I take the subway myself to school today. My parents now decide I should become independent not just on the way home, but now on the way to school. Great, more time for me to become paranoid of everyone around me.

I reach my school and quickly walk in, hoping no one notices that it's the "foreign Korean" walking in. I go straight to my class and sit down at my seat. Hardly anyone was in class, just two other students. But, they seem like the quiet ones so I don't think they'd bother me.

I check the time and see that class doesn't start until 10 more minutes. I rest my head on my desk and wait for it to start.

5 minutes later, I hear the door open. I look up to see who it was and it's the guy from yesterday. The guy who tapped my shoulder when I exited the subway. He looks at me and flashes a smile, then he sits down in the seat near the front. My eyes widen. He's the smart mouth from yesterday. I roll my eyes. I already forgot what his name was.

Minutes later, more students started to walk in. I look at all of them as they go to their seats. Someone slides their arm across my shoulders and I jump up. My breathing became very heavy.

"Hey, Kimberly." a guy says. I shrug his arm off, still breathing heavy from the shock he gave me. I look at him and his eyebrows are raised.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." he says, adding a chuckle to the end. "I just wanted to know if you wanted to eat lunch with me today."

I shake my head and squint my eyes shut.

Please, just leave me alone.

I think to myself. I open them a little and look at him. His face is holding an expression that shows, this girl is crazy. I look away from him and stare back forward.

"What? You don't want to eat with me today?" he says. I shake my head again, and stay looking away. I hear him scoff and feel him go away from me. I sigh in relief. I didn't think people here would act this way. It's almost like back in America, but it's more worse over there. At least here they leave you alone when you say no...not like back home.

The class starts and Mrs. Jo comes in. She tells us to just sit back and do homework if we have any, or to read and study if we want to catch ahead.

"What if we don't have homework, and we don't want to catch ahead?" I hear the guy from the subway say. I roll my eyes as everyone chuckles.

"Then just sit there quietly, Mr..."

"Jung. Jung HoSeok." HoSeok says, finishing Mrs. Jo's sentence. I look at her and she nods her head at him.

"Right. Mr. Jung. Just sit quietly." she tells him again. HoSeok chuckles a little and stays in his seat quiet. At least he's not causing a ruckus in the class, trying to be the class clown.

***

When it became lunch time, I rushed to the lunch room to get food first before anyone sees. I'm probably just a bit too paranoid of everyone now. I know it might sound a bit cocky, or I have too much of an ego, that's probably the same thing but none of this happened to me at home. The constant teasing and being treated like you're vulnerable. I mean, I got some hate comments back home, but it's normal when you have friends, a lot of them too.

I just feel like everyone's looking at me, and somehow they know about the . They know about it and are calling me a or maybe something worse. Maybe some know and feel bad, but won't say anything. Kimberly, how would they even know about this? It happened a week ago back in California.

As I'm in line, getting my food, I feel hands touch my waist. I drop my tray and squeal silently to myself. The hands quickly pulled away and I felt like breaking down and crying right there. But, I held it in.

I picked up my lunch tray and didn't even bother turning around to see who it was. Good thing I had nothing on my tray just yet.

I finally get my food and look for a table that had nobody in it, and that's far away from the tables that have plenty. I find one way at the end of the room and rush towards it. I sit down and sigh to myself, shaking my head. I sniff and breathe out, trying to calm myself down.

I start to dig in to my food when I notice someone sitting down across the table from me. I look up to see who it was, and I sighed in relief seeing that it was a girl. She flashes a small smile at me and digs into her own food. I tried acting like she wasn't there, but I can feel her just staring at me until I looked back at her.

I finally did and she put her food down, starting to tap onto the table with her five fingers.

"Kimberly, right?" she asks. I swallow and nod my head. "So I've heard?"

I freeze for a moment. Heard what? What did she hear?

"I heard that you're from America." she says. I breathe out and nod my head. Of course she heard that, why would it be the other thing.

"That's nice. I want to go to America. I want to study there. Especially in Los Angeles! My friends want to visit New York but, that's kind of like being in Seoul again. Well, I'm just saying that because they have subways." she says.

"You don't like the subways?" I ask, a bit soft. She looks at me and chuckles, shaking her head.

