout the whole duration of our knowing each other. Would you agree?”

“I do.” I nod, my throat suddenly feeling a little tight.

“If we’re gonna work through it all, then we’re going to have to be 100% honest with one another. Otherwise, there’s no point.” A small, understated smile comes to her lips. And it’s a sad kind of smile. “I’m not gonna go easy on you. There’s not going to be any beating around the bush o