“God?! What am I doing, I can’t do this. I don’t want hurt him but, I don’t want to be unhappily married either.” My mind is spinning in circles. Today is supposed to be one of the happiest days in my entire life. I’m getting married today, Lee Donghae, who is a wonderful, wonderful man. But I just can’t help but be anything but distraught. I was positive this is what I wanted in life; to be married.

Well, I was positive until, later night after he proposed to me being a doctor and all, he of course got called into work. If he didn’t go he would’ve lost his job and neither of us wanted that to happen, so I let him go, reluctantly. After he left, I decided to get some coffee at the local coffee house. I was extremely happy that I did, because while I was sitting there, thinking about my day, and old familiar face passed by me. It took me a second to register and I did a double take.

It was my life-long friend Im Yoona; who I hadn’t seen or heard from her in five years. We’ve been friends since we were five years old and we were absolutely inseparable. That’s it until Yoona’s mother shipped her off to boarding school in Gwangju. We phoned each other every week, until my mom took my cellphone away and stopped letting me call her. I just thought that Yoona didn’t want to speak to me anymore.

I quickly crooked around and called out “Yoona, Im Yoona?” she then whirled around to find out where the voice came from searching the restaurant. Then her eyes landed on me, and a wide grin crossed her face.

“Jessica. Jessica Jung Sooyeon? Wow …” she chuckled, “is it really you?” she asked incredulity.

“It is. I can’t believe it, I just turned around and there you were, wow, of all places …” I gave her an affectionate embrace.

“I know, so um … how have you been? What’s new?” she asked me as she pulled up a chair and sat by me.

“Well, I’ve been pretty fantastic actually. No too much is new, just same old, same old.” Purposely leaving out the fact that I had just been engaged and hopping she wouldn’t notice my ring. “What about you?”

“Oh you know same old, same old. Say, um … would you like to get outta here and go take a walk or something?” she asked with a smile on her face.

“I thought you’d never ask.” I said.

***

We walked outside, into the hot summer air. “Whew, warm out here don’t you think Sica?” she asked me while fanning her face.

Sica, Sica, now that was a name I hadn’t heard since she left for boarding school, of course she would use it when she phoned me. But I hadn’t actually been called Sica since she left. I then realized just how much I had missed her. I smiled up at her and our eyes met for a brief moment, and then we both looked away.

Clearing at the embarrassment, she asked, “So … what do you nowadays, where do you work?”

“I’m physical therapist and I absolutely love it. I love helping people. Changing their live around and seeing the light come back into their lives, is an amazing feeling. It’s so amazing because I know that I was part of putting that light back into their lives you know? I just absolutely love it. What about yourself?”

“I’m a photo journalist for national geographic. It’s so much fun because I get to travel the world and I get paid to do it. I get to see many different things; it’s kind of given me a different look on life.” She said with a smile.

We kept reminiscing over small talk. We talked about life and its ups and downs. And family- I learned that her father passed away a few years ago and she tried to track me down, but she didn’t have any way of contacting me nor my parents. We also talked about friends, the good and the not so good ones. We talked for hours and caught up on everything that we had missed about life, and about each other.

By the time we were finished talking, it was almost midnight. “God, it was so nice to see her.” I thought to myself.

A knock on the door brought me back to reality, waiting for someone to enter I looked up towards the door. It was my mother checking up on me. “How you doing honey?” right then I burst into tears and I couldn’t take it anymore. “Oh no! Honey …” she ran to comfort me. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Mom I just can’t talk right now. I am just having a rough time accepting all the changes that will happen after I’m married. I just need some time to complete. Can you come back in a little bit? I just want to be alone right now, please Mom.” I said with a happy tone to let her know I wasn’t angry with her. She then left the room and I was by myself once again.

As I sat there I slipped back into my coma of memories and the day I spent with Yoona after I got engaged. As we were walking back to the coffee shop to go get my car, she got cold and held me close to keep warm. She told me that she walked to the coffee shop. It turns out that she just moved back to Seoul a few months ago and lives just about a mile from my house. “Oh, well would you like a ride then?” I asked.

“Sure, I mean if it’s ok with you.” She said.

I laughed and said, “Well that’s why I offered, isn’t it?” She just chuckled and got into the car.

As I pulled up to her house, we talked for a few minutes about how we were both still so amazed that we finally found each other once again. She then started to get out of the car and walk to her house, she turned back and waved bye.

With my mind racing, I yelled out the window, “Wait! Let me walk you to your door.” She smiled, nodded and waited patiently for me.

I walked quickly around the car and when I got her, I took her hand, she looked up and gave me a sincere smile. We got up to the doorstep and she said with a sigh, “Well my dear Sica, I am once again so unbelievably happy that you recognized me and called out my name. it completely made my whole life better … in just one night.”

“As I do, I always tried to find you in phonebooks, and on the internet, but I just never could. But we met at our old coffee shop that we would always go to before you moved away.”

She then laughed and said, “Bizarre huh? Of all places…” I just giggled and gave her another loving hug. We embraced for a while, she then tried to pull away but I didn’t want to let go.

“I don’t want to let go either.” She said with a slight amusement.

After a few minutes we both pulled apart, but not far enough. Our noses grazed, instinctively we both pulled back. But we both smiled, looking into each other’s eyes.

“I think the spark is still there.” I thought to myself.  That was the whole reason that Yoona was sent away to boarding school. We were once very much in love. Both of our parents didn’t want to accept that fact. So they figured the best way to separate us was to well … separate us, and send one of us away. It worked, for a time, until now.

She smiled at me, and then looked into my eyes then down at my lips and back up to my eyes once more. I sensed the spark ignited and leaned in closer. Our lips almost touching, but we both flinched back reveling in the modest intimacy we were sharing. It lasted only but a short moment, she then leaned forward to me again, and I leaned into her. Our lips met, and we quickly pulled back, but smiled as we did, and with no regrets leaned in again and kissed once more. We went no further, but I gave her another loving hug, and said, “Goodbye my dearest friend, I still love you.”

She smiled, “I still love you too.”

We kissed once more, and then departed. As I got back into my car, I saw her move her hand up to her face as if to wipe a tear from her cheek. My mind racing once more, thinking of something I could say to her I yelled out the window once more. “Yoona wait!!” She turned and looked at me listening intently. “Hey, I was … I was uh … wondering would you wanna go to lunch tomorrow?”

“Sure I … I’d like that.” she nodded her head up and down.

“Great! So um… give me a call and let me know where you would like to meet.” I said with excitement.

“Ok.” She said with a wide grin as she wiped another tear from her cheek.

Right then I wanted to go up and give her a hug but I knew that I shouldn’t because, it would just be even harder to say goodbye when I left.