"No. I don't really like taking them. It's probably because when I was little, I got stuck in a subway train for hours when my dad left, not realizing that he left me in there. I just stayed in the train until he found me at the same spot. I go in cars and buses more now. Oh, and taxi's too."

I nod my head, and she smiles, taking another bite into her tray of food. It stayed silent for a few minutes, and then I catch her head jerk to the left of us. I turn and see a few guys staring over our way. I keep telling myself that they're staring because of her. She's pretty, I'm not going to deny it.

All three of the guys start walking over to us. I sink into my chair, continuing to eat. They came and just spoke to her, completely ignoring me. I felt relieved, until one finally noticed me sitting there.

"Hey, new girl, right?" he asks. I nod my head and he laughs.

"So you're half American and half Korean, huh?" he asks more. I nod my head again.

"Cool, so am I." he says, in English and a perfect American accent. "My name's Yoo HakKun, but in America I was Henry."

I just nodded my head. I don't want to make friends here anyways. It's my last year here and I feel like making friends is just useless now. After a year of being "friends", we'll all just end up leaving and separating. Also, I'm kind of scared.

"Yah, don't hit up the new girl." his friend says, smacking the back of his head. They all laugh and I just slightly chuckled. 

"What's going on here?" a familiar voice says. We all turned to see who it was, and we all saw HoSeok walking over towards us.

"Hey! What's up hyung?" Henry says, giving him a handshake. Hyung? So he's a year younger than me probably. HoSeok returns the handshake and the exchange laughs.

"Just chatting with the new girl." Henry's friend says.

"She has a name." the girl in front of me says. "Oh! Speaking of names, how rude of me to not introduce myself. I'm Choi HeeYoung."

I smile.

"Ah, the new girl in my class." HoSeok says. "Kimberly, right?"

I nod my head. Why is everyone here so interested in me? Okay fine, I'm half American. Now leave me alone.

"It seems pretty obvious that she doesn't want to talk. Come on guys, lets leave her alone." HoSeok says, nodding his head over the other way, telling them to leave with him. They all chuckle and follow after him. HeeYoung stays behind for a while. She just smiles at me, and then she goes with them. I sigh and sink more into my chair. This is going to be an annoying school year.

***

"How was school today?" my dad asks. I groan as I walk to my room.

"Are you going to ask me that everyday?" I say.

"No. Just curious." he says. I sigh and go into my room. I throw my backpack onto the floor and immediately go over to my closet and change into my pajamas. I jump onto my bed and stare at my ceiling.

My phone rings and I get up, going to my backpack and picking it up. I grab my phone inside and see Jailene calling me. My breathing gets a bit heavy. I go over to my bed and answer it.

"Hello?" I say, laying down.

"Kimberly? Hey! Hey, how's Korea?!" she asks.

"It's good." I say, adding in an awkward chuckle.

"Man, it's only been a week and I miss you! We all miss you here!" she says. I chuckle for real this time. Maybe talking to my friends back home is a good thing to do.

"I miss you, too." I say.

"You know who else misses you?" she asks.

"No. Who?"

"Joseph." she says. I freeze and move the phone away from my ear. After I calmed myself down, I bring it back. I hear her chuckling.

"Dude! He's like totally head over heels for you! I don't know how you two clicked so fast at the party but he wouldn't stop talking about you!" she rambles.

"What does he say?" I ask, breathing harder.

"Just that you're really pretty and he loves your personality and everything. He even said you're everything he's looking for, which is kind of weird to say after just hanging out at one party. But who cares, right? He likes you!" she says. I don't answer her.

"Hey. You alright?" she asks.

"Uhm, yeah. I just got a little sick. I guess I'm still a little jet lagged." I say, forcing out a chuckle.

"Oh. Aw, I don't know how being jet lagged feels like. Feel better! I'll message you later then." she says, and hangs up. I drop my phone onto the ground and turn my body around, slamming my face into my pillow. I scream into it, hoping it muffled out my screaming enough so my parents can't hear. My screaming turned into cries, silent cries.

I left America, hoping that the problem would go away. But it just follows me. I know even here, I'm not really in good terms with the students but I didn't want what happened in America to follow me.