TIFFANY

I literally die every Sunday night.

Well, not as literally as to drop dead on the kitchen floor with a glass of juice in hand, eyes wide open like some heart attack victim, but I die all the same. I guess you can call it a less than literal sense, but it totally rebukes the awesome first sentence I just said. As to why though.

Why do I die every Sunday night?

One reason. I panic at the thought of Mondays.

That includes any and everything connected to the word, the activities included, and the time that leads to it. Even if it was the winter break, and the school is closed for the moment –allowing me freedom to wallow some more in my general hatred of Mondays. Not to mention the incessant irritating ring of the alarm clock on my bedside table, triumphant and screaming like a harken for some newly-heralded king –albeit an unwanted one. Which idiot had set it to –I flicked open one eyelid and peeked at it with sleep-drugged eyes –five thirty in the morning? He must have some kind of mental problem. Except of course, it was me who set it so early. Although the reason for such an action is both unwarranted and unwanted. For one thing, the darkness of night still darkened my window.

There should be a rule that Mondays should not officially start until the sun has risen up properly. I mean, it must be an insult in some cultures to precede the rising of the sun when you wake up, isn’t it? Ugh. Who am I kidding? It’s December –in Manhattan. The sun wasn’t going to be up for another two hours at least –and in less than three, I’d have to face the whole stinking world again. It’s winter break, and my senior year was supposed to be at its peak. Yet in a huge ironic slap, I was at the pits.

It’s unavoidable, isn’t it? A first day of something after a lifetime of memory-making –all those whispered secrets and shouted declarations between friends were as permanent as time. And yet, nothing could be as permanent as broken promises, or my shattered heart, broken by my –oh, how else am I going to say it –my best friend.

Although in truth, I was always in love with him. (Gag.)

Chanyeol wasn’t just my next-door-neighbor. We grew up together –our life’s milestones running together, even share the same birthday. We played together, took baths together(not as freaky as it sounds when you’re three, really), built our own playhouse, learned to ride our bikes, even broke bones together. We even share the same damn interests –buy the same video games, argue over the most trivial of things only to concede to each other and argue again, this time on each other’s sides. Even fate seemed inclined to throw us together when we started school, with the both of us being assigned to the same classes from kindergarten through middle school. It’s all very foolish really, but we were best friends, and it was all that mattered. Our bond was too strong and significant to break.

Even when we started high school and he got incredibly tall and started to mind what he wore and how his hair looked like –and girls started noticing how unbearably attractive he was(me included, really), his attractively-messed up hair, and hazel brown eyes and the golden flecks that seemed to swim in it. Or maybe I stuck by him, stubbornly if I may say so myself. People look at us walking side by side, and I notice their expressions. It’s like they consider me the shield from Chanyeols actual dating world. I can recite by name all the girls who’d kill to be where I was. But who cared? He was hot, I was hot. We belonged together like that. Yeol didn’t notice –or maybe he did and just thought they were looking at him, which was true. But the point was, even when he became popular and I lagged behind, he remained my bestfriend.

And this summer break together, like all of the previous times before, has been spent hanging out, just being with each other, just being friends. Up until one week ago. The first few days, he looked up and stared at my window, but he shook his head as if to stress what a fool I was. That was when he stopped talking to me, stopped taking my phone calls, and when he started leaving his house long before I woke up only coming home long after I had my lights out and my curfew kept me indoors –when he altogether stopped acknowledging my existence.

That was after I broke the cardinal rule of friendship and told him I was in love with him.

Before I did it, it sounded reasonable enough, telling the person I’ve known since forever that I was in love with him, especially since I definitely was. And why not tell him? After all he knew absolutely everything about me. Every secret, deep or insignificant, every obvious and invisible imperfection, and every screw up I made were all documented in our memories, if not in photo albums created solely for the purpose of blackmail at a later date. I had been nothing but unbearably honest and unfailingly loyal to him.   

