Taeyeon’s POV

I floored the accelerator, going at full speed, not bothering to step on the brake even when I was rounding the corner. The feel of adrenaline rush in my blood stream was exhilarating. Coupled with the wind blowing against my face, I felt relaxed, strangely. It was not fast enough for me though; the speed limit was 50km/hr no matter how hard I stepped on the pedal. I was at the Go Kart circuit and that was my fourth time going at it for the day.

Speed was the only thing that kept me from thinking about stuff that I would like to forget. Since I did not have a driving license yet, this was the only other alternative for me to drive. I have had a lot of interest in cars ever since I was little. Anything that was related to driving gained my attention immediately. One could imagine my delight when the first Go Kart circuit was set up a few years back.

Okay, I went off the topic. Let’s backtrack to the reason why I was here in the first place—I needed an escape, from life, from reality. I had always visited the circuit for a round or two whenever I was feeling down. It was my secret hideout that not even my parents know about. And as expected, no one knew where I was at the moment, not even Jessica.

Right after school ended, I rushed out of the classroom, heading straight for the gate. Luck was on my side as I spotted a cab coming in my direction. I flagged it down. It would take me an hour and a half by train to reach the circuit, I could not wait that long. I needed to be there ASAP.

I zoomed past the pit, barely able to see the ‘last round’ sign that was held up. That was fast, it did not seem like 10 minutes was up.

After getting out of my kart, I reached into my pocket for my phone. There were 10 missed calls and 4 unread messages, all from Jessica. Right at that moment, my phone began vibrating again. Speaking of the devil. I flipped my phone over, slid out the cover and took the battery out. There, no more distractions. I was thinking of going for another round at the circuit but my wallet ran out of cash, which meant that I could not afford another ticket. ‘It’s time to go home anyway. They are going to be back soon.’

The sky had darkened as I made my way out of the circuit.

“You’re back late kid.” Dad looked up from his newspaper as I stepped into the house.

“Sorry, I was out with Sooyoung and the rest.” I came up with an excuse, hoping that he would buy it.

“Why was your phone off? I had been trying to call you. Go wash up, we’re having dinner now. I made your favorite side dishes.” My Mum said as she came out from the kitchen.

“It ran out of battery.” I lied.

Dinner was a quiet affair that night.

“What’s up with you? Why are you so quiet tonight?” Dad asked, concerned.

“I’m just tired.”

“When are your results coming out by the way?” Mum added in.

I froze. I waited for a few seconds before speaking up, afraid that my voice would break.

“Not sure, soon, I guess.”

“Why is it taking them so long? Your holiday starts after next week.”

“I don’t know Mum, it will come out in due time…I’m done eating. I’ll be in my room, I’m tired.” With that, I excused myself from the dining table.

I took a quick shower and lay down on my bed. The room was dark. There was no need for lights. I did not want to do anything at that moment.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, everything that I had tried to forget in the day came rushing back. It felt like I was drowning in my own thoughts. The tears that I successfully held back finally came rushing out, like a broken dam. I could not stop them this time and I had no intention of doing so.

The door creaked open and I assumed it was my father checking up on me. I pressed my face down into my pillow and trying to suppress my sobs, taking slow deep breathes so that my body would stop shaking. The last thing I wanted was for my Dad to ask me what was wrong. The door closed seconds after and the room was plunged into darkness once more. I cried till my eyes were dry and I could barely sleep, waking up every half an hour or so. I was so sure that my eyes would be swollen the next day, but that was not on my list of concerns.

It was a school day the next morning but I woke up late with my eyes all puffed up. I forced myself out of bed, and went through my usual morning routine. I wore my uniform and grabbed my bag before heading out of the house. My parents would be up soon and I knew that the house would be empty within an hour. They would be gone for work, dropping Hayeon off at the day care on their way. I made my way to the emergency exit right next to my unit and sat down on the stairs, waiting for them to leave. I was not planning on going to school that day, not when I was in this state. My phone battery was still out so I knew I would not be disturbed by any phone calls, namely one person by the name of Jessica Jung. I heard my family leave the house not long after but waited for a few more minutes before making my way back in. Now, I would have the space for myself to think in peace.

Yesterday was our first day back in school and it was results day. I had conveniently forgotten to tell my parents about it. I was excited to get back my results nonetheless and was full of confidence that I would have done well. As expected, the results were far better than I expected it be but my happiness did not last long. We had to check our final grades at the end of the day and I could not believe what I was seeing. I refused to believe.

