Page 14 of Love in Focus

To: [email protected]

CC: [email protected]

Subject: RE: Modern in Love in Focus Project

Hey, Gem. Nice to hear from you. I’m fine with being on the project if you are. Talk to you soon.

-C

Fuck.I read the email over and over again, as if my life depends on the few sentences. No, I’mnotfine with any of this. But it’s not like I have a choice. Not really. Evelyn is dead set on keeping Celeste. Like I said I would, I’ll just have to deal with my own discomfort.

It’ll be the biggest project you’ve ever worked on atHorizon, I remind myself.

I take a deep breath. The only thing I can do at this point is rip off the Band-Aid. I hit reply and write up another email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

CC: [email protected]

Subject: RE: Modern Love in Focus

Hi, Celeste. Great! Then why don’t we meet up sometime after Thanksgiving to talk more about our visions for the project, expectations, etc.? Let me know your availability.

-Gemma

In almost no time at all, Celeste sends me a list of her available days and times. Unfortunately, things are going as smooth as they can.

I glance up from the email chain and realize it’s half past five. No way am I working overtime to schedule things with Celeste. On a Friday, no less. She’ll have to wait until Monday morning.

I shut down my computer and head out for the weekend.

The days before Thanksgiving fly by in a blur, like they usually do, with everyone in the office either slacking off or working in hyperdrive before the holiday. I’m in the latter camp, and I hustle to get as much done as I can, including finalizing my meeting time with Celeste. Since she isn’t coming back from LA until a full week after the holiday, the earliest time we can meet is the next Friday night. Which isn’t ideal, but it can’t be helped. We’ll have to start working on the project ASAP after we meet.

On Thanksgiving morning, I fly an hour and a half to Irvine. The gravity of the whole situation only fully sinks in when I see my parents’ worried faces at the airport. In the seven years I’ve lived in SF, it was always either Mom or Dad who came to pick me up, never both. The fact that they’re both here, even after I called ahead to tell them I’d get an Uber back home, is a crushing reminder of how much my life has changed since I last saw them.

Mom envelops me in her arms. Dad follows suit, and even without them saying anything, I can tell they can feel my grief as if it were their own.

Neither of my parents say “We told you so” on the drive back home. Nor do they say something like “See, this is why we told you to date a nice Korean man from our church.” They don’t say anything, other than to ask how Val and Kiara are doing and if I’d eaten dinner yet.

I must look more pathetic than I thought.

Back home, Mom’s prepared us an extravagant meal of braised beef galbi, pan-fried dumplings, japchae noodles,and more than five different other side dishes that make my mouth water. We’ve never been the traditional American Thanksgiving type of family, opting to eat Korean food for every holiday instead.

When we don’t have any guests over and it’s just the three of us, Mom usually only makes one nice dish, like a hearty stew or banquet noodles. Without her even having to tell me, I know she’s put in extra effort today to help me feel better.

My heart squeezes in the best way.

“Eat up,” Mom says. “You’ve lost a lot of weight since we saw you last.”

Korean mom translation:You don’t look well. I’m worried about you.

Over dinner, my parents and I catch up, talking in a mix of both Korean and English like we always do. They tell me what they’ve been up to, both at work and in their Korean church community, and I tell them as much as I can about what happened in my life—minus printer room–gate and my messy bar encounters—without bursting into tears. They’re worried enough about me as it is. I don’t want them to lose sleep at night because of my dating woes.

Hours later, after they’ve gone to bed, I draw myself a bath. When I was a kid, Mom used to draw one for me whenever I’d had a particularly hard day at school. I’d come home feeling like the world was imploding and submerge myself into hot water infused with whatever bath salts Mom was into that day. By the time I got out of thetub, life would feel manageable again, like I’d finished a therapy session.

I haven’t taken a bath since the breakup, because I didn’t want to rack up my friends’ water bills. So when I sink into the soothingly warm water tonight, I relish it. Or at least, I try to. But no matter how much I stay submerged or scrub away my dead skin, I can’t change the fact that I gave up seven years of my life for someone who seemingly had a change of heart overnight. I can’t change the fact that just weeks after my disastrous and traumatic breakup, I ran into my college ex. And I can’t change the fact that she and I will have to see each other regularly until we finish working on “Modern Love in Focus.”

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