Sahim slowly opened the door to my hotel room and turned on the light. I slowly walked in, dropping my purse to the ground next to the door. I was exhausted from tonight’s events; all I wanted to do was just crawl under the covers and hide from the world.
“Grace,” Sahim softly called my name. I turned around to look at him before siting at the edge of my bed, yanking the heels off from my feet. “You should get some rest.”
“I can’t,” I said with a hoarse voice. “I have to call my dad…”
“That could wait until tomorrow,” Sahim insisted.
“No,” I firmly said. “It’s about 11 o’clock in the morning in America and I need to speak to my father now.”
“What you need to do is rest,” Sahim sternly responded back. “You need to have a clear mind to go into this type of conversation, and you’re clearly moving from emotion and–“
“No, Sahim; it can’t wait!” I yelled at this point. This was the first time I ever truly yelled at Sahim like this. I felt guilty; I know he just wanted to make me feel better and be there for me. But this is who I truly am: just somebody that needs to be left alone for her own well-being.
“Grace,” Sahim grounded himself, trying to help me focus. I didn’t want to; it was far too late to try to think rationally about this situation. “What good is it going to be to make a panicked call to your family across the country when you can’t even regulate your emotions in front of me?” Regulate?
“Because, I am tired of this shit!” I shouted even louder, not caring if anyone could hear me on our floor. “Do you know how it feels to be so far away from your family, but not just your family but from your own daughter, wanting nothing more than to be with her and hold her and let everything I’ve been worried about just erase away for a moment? This was her first birthday that I missed since she was born! I missed her first day of school, her first day on the school bus on her own going to school for a full day! Her firsts in everything this past year because I am across the country trying to fulfill this want and need and to just discover myself in a new country and leave my past in the past and yet here I am with the past and everything consistently reminding me of it!”
The room went silent. The city traffic was the only audible thing in our vicinity. I looked at Sahim as he looked at me trying to digest everything that just came out of my mouth. It was all true. It was all bottled up in me.
“Why are you running from your past?” Sahim asked softly. “How is your past here with you if this is your first time being in Korea?”
“My past follows me everywhere, Sahim,” I answered, defeat in my voice. “And I should’ve known that coming here would be the same way.” Sahim sat on the bed next to me, looking at me as I looked toward the ground.
“Grace,” Sahim gently said; his voice husky. “You can’t keep living in the past; it’s going to do nothing but eat you alive. You are here because you are meant to be here–“
“But at what cost?” I interrupted, questioning him. “My own family can’t even contact me to let me know what’s going on back in America, isolating me even more than I already was when it came to my family.”
“You also have to be able to contact them when you feel this way, though,” Sahim pointed out. I couldn’t help but look at him. It felt like he couldn’t understand what I was saying or where I was coming from. I couldn’t blame him entirely; he doesn’t know the full story. I shook my head, getting up from the bed and sighed.
“I shouldn’t have done this,” I said, looking around the hotel room.
“Done what?” Sahim asked.
“This!” I shouted. “I should’ve stayed in New York and lived on with my day as some lawyer that spent their free time in some stupid cafe with my daughter on the weekends and avoided coming to the one place I should’ve avoided–“
“Why would you avoid–” Before Sahim can even finish the sentence, I finally blurted it out. I yelled it so loud, the echo of my voice ringed in my ears.
“Because my fuckin’ ex lives here, that’s why!” I admitted, feeling angry more than relieved. “Everything was perfectly fine until it wasn’t, obviously.” Sahim scrunched his eyebrows together, seeming a bit upset about the secret I’ve hid from him.
“Have you’ve seen your ex since we’ve been…” Sahim tried to finish his sentence although he really wasn’t looking for an answer to it. “Since we’ve started dating?” I don’t answer right away. I was tired of lying to Sahim, and I was tired of hiding things from him at this point. What more can I lose at this point?
“Yes,” I answered, nonchalant. “I have.”
