Hello, I Love You (28 page)

“Geez, Grace, what did you have to do to get us reservations here—pledge your firstborn child?” Jane asks, glancing around at the full dining room.

“Hello.” Our waitress arrives at the table and bows her head. “May I bring you a beverage?”

Momma takes the menu from the server, tilting her head in the girl’s direction. “I’m sorry, dear, can you bring us what?”

“A beverage,” she repeats.

A light laugh falls from Momma’s lips, and she shoots me and Jane an amused look across the table, which she doesn’t even bother to hide from the waitress, who can’t be more than a couple years older than me.

She offers the girl a pitying smile. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re saying.” Her gaze shifts to me. “Do you understand her accent?”

“Your drink,” I growl. “She wants to know what you want to
drink
.”

Momma’s eyebrows shoot up, and she looks down at the menu. “No need to get testy. It’s not my fault they didn’t hire employees with good English.”

The waitress’s cheeks turn pink, and her gaze drops to the floor.

“Water,” I blurt, before my mother can do any more damage. “We’ll all have water. Thank you.”

With a nod, the girl turns and practically sprints away from our table. I shoot Momma a glare.

“Relax, darling. The girl probably didn’t even know what I said.”

I open my mouth to respond, but Jane kicks me under the table and I snap my jaw closed. So we sit in silence until the waitress returns with our waters, then takes our order.

We manage to last about five minutes before Momma says, “So, we haven’t heard much from you since you got here. Did you get my email in January about your Vanderbilt application?”

I chew on the inside of my cheek, drumming my fingers across the white tablecloth, and ignore the apprehension scratching the back of my mind. “I got it.”

She waits for me to continue, but when I don’t, prompts, “And?”

“I’m umm…” I peer out at the city beneath us, at the myriad of lights just flickering on, which seem to stretch forever, and I wish I could get lost in them—wish I could escape this moment. “I’m not sure I want to go to Vanderbilt.”

“Excuse me?”

Momma’s voice has chilled to the point of freezing, and I lift my gaze to meet hers. She stares back at me with narrowed eyes, her lips pressed tight. Beside me, Jane shrinks into her chair, pulls out her phone, and pretends she can’t hear us.

I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “I don’t think I want to go to Vanderbilt. I don’t want to go back to Tennessee.”

“And where
do
you want to go?”

“I was actually thinking about staying in Korea somewhere. Maybe Incheon.”

Or maybe Seoul. But Momma doesn’t need to know about my insane dreams of living with Sophie, being far from my family, and keeping close to Jason.

Momma rests her elbow on the table, holding up her head with two fingers against her temple. She lets out a sharp laugh. “You’re not serious?”

My silence must confirm that I am, because her face twists in anger, her nostrils flaring, eyebrows slamming down, eyes sharpening to daggers. Her hands drop to her lap, and she leans across the table toward me, pitching her voice low.

“I won’t allow it,” she hisses. “You don’t belong here.”

I snort, because it’s easier to show her flippancy than the fear twisting inside my stomach. “And I belong in Tennessee?”

“Yes!”

The waitress saves us from a shouting match by bringing our food. We’re icily silent as we’re served our steak and sushi. Jane immediately digs into her noodles, keeping her head low, staying clear of the blast radius like she always does.

A mixture of blood and butter oozes across Momma’s plate as she cuts her meat into tiny pieces. “You’re coming home after graduation,” she says. “No arguments.”

I set my chopsticks back down, no longer hungry. “You can’t make me go back.”

She places a bite in her mouth, takes her time chewing, and levels me with an unflinching look. “Grace, you are my daughter. If I say you’re leaving, then you’re leaving. You’re underage.”

“Only for another month.”

Her fork pauses on its journey to her mouth.

“I’ll be eighteen next month,” I say. “Then I won’t have to do anything you say. Legally.”

She sits up taller in her chair so she’s looking down at me, and her hands shake as she places her silverware across her plate. “Just because you’ll be eighteen doesn’t mean I stop being your mother. As long as I’m supporting you—”

“You won’t need to support me. I have money.”

