Page 85 of Heart and Seoul (Seoul 1)

I sink to my haunches and cover my face with my hands. A laugh burbles out of me. I swallow back my hysteria and start undressing. I slip my sweater and purse off, shed my shoes and socks, and lower myself into the water.

The water is cool and there’s a vague odor that I didn’t detect before when I sat along the riverbank with Yujun. The sides of the river here are rocky and slippery. The stones cut into my palms and the soles of my feet. I crane my neck and think I see the vague outline of my phone. I reach for it, but the basin of the river gives way to a well of water. I go under. My arms fly up instinctively looking for something to grasp, but there’s only air.

I scream, like a dumbass, and dirty river water floods into my mouth. My elementary school swimming lessons kick in and I surface spitting out water and who knows what else. I scramble toward the slippery rocks and drag myself to safety.

“Hara, you are the dumbest person alive,” I mutter as I lie on my stomach like a beached whale and spit out water onto the stones under my cheek. The sun is setting and the heat of the day is being replaced by a cool night breeze. It chills my skin. Goose pimples chase their way from my neck down to the backs of my knees. The river doesn’t hold any answers, not that I thought it would. It seemed like a good place to vent my feelings of frustration and anger and hurt. Now I feel foolish on top of all that. I better get home and get dry. I push up to my feet and start squeezing the water out of my dress. It doesn’t work very well. I swipe my sweater and purse off the ground and shove my feet into my sandals. The socks go into my purse.

Thankfully, there’s a bus stop close by. The people waiting under the shelter eye me suspiciously. They should. Who knows how much further I could unravel.

The bus driver gives me a strange look as I climb aboard. I tap my card against the reader and march defiantly down the aisle toward the back, ignoring the trickle of water dripping down my leg. The bus doesn’t take off immediately. The driver is likely debating whether to come to the back and kick me off, but his need to be timely outweighs his distaste at some random passenger getting his bus all wet. I tug the sweater tight across my body.

“It’s the Han River,” I mutter under my breath. This is Choi Wansu’s fault. With each passing block, as I grow colder and more uncomfortable, as the wet clothes stick to my skin like plaster, the anger grows.

If Wansu hadn’t abandoned me, I would’ve grown up here in Korea. I wouldn’t feel stupid every time I opened my mouth here and I wouldn’t feel like a stranger back in Iowa. I would’ve never seen Iowa. Yujun, who went to college in the US and who lived with his aunt for three years, only visited Chicago.

But then Ellen would be all alone. She would’ve married Pat, never had a kid, and ended up by herself after Pat moved on and created a new family—a real one. That alternate reality isn’t great either.

I press my head against the bar of the seat in front of me and will my brain to shut down. It doesn’t. The hamster wheel is in full spinning motion and the same questions tumble around in my head. The ache in my head spreads all through my frame until even the tips of my fingers feel sore.

It takes me two hours to get home between the buses and the subways and the connections I have to make, and I’m only able to accomplish it because a kind lady in the subway station spoke English and drew a map for me. By the end of the trip, I’m still damp—which is somehow worse than wet—and cold by the time I make it to the bottom of the hill. The number of stairs looms large in front of me and I briefly entertain curling up against the base until morning. Or until it’s time for me to go back to America.

Lights flash behind me and then an engine cuts off. I turn to see a shiny black car idling. I know immediately who it is without anyone getting out of the vehicle or rolling down the windows. I should’ve stopped at the convenience store two blocks back and bought a carton of eggs. In fact, I’m going to do that immediately. I turn on my wet heel and stomp toward the store. I’m going to buy two cartons and I’m going to paint that shiny black vehicle with so much egg that it’s going to look like an omelet when I’m done.

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