Page 220 of My Ruthless Neighbor

“Amy Kim,” I shout at the receptionist.

When she asks who am I to her, I swallow and taste salt. “I’m her brother.”

She gives me a sympathetic look and I hate it. I want to shout in her face to make her stop looking at me like that.

When she tells me the floor number, I sprint down the hallways and choose stairs instead of waiting for an elevator.

When I reach the floor, I find Abeoji holding a crying Eomma to his chest.

With heavy steps, I approach them.

“Eomma?”

She lifts her head and looks at me with so much pain that it makes me stagger back.

“Where is Amy?” I ask hoarsely.

Her face crumbles. Sobbing, she shakes her head.

I stride to her and clutch her upper arms. “Where is Amy? What happened?” I shout.

She trembles in my hold, tears flowing down her cheeks, guttural sobs tearing through her throat. “Tell me! What happened to her? Where is she?” I shake her, uncaring that she was hurting. “Talk to me! What happened to Amy?”

“She is dead,” Abeoji says in an emotionless voice.

I stagger back. My chest tightens and I feel as if someone just stabbed me in the heart with a knife. Then tugged it out only to stab me again. Over and over.

No.

No, no, no.

I fall to my knees and let out a wail of helplessness and rage laced with self-loathing.

Chapter Forty-Five

Itake him in my arms as he breaks in front of me. His shoulders shake as he cries softly. I tighten my arms around him, tears streaming down my face.

I can’t stomach my unrelenting guilt. This whole time I was thinking Amy was his girlfriend whom he can’t forget.

That night when he uttered her name, he was calling out to his dead sister.

He spent fourteen long years blaming himself for her death. Now I know why he hated liars. Because he was one. And that caused him irreparable damage. Left him with scars that never healed.

That’s why he’s been living a lonely life because he hates himself.

He draws back. Shifting, he stares ahead. “She was brutally raped and then beaten to death by a forty-seven-year-old homeless man.”

I cover my mouth and cry softly.

“All because I lied and made her wait alone for a stupid fucking drinking game.”

“Archer, I can’t imagine what you went through, but I hope you realize that it wasn’t your fault.”

He closes his eyes briefly. Then, “After that day in the hospital, I stopped talking. The guilt was too much. I just wanted to die. So I tried killing myself.”

My heart stops.

“If it weren’t for my parents, I would be dead. They walked in on me when I was trying to hang myself. After that, I moved back in with them. I began drinking more than ever. This time, even my father didn’t stop me.” He lets out a humorless chuckle. “It took my sister’s death for me to reunite with Abeoji.”

---