And perhaps, that was exactly where I was wrong.

With an agonized sort of groan, I reflected back to that moment, that crucial blip in time when I’d finally found the misplaced courage to tell Chanyeol exactly how I felt. We’d been sitting on the hood of his dad’s truck –a big red monstrosity that stood out wherever he went. The shiny fire engine red truck with the lilac-scented leather seats had been our home away from home when his parents were fighting –which seemed to be happening at a daily basis nowadays –or when my mom and her unbearable debutante friends sat on the living room, discussing my ‘coming out party’, whatever that was.

The car was a birthday present from Chanyeol’s grand-uncle, from whom he was named after, two years ago. Chanyeol had just been made captain of the soccer team –the youngest ever at sixteen –and had also just passed his driver’s license test. It was a defining moment for him, and receiving that truck was like some kind of trophy. Like being given the world. Of course, it was unfortunate that Grand-uncle Chan died three months later.

He almost had a heart-attack himself when we found out, but I told him to think of it as a goodbye present, which was a bit morbid, but it made him feel better. And we certainly enjoyed the new ‘freedom’ we suddenly found. Like go to the mall –which we never did, except for that one time when I ran out of printing papers and he needed a new tube of that seductively-scented styling wax he always used; and go to  the baseball quad –which we also never did because he kept complaining that I threw like a girl; or go to the cemetery to visit my dad’s and his grandmother’s grave –a monthly ritual for us.

But at that moment, that car became my platform –my stage. And Chanyeol was the less than captivated audience. Or maybe it was like one of those puritanical executions, and I stood waiting as the invisible executioner hung a noose around my neck and opened the trapdoor. Morbid again, really, but imagine how it felt.

‘Channie,’ I started, my hands balling into fists as I tried hard to inhale sharply without him noticing it lest he get a premonition of what I was about to say and run away screaming. But my voice quivered from the tightness of my nerves and I had to breathe sharply and loudly anyway to calm myself while I braced myself against the windshield. The smooth sloped surface, which usually comforted me with its predicable coldness, did nothing to the tension building in my gut. I felt the horrible need to hurl.

He glanced over at me cockily and smiled. Call me an unfortunate little girl caught in the middle of my little Cinderella mode, but I certainly loved that smug smile of his. But then again, so did hundreds of other girls(and women and children), most of which just so happened to catch him smiling at something. The way his lips parted ever so slightly and one side turned up in some kind of smirk that should be insulting, but it made my heart thunder instead, teasing me with an unspoken promise and never failed to make me forget what I wanted to say –and what my name was.

‘What’s up, Tiff?’ he asked in an arrested sort of tone, taking note of my awkward and tense aura and adjusting himself in kind. He leaned back, as if bracing himself for the upcoming emotional show that he could sense was on the brim of breaking through my awkward feminine defenses.

I started to speak but my tongue felt dry –like it was a wet clump of cotton instead of a tongue. I had replayed this speech over and over in my mind, imagining what I would say and what his reactions would be. But I’d never practiced them –not like you would a proper speech where you stand in front of the mirror and recited the words, making sure they sound well together, and gauging your own facial expressions. But now, it looked like the internal switch I had solely for this kind of situations(not that I had many, or any for that matter), had shorted out on me, and made me stare at him dumbly. I gulped and took another deep breath, looking back at him. He had an expectant look on his face, ever so attentive to me. My lips, quivering, curved up into a tiny smile of sorts. ‘I…’

He leaned in closer, giving me a whiff of his minty cologne, scrambling my thought further still. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ he asked again, this time definitely sensing my caution and frowning in response. After all, I had never held anything back from him –not what I felt or what I thought. His confusion was expected, even I knew that.  I wasn’t acting myself, and it was putting him off.

If this was going to go well(I was going to say as planned, but I never really planned about this to go any way), I had to pull myself together, or else I’ll never make it beyond sitting there like a mangy old dog with its mouth hanging open. I took several more calming breaths, I decided right there to go with the flow. Seizing that moment of renewed strength, lest I chicken out again, I took the first step towards the other side. If there was a gold medal for openness, I was going to have it.

