Chapter 5

The room felt like it was closing in on us and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. Once Bom and I have calmed down, we went out and hopped on my reliable 3 year old Vespa. I drove us to Turtle Beach - our beach. We claimed it as ours years ago.

There’s barely any light from the sun now and the twilight somehow perfectly suited our mood. We sit by our usual sand dune under three coconut trees. This was the place where we’d cried over unrequited loves, bad grades and parental injustices. It’s the place where we planned out our dreams after college and mapped out the places we’d travel around the world together. We even made a pact to marry a pair of twins, preferably French, so we can become legal sisters. We dreamt of conquering the world - with Bom, taking the music industry by storm and I, I will discover new ocean species. We dreamt of so much and planned for so much … we just never thought of making room for sickness, much less brain cancer.

A fresh wave of tears threatens to spill out of me so I took deep, measured breaths because I always get hiccups when I cry for too long. Bom has been silent as well and is absentmindedly running some sand between her fingers. We needed no words for we both know that there will be questions which we won’t have the answers for. Still, we couldn’t help but succumb to our tears until we couldn’t cry anymore.

After about half an hour or so, Bom broke the silence as she laughed over two seagulls fighting over a piece of seaweed. At the sound of her laughter, I realized that deep inside, I was furious. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded. “You knew! You knew something was wrong, Bom, that’s why you went to America. You knew didn’t you?” I accuse her. “You must have thought I’m stupid! I was thinking you went there to have fun when you were … you were …” I was babbling, tears are blurring my vision. “How could you keep it from me? I thought I’m your best friend!?”

Bom reach for me and envelops me in a hug. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to worry. I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you sooner …”

I felt like a jerk. “No. I’m sorry” I say. I know that she was just trying to protect me. She has always been the strong one, the ever reliable one. And me? I’m an idiot who only thinks of my feelings. I return her hug and then we let go. 

“I’m sorry” I say again. “I just wished that I could have been there for you, you know. I could have held your hand as you went through different tests.”

She softly laughs. “What? And have you fainting on me? I know you don’t like hospitals, Tokki.”

It’s true. I don’t like human hospitals but one for animals, I have no problem with.

“So all those trips in Seoul months ago before summer, did you already know then?”

“No” she answers. “The first doctor said that it could be stress and it’s affecting my eyes. I was already told that by the local doctor here so we asked for a second opinion. This time, they did some EEG and MRI and other tests that I couldn’t keep track of. Somehow, with all those tests after another, I had a feeling that something was wrong …” She looks at me sadly. “And then, right after the semester ended, my parents decided to go on a family trip. They didn’t tell me at first and they only told me about the main reason why we were there a day before they admitted me to Cedar-Sinai.”

“Oh, Bom” I say, squeezing her hand.

“They did another round of multiple tests until they finally decided to drill a hole in my skull for a brain sample for biopsy.” She wipes a tear and looks at me. “I hated it, Dara. I hated all the needles, all the tests, all the prodding like I was a lab rat. I wanted to go home but I had to do it for my parents. I had to be strong for them.”

“You are strong, Bom. You’re the bravest, most amazing girl I know. You’re Bominator!” I try to cheer her up, despite my tears and we laugh. “So what did the doctors say?”

Her face turns serious and looks into the now, dark ocean, with traces of the pale half moon. “Maybe 6 months to a year, if I’m lucky.”

“Okay” nodding my head, “6 months until you’re all better.”

She shakes her head