Authors: Katie M. Stout
“Grace!”
The protective tone in her voice should make me feel good, but it just rubs my already sore nerves.
I force a smile, though with every snap of the camera’s shutter, I can feel another shred of my control slipping. “Sophie, seriously, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Just write down your home address in Korean, and I’ll head there after I go see a movie or whatever.”
Yes. Movie. The characters on the screen can’t snub me in front of their industry friends or not tell me they’re going to a different city with Korea’s current favorite starlet.
Sophie chews on her bottom lip but eventually nods. “Okay, but call me if you get lost. Or bored. Or you run into any sketchy boys or mafia people.” Her eyes get wide. “Grace, what if you get mugged? Or raped or—”
“Sophie,” I interrupt, keeping my voice grave even though the panicked look on her face might be the most priceless thing I’ve ever seen. “I’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. Okay?”
“Okay.” She pulls me into a back-cracking hug. “Don’t die. Promise?”
I chuckle, some of my frustration ebbing. “I promise.”
I try to make my escape quietly, but a voice calls from behind me, “Grace!”
My heart constricting, I force myself not to cringe as I turn to face Jason. “What’s up?”
He jogs over to me, the crew and Na Na all watching us. Heat blooms in my cheeks, and I force myself not to stare back at them and shout,
What are you looking at?
All the warm and fuzzy feelings I just had for Sophie have dissipated, leaving only irritation and hurt behind.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe to a movie?”
His eyebrows disappear beneath his hair. “By yourself?”
“Why not? I get around Ganghwa Island by myself just fine.”
Concern seeps into his gaze, which only fuels my frustration. He doesn’t have the right to worry about me. We’re barely friends, and he didn’t even tell me he was leaving Seoul tomorrow. He has hardly spoken to me in weeks. Does he expect me to check in with him all the time, but he doesn’t have to?
Oh, heck no.
“Grace, I’m not comfortable with—”
“
You’re
not comfortable?” I hiss. “What does it matter to you, anyway?”
His expression turns confused. “Grace, I—”
“No!” I bark. “Look, it’s nice of you to worry and all, I guess, but I’m not an idiot. No reason for you to be concerned.”
He rolls his eyes, now his turn to get angry. “Of course I have a reason. We’re friends.”
“Oh, we are? Because I thought friends told friends when they were going to Busan. Friends also tell friends when they’re going to be practically making out with a girl for hours in front of thirty people.” My voice takes on a harder edge. “And friends don’t ignore friends when they want to impress other people.”
His eyes open wide in astonishment. “
What
are you talking about?”
I wave my hands in front of my face in what I hope conveys dismissal. This conversation isn’t getting us anywhere, and Na Na now watches me with a little more interest than I would like. She smirks, and I’ve never wanted to punch someone so much in my entire life. I catch Sophie shooting me a pitying look, and my throat tightens.
“Look, I think it’s best I just leave.” Before I embarrass myself any more than I already have. “I’m sure I’ll be in bed before you get home tonight. I’ll see you when you get back from Busan.”
I storm out as dramatically as possible, but my epic exit is made much less impressive when Jason chases me into the stairwell. Doesn’t he know how this works? He’s supposed to stand in my wake, mouth hanging open, and realize how wonderful I am and how he’s totally blown his chances with me.
“Grace, wait.” He grabs my elbow, but I shake him off.
“Go back to the shoot. I’m sure Na Na is missing you.”
He hurries ahead of me until we’re face-to-face. “What is going on with you? This is really out of character.”
“Maybe I’m just sick of getting the shaft from you.”
His face screws up in confusion. “The shaft?”
“
You
were the one who invited me to Seoul, not Sophie. Usually when you have guests, you don’t ditch them.”
“But I’ve been working.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have invited me if you thought I’d get in your way.”
He stares at me blankly. “Do you … feel like I don’t want you here?” he guesses.
“Pretty much.”
“But I don’t feel that way at all,” he hurries to say. “I’m glad you’re here!”
“Then you have a weird way of showing it.”