Her eyes bug, and she leans back in her chair. But I think I’m more shocked than she is. It never occurred to me to outright defy her, to completely cut ties from her and Dad, to do my own thing. But I could. She might be able to keep me from my trust fund until I turn eighteen, but I used to work at Dad’s studio every summer, and he paid me. I have enough to pay for college or an apartment in L.A. or whatever I want for at least a year, until I figure out a more permanent solution. That reality sends a surge of power racing through me. Enough to keep me talking.

“I have money to take care of myself,” I continue. “So I don’t really care what you think.”

The clatter of dishes and hum of voices fill my ears, and my chest heaves, like I’ve just run from my dorm to the cafeteria. She stays frozen so long, just watching me, I’m afraid I’ve shocked her into having a heart attack.

Her voice is hardly above a whisper when she says, “I’ve already lost one child. I’m not losing another.”

The words slap me in the face, and my lungs collapse. Pain flares inside my chest, and I struggle to suck in any air.

“How can you even bring that up right now?” I say, buried agony in every syllable.

She crosses her arms, a smugness settling into the curve of her lips, the tilt of her head. “If you can’t handle talking about your brother, then perhaps you’re not mature enough to handle living on your own.”

Oxygen rushes into my starved lungs, and it keeps coming as I pull in sharp gasps. I rake trembling fingers through my hair as terror shrieks inside my brain, clawing at my thoughts until it’s all I can think about—the call, the fear, the discovery, the guilt. Always the guilt.

Momma keeps talking, but I can’t hear her. I can’t hear anything. The scene replays through my head again and again. I grip the edge of the table with both hands like it’ll steady me, keep me rooted in the present instead of the past I’ve tried so hard to escape.

Momma’s voice finally cuts through my consciousness. “Your brother is
dead,
Grace,” she says in a frustrated voice, like she’s telling me to take out the trash for the third time. “It’s time you accepted that and stop running from the truth.”

Running. That’s what I want to be doing. Running out of here, away from her, away from reality. Away from the panic trying to force its way through my body.

I push away from the table so abruptly, my chair crashes against the wood floor. I snatch up my purse and make to leave, but Momma’s on her feet fast and grabs my wrist.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” she says, her nails cutting into my skin. “I am your
mother,
and you will respect me.”

I shake off her hand, ice filling my veins. “You lost my respect the day you blamed me for Nathan’s death.”

Jane stands, like maybe she’ll try to stop me, too, but I freeze her with a look. She nods. She understands.

My trip through the restaurant and back down the elevator to the sidewalk is a blur. I stand at the bus stop, and, thankfully, the bus arrives a few minutes later.

Once it drops me off at Ganghwa Island, I look at the next bus, which will take me up the mountain to the school. But I start down the sidewalk a few seconds later. I have to keep moving, to keep my mind on the simple actions of picking up my feet, pulling in heavy breaths through my nose, and not remembering. I don’t want to remember anymore.

When I finally reach campus, my legs are trembling, but adrenaline’s still pumping through me.

“Grace Wilde?”

I turn at the familiar voice, the back of my neck prickling.

“I’m Kevin Nichols.”

He trots across the street and underneath the arch, so he’s standing on school property, and suddenly my escape—my sanctuary—has been violated. When the press stayed outside the school, I could still retreat back to campus, but here’s that reporter, all the way from America.

He laughs, the self-satisfied kind, and gives me a wink, like we’re old pals. “You’re a tough one to find, you know that? I’ve been all over this campus looking for you. I even talked to your roommate, but she said you were out.”

“You—you went to my room?”

He gives a hearty nod. “Sure did. So, about that interview…”

Kevin lets his words hang there, and I recognize that reporters’ habit to create awkward silence in hopes of the interviewee filling it with something they wouldn’t normally say.

I might have stormed off. I might have told him he was violating my privacy and to get lost. But my emotions roil around inside me, flexing, itching to get out, and before I can stop them, tears pool in the corners of my eyes.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please.”

No other words come to my mind—or lips. I don’t bother wiping the tears that now trail down my cheeks into the corners of my mouth.