I was 0.5 short of passing the minimum 35 rank points required to get promoted. The work from the first half of the year, which was also calculated into the final grade, had pulled my results down. It was just 0.5 but I knew that there was no chance that the school would round it up. Having bad grades was not a first and I gotten immune to failing a certain subject this year. But repeating a year was new. How could this happen? There must have been a calculation error in one of the scripts. I needed a change in grade for any subject, whichever, to make a difference to the rank points. ‘Why aren’t they letting us check our answers? Why aren’t the teachers going through the papers with us? Why? They had to at least let us know what went wrong should they not?’ The school had only allowed us to see our exams scripts to make sure that the tabulation of marks was correct.

I knew from their expressions that Yoona, Yuri and definitely Sooyoung had not made it as well, but I could not care less. Yoona and Yuri were already crying with Sunny handling tissues out to them. Sooyoung was just stoning in her seat, she had expected it. Seeing them cry made me feel like crying as well but I held it in. I could not cry in front of my friends and definitely not in public. It would be too embarrassing. I left them there in the classroom and rushed off.

“This is so not happening to me! Why is it that all the bad stuff keep coming to me, all at once, WHY?!” The thought of it made me mad.

Without thinking, I grabbed my pillow and everything within my reach, which were unbreakable by the way, and threw them hard, not caring that my room would be in a mess.

“WHY?!” I screamed.

Nobody was in the house; there was nobody to hear me.

“Thought you said one would be rewarded if they put in effort! What it this? A reward?! Pfft! My !...You cheated me.” I finally broke down, slumped down on my knees.

This should not be happening. I had put in the effort to study for the final exams. One could see that I did just from the results that I had gotten for my finals. I passed, and it was more than a freaking 35! It was way more than that. But unfortunately, the promotional criterion requires an overall of 35 to be promoted. Which was what made me even more upset. I was just 0.5 point short, it was not even 1. I could not accept it, but it was the truth. What bothered me the most was the fact that I had to repeat a year. I was sure that my parents would get over it eventually but not my pride. Retaining was something that I had never heard of, at least not until I came into college. There were a few repeat students in my orientation group who I barely saw sticking around with us and there were 2 in my current class. I had vowed to myself at the beginning of the year that it was not going to happen to me and I will not become one of them. Apparently, I broke my own promise.

My mind was in a mess, I could not think properly. It was too much for me to process and accept in such a short period of time.

‘Ding dong…’ the sound of the doorbell pulled me out from my own thoughts.

I looked through the peep hole and saw the last person that I wanted to see standing outside. It was Jessica. How did she even manage to get past the securities? I pretended that no one was home and ignored it. It stopped ringing after a while but she was still waiting outside.

As if retaining was not enough, Jessica was another problem. Though she was right in front of me, separated by a door, but I could not bring myself to see her. I was broken and I could not afford for her to see me that way.

Her parents found out about us, even before we could tell them. We had not planned for our parents to find out this way; we had wanted to tell them ourselves. We were just too careless that night.

We had gone out on a date that faithful day and had fun roaming around the city. There was no particular destination that we were heading to, just walking around and enjoying each other’s company. I walked her home as usual. Nothing could go wrong, not until her parents came back home from work and saw the both of us kissing in front of their doorstep…

Flashback

“What do you think you are doing?” a stern voice said, making us break apart from our kiss.

Mr. Jung was standing in front of us and Mrs. Jung was just a few steps behind him. Mr. Jung’s eyes were cold while his wife was visibly shaken by what she had just seen.

“Jessica, go up to your room.” He barked at her.

Jessica gave me a fleeting glance and I gave her a nod to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

“And Taeyeon, come with me. We need to talk.”

I found myself in Mr. Jung’s study a few minutes later. He had called my parents earlier to inform them of what happened.

“So, how long has this been going on?”

“About 3 months.” I answered him honestly.

There was no point in hiding. Since they have already found out, I might as well tell them everything.

He sighed.

“Taeyeon, you’re a nice person and I like you a lot. But this is wrong. Maybe the both of you are confused with your own feelings.”

“We really love each other, Uncle. I’m sorry, but I do love her a lot.”

Mr. Jung leaned back in his chair, crossing his fingers together, his gaze piercing through my entire being.

“You know, it pains me to do this, but I want you to stop seeing my daughter for the time being. The both of you need to wake up and see the bigger picture. This is wrong, you can’t be together. My daughter deserves better.” And he was being serious about it.

Mr. Jung drove me home and I did not get to see Jessica before I leave. My parents were waiting for me when I got back, waiting for some explanations. Mum had tears in her eyes and it hurt me to see her like that. We had a long talk that night but by the end of it, they had come to accept the fact that Jessica would be in my life for as long as I held onto her. But it was not the case for Jessica on the other hand. She was grounded for the rest of our break, she was not allowed to see me. However, her phone was not confiscated so we still managed to keep in touch with each other via text messages.