I can hear myself, my words cringeworthy, especially echoing through the empty stairwell. But I can’t stop them. Watching him with
her
at the same time that he’s been ignoring me spurred something nasty inside me, and all I want is to let him know just how he’s made me feel.
“Then I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like that.”
Normally, his apology would strike something inside me. I would remember how I’ve probably only heard him apologize twice the entire time I’ve known him; I would know that when he says he’s sorry, he means it. But not this time.
“I don’t really care what you meant,” I say, now more tired than angry. “You’re giving me seriously mixed signals here. You asked me to help you with your song, you take me back to my dorm after we study, and you planned a Thanksgiving meal for me. You freaking
held my hand
on the ride back to school after the music video shoot, and I don’t care what you say—you
do
remember your birthday and dancing with me.”
Somehow, he pales under all that makeup, but I push forward. “You asked me to stay with you guys in Seoul, so I came. But now you’re ignoring me everywhere, like you’re ashamed of me or something. In the time I’ve been here, we’ve hung out one time. Once. And you’re all over Na Na like you’re best buddies or her real boyfriend or something. So why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Jason’s not a man of many words, but I’ve never seen him completely blank. At least his eyes normally give me a hint as to what’s going on inside his head, but now—nothing. Like he has no cognitive function.
I’m ready to leave him standing there when he stutters, “I—” He stops. “I don’t—”
I wave him off. “Whatever. I’m leaving.”
“No.”
He says it with such force, I pause. We lock eyes, and he deliberates. I steel myself for his verbal defense, but he surprises me instead by taking my face in his hands.
And then he kisses me.
Big Brother,
You know how the older brother is supposed to take care of his younger sisters? And tell them what types of boys to avoid, which ones are bad news, so they can keep from getting played?
Yeah, you’ve never been good at that.
From Korea, not so much with love,
Grace
For the first few seconds, I’m frozen in shock. One of Jason’s hands slides from my cheek to the back of my neck and his fingers slip through my hair. My own hands involuntarily latch onto his waist, and I’m suddenly standing so close our thighs touch.
“Grace,” he murmurs against my lips with such longing my heart twists.
But all thoughts empty from my head when he coaxes my mouth open, and I forget about Na Na, Jason going to Busan, and everything except how good it feels to have his lips on mine.
I pull away with a soft gasp, and all I can think to say is, “You don’t kiss like other Korean boys.”
His head jolts up, and his hands drop to his sides, leaving cold spaces on my skin. “
What?
” he says.
I fumble for an explanation, but all I can think about is grabbing that disheveled hair and yanking his mouth back toward mine. “In those dramas,” I say, “the couples always sort of smash faces, and the girl keeps her eyes open, and it’s awkward.”
“And that wasn’t awkward?”
No, it was glorious! “Umm…”
“You know those dramas aren’t real, right?” he says slowly, as if I’m mentally deficient. “It’s only for TV.”
“Right.” A thought jerks me out of my blissful haze. “You’re not going to kiss Na Na like that for your drama, are you?”
He stares at me in confusion.
Another thought forms, this one louder than the others. “Wait. You just kissed me.”
I gape at him.
“You just
kissed me
!”
He cringes, placing a hand on my arm. “You don’t have to announce it to everyone.”
My grin fades. “Are you embarrassed we kissed?”
“No, I just don’t think everyone needs to know.” He points back and forth between us. “About what just happened. Especially not the paparazzi, and if you keep screaming, I’m pretty sure everyone will hear you.”
All the excitement inside me from when our lips touched dissipates completely, and irritation swells to take its place. “You don’t want them to know because I’m not some famous Korean actress.”
“No.” He runs both hands through his hair, letting out a frustrated sigh. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Sure it is.”
Heat wells up in my chest, but not the good kind. Anger. My eyes prick, and I realize I’m going to cry. Not okay. He’s not going to see me fall to pieces over this. Over him.
I clear my throat to get rid of the sob that sticks there. “I don’t know what that was all about, but I’m not interested in what you’re selling here. Maybe you think it’s funny to mess with me, but it’s not.”