My mouth opened and the words just tumbled out.

‘Chanyeol, I love you -’

I quickly bit down everything else that was supposed to go with that sentence, a jumble of words catching in my throat like some kind of gag, almost choking me. I don’t think I was that brave…yet.

For an agonizingly long moment that seemed to drag on forever, he sat there in silence. I honestly had it in mind that he wasn’t planning on saying anything and leave me hanging there like an idiot –the thought made me think the silence was about to strangle me. Or maybe it was the fact that I was holding my breath. That, added to the fact that the rest of the words I wanted to say were lodged in my throat.

His face was an ever-growing map of conflicting emotions, one intangible from the other. I’ve known him all my life and even I had to admit, I couldn’t decipher what was going through his mind right at that moment. This was the first time I said those three words to him in a tone that wasn’t mocking or playful –the way you’re supposed to tell it to your bestfriend –and I knew it caught him off guard completely, mainly because he’d never been at a loss for words before. And I realized I did the unthinkable. I rendered the great Chanyeol Park speechless.

The silence dragged on for forever –or maybe it was just a second or three hours. My eyes flicked to my watch, automatically adding up the seconds. Seventy-two seconds to be exact. And then he sighed, somewhat hesitantly. ‘Ditto, Tiff.’

The ground rumble beneath me, opening up a huge hungry chasm that gaped hungrily at me.

Then Chanyeol smiled.

I leapt at the chance and continued –‘and I’m also in love with you.’ –just loud enough for him to hear. Maybe too loud –out of habit. I’ve always been a little silent around him, but it bothered him how loud I could get when I started talking. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for what was too come, whatever it was. I wanted to open my eyes, I didn’t want to miss anything in this supposedly magical moment when I finally told my best friend I loved him –his reaction to my confession. But when I did, I didn’t recognize it at all.

He looked past me,  avoiding my gaze entirely as his face held on fast to a blank expression, though I could see the slight crease between his eyebrows as he struggled to hide what he was really thinking. I’ve seen it only twice –once when his dad made the mistake of yelling at him about his turning down a transfer program to the pre-college training for the UCLA soccer team, and second, when a girl talked trash about me in front of him. Being the nice and tolerant person that he is, he never said anything to them, but he told me afterwards how he felt. It wasn’t a nice picture. One of our little secrets. And seeing it at that moment, I felt my heart drop down twenty feet below the ground. For some insane reason, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes. Every part of it had him in the picture, almost to an uncanny level. Every day, from the first clear memory of us together, playing mud cakes in the front lawn of his house to the latest memory of yesterday when we were sitting on the couch and watching stupid little reruns. He was a permanent fixture throughout.

Then his expression hardened and I saw the resolve form in his eyes. ‘Lex,’ he began, still not looking at me. ‘That’s not –what are you -’ Still at a loss for words, he stuttered helplessly, although I knew what he wanted to say. After that confusing little show, the next scenes were evident on his face. He jumped down from the hood and shoved his hands into his pockets, maybe in an attempt to keep them occupied.

I stared on dumbly, quite aware that things weren’t going smoothly and were probably about to destroy my entire life. I watched him pace the grass in front of me, taking deep breaths as he did so. I saw a mirror of my earlier tension, only his was obviously on the flipside of the coin. My breathing stopped for a moment, rendering me almost unconscious, but as I watched the expression on his face, unconsciousness would have been welcome.

It was some time again before he spoke in a carefully measure tone. ‘Tiff, I don’t know how to tell you this without hurting you, but I don’t exactly feel the same about you.’

There. He said it.