Back to present

We had not seen each other since last week and honestly, I missed her. I wanted so very much to have her back in my arms but shame was holding me back. Her father was right. She deserve someone better, she do not deserve a broken girl, a failure. She needed a guy, someone who could protect her, someone who could give her what she wants. She would not be judged by others if she had a guy by her side and I could not give her that.

She left after a while and I was glad that she did. I might not be able to stop myself from going to her if she had stayed.

--

I went back to school two days later. My homeroom teacher had called to inform my parents about the ‘meet the parents’ session and naturally they were disappointed with me. I had felt sorry towards them. It was like dropping another bomb on them not long after the first one. They had kept quiet upon hearing the news. It made me felt worse for I would rather have them reprimand me, telling me straight in my face how disappointed they were in me. I had after all let them down when they had high expectations of me.

It was physics lecture but I was not paying attention to it. What was the point in listening? I would be repeating the year anyway. Sooyoung had her head down on the table. She had been sleeping since the start of it. Yuri and Yoona were nowhere in sight, they probably left school early. We were getting rebellious, and so were the others. The lecture hall was only half filled. ‘It doesn’t matter; nothing matters to me right now.’ The past few days had been stressful enough for me as I had to come to terms with how things turned out. I had been thinking about Jessica too, about us.

I never felt so alone in my whole 17 years of existence though I knew I was not. I took comfort in the fact that I would at least have 3 of my best buddies with me next year. We would still be in the same class, assuming that we stuck to our current subject combination.

My battery was back in my phone. I had about 40 unread messages more or less, from non-other than Jessica. All of which contained encouraging words telling me to not give up, that she would be there for me and for me to pick up my phone. It had me in tears when I read through them one by one. She knew that I had not made it to the second year, which was not a surprise to me since she was close to my friends. She might also have guessed that I would be avoiding her, seeing that she was waiting for me outside the lecture hall.

“Hi Jess.” Sunny greeted her.

I had my eyes on the ground the whole time; I could not bring myself to meet her eyes.

“We’ll leave you two alone to talk. We’ll be at the café if you need us.” With that, she left us, dragging Sooyoung with her.

“Do you want to ditch lecture with me? I want to talk to you, I miss you.”

She took my hand and led me out of school. I followed her, too weak to protest. I could feel the tears welling up as soon as the words ‘I miss you’ left her, but I reminded myself to be strong.

We were sitting at the void deck of some housing estate beside school and Jessica had both my hands in hers, rubbing her thumbs in small soothing circles at the back of it.

“I missed you Taengoo ah…” she paused for a few seconds before continuing.

“You’re going to be fine, it’s alright to fail. You are coming back stronger next year. I’ve got faith in you.”

‘It was alright you say? I’m going to be fine?’

That girl had done well in her finals having scored 3 ‘A’s and a B. She was the top student in the Art stream and was on the honor rolls. Did she really know how I felt? All of a sudden, I was feeling mad, but I was not mad at her. I was mad at myself, mad at myself for failing.

“You won’t understand! Nobody would! You’re not the one that’s going to repeat a year and yet you tell me that it’s alright, that everything would be fine!” I flared up at her, tears threatening to spill over.

It was the first time I ever shouted at her, at any of my friends for that matter. She was rather taken aback by my sudden outburst but kept her grip on my hands.

It took me a while to calm down and she had been silent all these while, keeping her eyes on me.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you.” I said, finally breaking the silence.

“It’s okay. Do you want to talk about it? So that I’ll understand.” Her tone was soft.

“No, I’m not going to talk about it.” My voice cracked, it did not take long for the tears to escape.

That was the first time I had ever done so. I pulled my hands away from her and looked up into her eyes. I came to a decision yesterday. I knew that I would regret what I was about to do, but I had to. I steadied my breathing.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Jessica. I’m sorry…let’s…let’s break up.”

Okay, another update before I go on a holiday. I probably won’t be able to update for the next few days but who knows…no promise though. I had an easy time writing this chapter surprisingly and actually got carried away with it. I might have some disagreements with how the school handled certain stuff like the promotion criteria for example. I mean come on, shouldn’t they be looking at the number of subject passes instead? Some junior colleges do that, every school had different criterion but honestly, local universities look at the grades instead don’t they? Don’t get me wrong, I might have hated certain aspects of the school, but I had enjoyed myself during the time I was there. I had made many awesome friends and what not. Carnivals, overseas CCA trips etc were fun too. It was all in the past, and I’ve gained a lot. Well, they say failing makes a person stronger and builds him up…or not. Anyways, have fun reading and enjoy your Xmas holiday. Do remember to comment, I’ll be back soon(: