Page 64 of A World Apart
“Oh, you know how it is,” going now for light and carefree, “hungry, and trying to forget all the embarrassing parts."
“Sure, I get that.”
“How are you? I hope it’s not too early to call,” I said, lying back down on my bed.
“No, not at all. I’m usually up early anyway. I’m glad you called, because I wanted to make sure you were okay after last night.” His voice had an edge to it that I didn’t know him well enough to identify.
“What did you mean when you said, ‘no?’” he asked, bluntly.
“No?” I repeated, confused. “No what?”
“Ky, you said, ‘no,’ when I asked if you wanted to keep talking, and then you hung up.”
For a moment, I just lay there. My brain stalled as I tried to reconcile my memories with what he was saying. Trying to recall the conversation was a physical effort, like trying to wake up hamsters to get them to run around the wheel. Until−
“You don’t want me to call you?”
“No, I’m just saying you don’t have to. Don’t feel obligated to, y’know?”
“Oh, oh,” and then, horrified, “oh, no! That’s not what happened!”
“It’s not? Look, can we switch to video?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah sure.” I’m quick to agree, forgetting my appearance until our screens are on and I see myself in the little window.
“Oh god,” I moan, slapping a hand over my face.
“Kaiya, what?” He sounded impatient, which is totally fair, considering.
“Nothing, never mind,” I sighed, “I just forgot I looked like this today.” I took my hand from my face, which was thankfully, at least free of the facemask and eye patches that Becka and I had been using while binging Supernatural.
“There’s nothing wrong with how you look. You look great.” His smile is indulgent, and I tentatively return it.
“No, you,” I mumbled as heat ran up my neck to warm my cheeks.
He laughed before turning serious again. “So, to be clear; you didn’t hang up, last night?”
“No!” I shook my head vigorously. “I swear, what I actually said was that you didn’t need to call me, if you didn’t want to, and then my app crashed, and then I went to restart my phone, but I must have fallen asleep before turning it back on.” I sounded ridiculous, but it was the God’s honest truth.
“Why would I not want to?” Boy, he was really stuck on that, huh?
“Well, you know…” I was beginning to feel increasingly more foolish the longer I looked at his earnest face.
“No, I don’t know,” he huffed out a laugh and shrugged his shoulders.
Jihoon was proving more and more that he wasn’t here to play games.
It was unfamiliar but refreshing. In almost every one of my previous relationships, we would have danced around the hard stuff, but Jihoon just said what he meant. His openness gave me nowhere to hide, and while that felt a little confronting, it was also strangely reassuring. It made me feel like he took this − whateverthiswas − as seriously as I did.
I sighed and took a moment to think my reply through. “I just thought it would be easier to give you an out, in case you were being too nice to say so.”
Jihoon tilted his head to the side. “What’s an ‘out’?”
“You know, the opportunity to… walk away−” I couldn’t say ‘end things’ when, as Becka pointed out, there was no ‘thing,’ technically, “−without anyone getting hurt feelings.”
He frowned at me. I was so garbage at explaining this.
“Do you want an ‘out’?” He said the word like it was offensive and I knew I’d mucked this up.