And as soon as he did, the blank expression slowly ebbed away, leaving in its wake, a very incredulous, very angry expression. I was taken aback by the sudden flash of something quite unlike his usual gentle manner on his face as he muttered, ‘I thought you knew better, Tiffany.’ He almost spat my name, scoffing as he did so. Did he find it funny? I thought –the fact that I’d apparently fallen for him. ‘You and I, we run in different leagues. Like in completely different circles –or at least I do. You’ve been struggling just to keep afloat since the sixth grade and I’ve been weighed down by this friendship for too long. You’ve been holding me back, and now you had to tell me that you’re in love with me, like that’s supposed to mean something? What the hell are you thinking?’

He shook his head, muttering to himself as he ran his fingers through his dark brown hair, messing up his hair further, almost seeming as if he wanted to tear his hair out. Frustration was wrecking him in ways I haven’t ever seen before. He started pacing again, in short ungraceful strides, too upset to even care.

I watched him, unable to say anything and plainly unable to find the strength to argue my side, mostly because I knew he was right. I mean, I HAVE been thinking about those things the past years, but since he never gave anything away, not a peep that he was getting tired of having me around, I dispelled the thoughts and thanked God for everything else. So now that he was finally saying them to my face, I was caught unaware.

After several minutes of pacing in front of me while I sat frozen and speechless, he sighed heavily and let his head fall. It might have looked like he was resigning himself to something, but the finality of the action sent tremors down my spine. He lifted his head, fixing harsh eyes on me, letting the words tumble out as fast as possible, not delaying the inevitable, or perhaps to keep himself from saying something worse. ‘This has got to end. We can’t be friends anymore, Lex. We can’t be anything else either.’

My mouth dropped to a large O, mirroring in my face the surprise I felt bubbling at the pit of my stomach. I blinked. And so just like that, my future has been cast in stone. Only it wasn’t me who made the decision.

I don’t know what my face looked like at that moment. Except for the incessant picture of a fish out of water, which was exactly how I felt, I couldn’t picture what emotions flashed there. I’d hate to think that I had looked exactly how I felt –horrified, hurt, internally crashing down. It would be pathetic if those showed, proverbial and cliché as they may seem. I didn’t want to be one of the people who succumbed to emotions entirely. But whatever they were, Chanyeol looked at me and decided to pound the final nail into my coffin.

‘I didn’t know how to tell you this when school was over –I didn’t want to, really –but I’m moving back to Korea. My parents decided to get a divorce. Only a matter of time, I think. But it’s my one shot out of here. Which means I’m not going to Heathcliff this year.’

He paused to reach into his pockets again and pulled out something, shoving it clumsily towards me with such obvious disgust I almost flinched back. ‘Take this back,’ he said to me as he tried to force it into my hand, never once reacting to the way I trembled at the contact.

Maybe I was being childish. Or immature. But my hands clenched tightly into fists, utterly refusing to take whatever it was he was giving back. It seemed too fast. Much too final. His hand pried open my fist and dropped something on it, then folded my hand on it almost gently. I could feel the cold something inside my palm –as if it never rested against him at all.

My head shook from side to side, stressing my refusal although he’d already succeeded in giving back the one final thing he wanted to be rid of. I let my hand fall to my side and unclench, letting the silver cross and the chain that threaded it fall to the grassy ground. I looked up at Chanyeol’s face, finding it expressionless. His shoulders slumped down and he took a deep breath as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Was I that much of a burden to him? The thought was cruel, but I decided not to dwell on it. And without another word, I turned around and walked away.

I had expected him to shout after me –I don’t know, call me back or something. My ears strained, my mind even willing him to walk two steps and say my name. It’s warranted. After all, seventeen years of knowing each other HAD to count for something. At least it did for me. However it didn’t seem that way with him. So I continued walking quick short steps, feeling the bond between us stretch and stretch as I moved further away. And I knew if I put enough distance, it would finally break.

Was it a stupid move? I would probably never know, since as I said, he never talked to me again since. Quite pathetic, actually. And now it was Monday morning –I was hiding under the covers, trying to wish the day away. Whether it go back to Sunday or fast-forward to Tuesday, I didn’t care. I’d probably spend the next week the same way I spent the last anyway. Wallowing in bed, getting up only to go to the bathroom or eat when I get hungry(which is every other day). Except –

‘Tiffany!’

My step-sister’s tinkling voice proved a much more awakening alarm than the alarm clock itself had been. But I burrowed further under the sheets and refused to acknowledge her beckons. It was too much, having to face Monday for the first time(well, at least, for the first time I didn’t have Chanyeol to pull me through the day). My thoughts went back to his statement about going back to Korea and wondered how life was going to be now that he was completely going to be out of the picture. Not like I didn’t have a taste of it for the past week, but I still had to wonder.

‘Tiff!’ There goes my evil step-sister again. ‘Come down now or we’re going to be late!’

I scoffed. As if I cared one bit. But I sat up abruptly and rubbed the sleep off my eyes. But it just probably made the puffiness worse. Ignoring the screaming thought in my head, I proceeded blindly towards the bathroom to start the daily ritual I’d neglected for the past days –probably for the rest of my life if I was inclined to. I slithered like some kind of blob across the bathroom floor towards the wall mirror. I knew I looked like hell, and I honestly didn’t want to see the extent of the damage, but I needed to. Even I didn’t want to go to school looking like a Halloween party on the first day. At least not yet anyway.

I blinked slowly and looked at my reflection –

-and almost stumbled back in shock. To say that I looked like hell was a serious understatement. If I was to say it exactly right, it would be that ‘I look like a drunk, dead criminal, probably a slave, who just got hung in the gallows, dragged five miles across burrs and muck then tied to a post in the desert and left to be eaten by passing hawks.’ Only the hawks probably didn’t want anything to do with me. I groaned. It was bad enough to be the drama queen, and our club’s laughingstock without looking the part.

In a frenzy, I stepped into the shower, clothes and all and scrubbed myself raw. It was all I could do not to scrape my infernal face off. I stepped out of the shower, thoroughly clean of the week-old crustiness, baby-pink and eyes sparkling with a vengeance.

My clothes were a bit of a problem. I couldn’t very well go out into the world looking like someone who’d just got unceremoniously dumped –which I was, but who needed to know, right? Also, it was probably time to change my image, since I was very, very determined to not be the poor girl who got dumped by her best friend. I grabbed a light pink top and the black skirt somewhere waaaaaay in the back of my closet, and completed it with the opaque tights, boots and leather jacket.

The off-duty supermodel look caught my step-sister’s attention almost immediately when I walked into the nearly-empty kitchen. She stared for a moment but didn’t say anything –she knew, or could feel it. Because no Chanyeol meant no Chanyeol’s brother to play, or talk geek with. Or gossip with. They’ve become friends almost immediately after we imprinted on each other and they were almost as close. Taeyon noticed it right away –even without me saying anything, because as soon as IT happened, Leeteuk stopped coming too. Of course, she probably had no idea why. Just that Chanyeol and I weren’t friends anymore. Or maybe it was the fact that I stayed up in my room for one week, living like a hermit.

‘You okay?’ she said finally, when I sat down on the counter and stared at my bacon like it was going to bite me back if I started on it.

‘Sure, Taengoo. Totally fine.’ I  looked two inches above her head, just to avoid looking at her.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘So how are things?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Like you care, dork. And anyway, I’m fine –except for the fact that it’s the first day of  Aspen club. And nobody is totally fine in the first day of Aspen Club.’ I pretended to be interested with the plate in front of me, although it was probably more than obvious that I couldn’t be less so. The only thing I wanted to do was get out of the house and get away from my sister’s scrutinizing and too-perceptive gaze. Not that I could, because she’s in Aspen Club with me. It’s this dumb thing some of the brownstone kids have when their parents fly off to Aspen. We don’t do anything illegal except go through an entire month’s supply of alcohol in a week. I wasn’t too excited for it, as was obvious –just to get out. So I followed up my little fib with another, bigger fib. ‘I’m meeting Chanyeol later.’

TAEYON

As soon as she stepped down the foyer and flopped on the counter, I knew something was definitely wrong. She wasn’t dressed like a high-priced hooker like usual, and the make-up was at a minimal –not to mention she was missing the dark red lips. She looked more like –me. Only dressier. Also there was the fact that she didn’t even budge or pick a fight about being left with me for the first time in forever(since my dad is also her dad –long story). But I was willing to let it all off until she mentioned meeting Chanyeol with the weird wince on her face.

I felt my expression change into a suspicious one. ‘You. Meeting Chanyeol. You broke up your bestfriend bond.’

‘Since when?’ she faked a confused look.

‘You’ve been holed up in your room for a week,’ I mumbled. ‘You and that Abercrombie-model-slash-Greek-God haven’t spoken in like forever. Not to mention Kai’s been pretty weird. What did you do, confess your love with him or something?’

Her expression turned sour.

I hurriedly gulped down the tall glass of OJ in front of me to avoid looking at her livid face. My step-sister was some kind of drama queen, and I definitely didn’t want to provoke something like that. But the irony was a little funny. ‘You’re kidding.’ I muttered, trying to hide a smile.

‘It’ not funny,’ she muttered darkly.

‘Yeah, tragic, of course,’ I couldn’t help but say.

‘What about you, when are you going to confess your undying love for the big brother?’ She spat. Uh-oh. Total meltdown coming on.

I snorted. ‘I am not in love with Leeteuk Park. Besides, I actually have a boyfriend.’

The mention of the b-word made her narrow her eyes. I know it bothered her so much that despite being a dorkfest, as she termed it, I have a steady boyfriend, and she doesn’t. ‘Oh, don’t kid yourself. You’re always making googly eyes at him.’

‘No way. Just because I think about him like THAT doesn’t mean I love him. Anyway, he’s on the No Kiss List.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘You and your Lists.’ She stopped short. ‘What the heck is a No Kiss List?’

‘It’s a secret.’

She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, challenging me with her stare. I could almost see the gears in her brain whirring and going in high gear trying to figure out what I was saying. of course, she’d have a hard time figuring it out because I could keep my mouth shut and I think seven times before I do anything(unlike her). I met her gaze calmly and smiled. It might have gone on for hours if she didn’t throw her hands up and groaned. ‘Fine. Don’t tell me. Why is he on the No Kiss List?’

‘If I tell you, the secret wouldn’t actually be a secret anymore,’ I told her.

‘Oh, come on, sis. Give me a break here. I’m all heartbroken and stuff.’ She blinked pityingly at me. Then she seemed to remember something. ‘Wait a minute. When was the last time you spoke to the Greek god’s brother?’

‘Sometime last Monday. Why?’

‘Did he tell you anything about moving back to Korea?’ she looked ready to explode.

‘Yeah, their sister is moving back.’

She exploded. (It was only a matter of time, since her face was already turning red). ‘Only her?’ Oh, that jerk.’

‘You’ve been friends for forever. You only notice now? Get your head checked.’

She looked at me with a murderous expression and I held up my hands in mock-surrender. Maybe I had gone way overboard with that statement –however it was true, and anyone with a brain can see it. unfortunately, having a drama queen as a step-sister made it hard to crack such jokes without loud and teary repercussions. The fact was proven true by the sudden waterworks that spilled from Tiffany’s eyes. It wasn’t that the tears actually affected me. Just that the look on her face was pretty irritating.

‘Okay, okay! Stop crying.’ God, anyone would think she was nine instead of nineteen. ‘I’ll tell you about the list if you stop crying.’

‘Really?’ She opened her eyes and looked at me, her hands already wiping her face. The comeback was so quick it was almost impossible.

I nodded and cursed myself inwardly. I just hope she can keep a secret.