I always complained about guys flattering me, but maybe this is worse. I’d rather be the trophy than the girl on the side.
His grip on my arm tightens, probably an attempt at comforting me, but it falls short. “I’m not trying to mess with you,” he says. “I—I don’t know what just happened, but it has nothing to do with you.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Nothing to do with me?”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean. Don’t take it like that.”
“Like what? That you just felt the need to kiss somebody and I happened to be close by?” I bark a mirthless laugh. “Wow. I never pegged you as
that
guy, but I guess everyone has their secrets. Glad I’ve seen the real you.”
“Grace, stop.” He places both hands on my shoulders. “I only meant that I’m confused right now. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where we stand.” He pauses. “All I know is that I like you. A lot.”
My heart soars, but I squelch any good feelings and tell myself I’ll sort them out later. “You like me. But you’re embarrassed by me, for some reason. Is it because I’m not Korean? Does it have something to do with my family?”
He takes a step back like I’ve struck him. “What? No! Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re only ever nice to me when no one’s around,” I grind out through clenched teeth, my brain flashing back through every time he didn’t introduce me to someone or didn’t include me in a conversation, every time he was content with me hiding behind him or Sophie for the entire day, like I didn’t exist at all.
Once I get going, it’s like I can’t stop. And I only gain momentum, my bottled-up emotions and confusion overflowing.
“You didn’t want me helping you with the song with the other guys around,” I continue. “And then you held my hand when no one was looking. Our only good conversations come when it’s just the two of us, and now you kiss me but don’t want anyone to know. What does that make me? Obviously not anything that important to you.” My throat tightens, and I struggle to get the last words out. “I don’t think my coming home with you guys was a good idea. Maybe I should’ve gone home for break, after all.”
The thought sends a jolt of pain through me, not only because I would have missed out on meeting Jason and Sophie’s mom and seeing their home and their city, but also at the thought of suffering through my mother’s judgment and my father’s indifference, and facing emotions I’ve managed to squeeze into the back of my mind since I left home. But right now, it almost seems better to have just gone to Nashville and avoided having Jason look at me like this—like I’ve betrayed him. When really, he’s the one that hurt me.
I should have learned from Isaac. Boys that seem too good to be true usually are.
* * *
I actually consider going home for the holidays, but Momma’s squash casserole on Christmas isn’t worth the grief of looking her in the eyes. Though being around Jason is almost as bad.
Thankfully, he ships off to Busan for a week, and after Sophie takes me shopping and introduces me to a few of her friends who live in Seoul, she manages to convince me to stay for the rest of the break. But when Jason returns on Christmas Eve, the awkward factor leaps to a painful level.
I go with them to church again that night, then we head back to the house for another traditional Korean meal. I eat and talk and laugh along with everyone else, but my mind wanders to my house and my family, who will be eating our annual feast of honey-baked ham with crescent rolls, green beans, squash casserole, corn-bread muffins, and potato salad in about fourteen hours. I wonder if Dad will show up, or if he’ll duck out, saying he needs to work—his typical excuse these days.
My fingers itch to find my phone and call Jane, but I know that if I hear her voice, I’ll regret not going to see her. And I’ll probably cry.
After dinner, Sophie wrangles us all into playing cards on the living room floor beside the Christmas tree we decorated yesterday. We play Spades, and the Bae family teaches me Go-Stop, a Korean gambling game. Jason seems distracted the entire time, forgetting his turn and checking the clock a million times.
As we all make our way to bed, Jason stops me in the hallway. My pulse spikes at being alone with him, but I force my nerves to chill. I need anger, to use it as a shield or whatever people say about protecting themselves. But I can’t muster any. All I feel when I see him is exhaustion and regret.
“I need to talk to you,” he says.
“What about?”
“About our conversation before I left for Busan. And about … the kiss.”
I expect him to wince, but he keeps a straight face. An improvement, at least. Maybe he’s over the embarrassment, though I doubt he’ll ever mention it to anyone else.