Kevin’s fingers twitch toward his shoulder bag, and I realize he probably has a camera in there. Looking for a shot of my grief. Wanting to capitalize on Nathan’s death to pump up his own career.

And my anger explodes.

Everything I felt toward Momma—the way I wanted to shriek and throw things at her—I let it bubble to the surface.

“You want a quote?” I hiss. “I’ll give you a quote.”

Kevin perks.

“You’re disgusting. All you reporters are. You’re vultures, hovering over Nathan’s corpse, looking for your big break. Well, guess what? He isn’t your highway to fame. He was my
brother,
and he’s
dead
. He died alone in his own vomit because his sister didn’t help him. Because
I
didn’t help him.” My voice builds until I scream, “Put
that
in your article!”

I turn and sprint away from him, my chest shuddering with barely contained sobs. When I let myself into my building, I slow to a walk, exhaustion suddenly swallowing my legs so I can barely climb the stairs.

Halfway up the flight, my phone rings. I can’t even think enough to turn it off, and I answer without looking at the number.

“Hi, are you free right now?” Jason’s voice floats through the speaker and cuts straight through me.

I stop in the middle of the stairwell, soaking in the simple comfort his voice brings. My eyes sting, and my heart pounds so fast I wonder if this is what hyperventilating is.

“Grace, are you there?”

I want to tell him where I am, what’s happened, how every demon I’ve ever hoped to run from has found me again. How I want to see him. How all I want is to feel a pair of arms wrapped around me.

But all I say is yes.

“Are you okay?” he asks instantly. “Where are you?”

I choke on a sob, covering my eyes with my palm and trying to calm the adrenaline shooting through me. I won’t panic. I won’t panic.

“Now isn’t a good time,” I croak. “I’ll call you back.”

Without waiting for him to answer, I hang up. And I hurry the rest of the way to my floor. I just need to get to my room. I need to be there. I need to be alone.

Sweat runs down my chest and beads on my forehead as I fumble with the key, dropping it once, cursing under my breath, until I manage to unlock and throw open the door. I dash inside, and silence surrounds me, like the eerie quiet after a train wreck or a car crash, when you survey the damage in horrified awe. The same word echoes in my head, a word I’ve avoided since Nathan’s incident, a word I’ve hid from for months.
Dead.
Nathan’s dead.

Nathan’s dead.

A sob catches in my throat, and my knees buckle. I sink to the floor, tears already spilling down my cheeks. I grab onto the hem of my comforter, clinging to it like I can hold on to the last whisper of my control.

I let all the anxiety, all the grief, crash into me. Everything I’ve held back for months—the memories that haunt me even in dreams, the constant background of feelings that buzzes beneath the surface all the time. I’ve spent so long holding them back, facing them now feels like I’m experiencing Nathan’s death all over again.

“Hydrogen, h-helium,” I whisper, but my voice catches. The elements aren’t going to help me this time.

I pull my knees to my chest and curl in on myself, wishing I could shrink into nothing. Pain lances through me as fresh as when I walked into Nathan’s room and found him lying in the middle of the floor, eyes open and chest still. Dead.

Nathan’s dead.

A knock sounds on my door, but I can’t get up to answer it. My breath comes in quick gasps, intermingled with choking sobs. I can’t seem to suck in enough oxygen. Why can’t I get enough? Is this what a panic attack feels like?

The knock comes again. But I just press my face into my knees and wait for it to go away.

“It’s my fault,” I whisper. “It’s my fault.”

I denied that fact for so long, no matter what Momma said at the funeral. She probably doesn’t even remember saying it. But I heard her, and I remember.

We were at the grave site, watching them put Nathan into the ground. Momma hadn’t stopped crying since that morning, since she put on the black Versace dress that smelled like new money and lost dreams.

She turned to me while they poured dirt onto the casket’s shiny mahogany, and she said, “Why didn’t you do something? Why did you let this happen?”

And what lay beneath her words was:
This is your fault. You should have done something. You’re the reason he’s dead.

I never
wanted
to believe it, but those words sank in all the same. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I could have stopped it, could have stopped him from taking too many pills, ending his own life. It was his choice, but maybe it was my responsibility.