The room around me began to spin. I felt tears in my eyes, yet my entire body was cold and numb. Chills took over me, until I felt sick enough to puke. The noise around me seemed to dim down to a buzzing, sounding almost irritating. I drowned it all out. All I could hear were my thoughts. I looked back up at the doctor. I kept repeating, "What?," over and over until I couldn't dare to hear it again. "Omma!" I screamed in agony. My Omma was gone.

      Unless you have lost someone yourself, so close to you that you could be the same being, you'd never understand the aching in my stomach. The yearning in my bones to wake up from this nightmare. I'd done it before while I was sleeping. I'd realize I were dreaming and wake up in a cold sweat. But this time, this wasn't a dream. My buddhist hands clenched together in prayer, 'Please, whatever God there is. If there is one, please don't take her. I need her. I'm not even a woman yet.'

 I lit incense in my Omma's memory. I ate Kimchi and cried alone. My Oppa wouldn't even look at me. He couldn't bare to see me in pain just as much as I couldn't bare to see him in the same agony. 'Oppa, be strong. I need you.' were the last thoughts in my head until I drifted in a hazy sleep. 

I had never felt so heartbroken. The only thing that could save me from this hell was sleeping, and even in sleep your mind betrays you and will play the images you desire so much, and when you wake up, the illusion is gone, the pain comes rushing back. I dreampt of images of Omma and I. She held my hand and said everything was okay. When I woke up, I resented my mind's betrayal.

   My Omma had always been my best friend. When my friends me a year ago, she stayed right beside me. She'd listen to me cry for yours. When I'd come home from being bullied, she was there. Those tears were all because of a jealous girl.

    Her jealousy seemed harmless, but her wrath was one that condemned me to a life of embarassment. When I was 15, my best friend Sae-Jin was someone I thought I could trust. I had always really liked an upperclassmen who at the time, seemed to like me aswell. Almost immediately after I told her how I'd written a note and would give it to him, she started acting strange. I got the call to meet her at DongDaeMun station, where I waited on the sidewalk for several minutes. That night seemed completely average, meeting up with her to get something to eat or just talk about stupid thing. In hindsight, I should have noticed something was wrong. Sae-Jin had never been late before.

I stood on the side of two cross streets on the sidewalk, shivering in my knit hat and gloves although I wore a heavy jacket. My nose had probably turned red because I could feel my bare skin numbing from the cold. Two pairs of hands grabbed my arms and started asking inappropriate questions. Immediately I'd realized they'd mistaken me for someone else. I screamed that I wasn't who they thought I was, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. I watched across the street as I struggled, Sae-Jin stood with something in her hands, documenting it, or photographing it. Whatever she was doing, I put it together that it wouldn't be good for me. When Sae-Jin crossed the street over to us, she brushed past me and they released me like nothing had happened. I called after her in confusion. "Why didn't you help me?" I cried.

   I walked home, my body shaking not only from the cold but from fear. I thought they would never leave me alone. I had never been so scared in my life. I sat with my mother in the kitchen that night until I could muster up the courage to sleep. My mom was there for me from the beginning of all of this. Now what would I do?

    The next day I had planned to give Lee Sung the note, I instead had to endure the insults of my classmates, but worst of all, Lee Sung scowling at me. "If I had known what kind of girl you were I wouldn't have wasted my energy even talking to such a low class !" I fell to my knees with my face in my hands. "I didn't do anything, Lee Sung! Please, you have to believe me. I-I-I really like you." I stuttered through my tears. When I looked up, in the hallway, it was only Sae-Jin looking remorseful. "I'm.. I didn't think this would happen, Minah. I just couldn't let you have Lee Sung." Her eyes were tearing. I couldn't understand. "You have to tell them! You have to tell them I didn't do anything! That it was you. Please Sae-Jin. What did you do?" I pleaded. "I'm sorry Minah. I'm so sorry. But I can't tell them, they'll all hate me. Even Lee-Sung. Especially.. Lee-Sung." Her volume decreased as she spoke. She stared into my eyes and apologized once more, "I'm sorry." She walked away without a murmur of explanation. I called behind her, "You'd rather me suffer?" I later found the source of my classmates sudden torment. Sae-Jin had taken a picture of the two men groping me from all angles. She'd posted them all over the bulletin board. I tore them down in disgust and ripped each one up seperately. I was too good of a person to expose Sae-Jin even after she had put this all on me, because I knew she was an outcast to begin with. I wasn't however. I had it good. Lee-Sung smiled at me, Lee-Sung admired me, Lee-Sung thought I was beautiful. Maybe it was my fault for ignoring my best friend's true feelings. And pursuing my own. Maybe. I should have been more sensitive toward her.

I had a free pass from school for a few days, to successfully experience the grieving process. Instead I got dressed and made my way out the door. Maybe fate had made me strong for a reason. I pulled on the long stockings and my plaid skirt and proceeded to button my cardigan and jacket. I brushed my long brown hair and bangs into my face nicely, filling the bottom waterline of my eyes with white eyeshadow, the top with a thin line of black. I grabbed my backpack and mustered up the courage to ask my father for a ride. "Oppa, I need to go to school." I said softly. He nodded and silently we made our way to the car. "I admire your perserverence, but maybe you shouldn't go to school so soon." He suggested. "Oppa, just because she's gone doesn't mean life just stops." I clenched my fists and bit my lip, but I was really fighting back tears.

 The car ride was full of uninteresting gossip and boring small talk. When we arrived at school I stormed out of the car and took in the scenery outside of my school. It was a big pretty building, with a lot of windows and expensive cars circling the parking lot. I wasn't too rich myself, but my Oppa was one of the most credited lawyers in all of Seoul. Those who attended Atoulier were either multi-millionaires, or worked for multi-millionaires. We were well off, luckily. My school had 4 floors, and a large courtyard where students spent most of their free time. This was where the infamous bulletin board was. But because of my scandal, they were forced to take it down. Parents complained that it distracted their children from their school work and created more gossip than they paid for. Pfft, more like they feared their child would end up there next. 

   I dragged my feet all the way into the building and past the courtyard. After a year, someone can still not talk to me without being shunned from existance. You'd think the childish slurs would stop. Yet they've really only calmed down a little. As I walked in, my classmates around me seemed more excited than usual. "Did you hear?" I heard from behind me. "The bulletin board was put back up this morning, and you have to see it!" a random short and stocky freshman exlaimed. Although I knew my fear was irrational, I still found myself watching my back to see if everyones gazes were aimed at me. Like I would relive the horrors of last year all over again. But that wouldn't happen. I was no longer a threat to Sae-Jin. 

I stepped foot out to the courtyard, and couldn't believe my eyes. The picture...