“So, you weren’t going to tell me you were secretly meeting up with your ex?” Sahim crossed his arms, now annoyed. “While already being in a relationship?”
“It’s kind of hard to avoid your ex when his best friend is your cousin’s boyfriend,” I spat back, feeling defensive. “Ask before you assume, Sahim.”
“It’s kind of hard to fully trust in your girlfriend when she tells her boyfriend months later that her ex lives in the one country she’s doing a production in,” Sahim snapped back. “I guess it makes sense now; you regretting coming here for work. Did you just come to win him back or something crazy like that?”
“Crazy?” I repeated, growing more angry at Sahim. “You of all people should know how much this production means to me. I left my daughter in America for this–“
“Yeah, you keep mentioning that,” Sahim responded. “But again, failed to mention that you’ve been in contact with your ex since being here!”
“For fuck’s sake, Sahim; Jamie is my goddamn ex!” I finally admitted out loud. “Jamie, you know, the guy that Shawn literally calls for everything when there’s trouble! You know, the guy that is dating my cousin, who literally calls me for everything when there’s trouble! It’s out of my power that he’s still in my life; it’s unavoidable at this point if I want to be in my cousin’s life!” Sahim clearly is now thinking before he says anything else; I can see he is trying to find the right words to say in this moment.
“Jamie?” Sahim asked.
“Yes,” I faintly said. “Jamie.”
…
“Jaemin,” I hear Haram call my name as soon as I get into the driver’s seat. The parking lot is dark, and all I wanted was to drive Haram back to her place in utter silence. I knew it wasn’t going to happen. “Jaemin–“
“Aigoo,” I whined. “Haram please; I have such a massive headache.”
“Jaemin, I have a bad feeling about that American girl,” she admitted, looking out the passenger’s window. “The way she talks to Shawn is so unlady-like. Maybe the universe is telling him he shouldn’t marry her.”
“Haram, you don’t know them,” I tried to explain. “Shawn and Skylar are not your conventional couple.”
“Yeah, I know; she’s American,” Haram emphasized. “The way she behaved in front of everyone did not make her look good. She seems like one of those women who only date Asian men to say they dated Asian men. No consideration to their culture whatsoever–“
“Ya,” I said, growing annoyed at Haram’s attitude. “You talking about another woman behind her back after witnessing her distraught does not make you look good.”
“I’m speaking from what I witnessed,” Haram argued. “It just doesn’t seem like they are even compatible, yet alone get married–” Once I got to a red light, I stopped the car abruptly, jolting Haram and I forward in our seats.
“Let me say this one more time: you do not know them well enough to make any type of assumptions like that,” I stated, looking back at the road and started to drive again. “I’ve known Shawn forever now as he was my own brother. Skylar is the first woman he’s been serious about because she is the type of woman he needs to balance him out.”
“Why are you defending her more than Shawn was back at his hotel?” Haram questioned, annoyed now. “What’s so special about Skylar that you are choosing to excuse such poor behavior? Would you have excused that behavior if I did it in front of your closest friend and his girlfriend?”
“You’re not Skylar; her etiquette is different than ours,” I deadpanned, trying to get off this conversation already. “Look, let them work things out regarding their relationship and they’ll be fine–“
“Until the next time he’s running to you for help with his relationship,” Haram rolled her eyes as she said. “You won’t ever be able get out of this vicious cycle if you don’t set a boundary with him. You are not their relationship therapist, Jaemin.”
“Shawn is my friend, Haram. Wouldn’t you go and help your friends when they are in need?” I questioned as I drove.
“My friends don’t need my constant reassurance that their relationships are actually working out,” Haram spat out, shaking her head. “My friends know I have a life outside of them.”
“Well, that makes us different,” I dismissed, wanting to drop the entire conversation already. Haram turned around in her seat; her body now facing me.
“I am just voicing my opinion on a situation that you dragged me into tonight,” she pointed out. “You don’t need to be so defensive over your friend’s girlfriend.”
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about; that’s my main issue,” I raised my voice, needing her to understand where I was coming from. “You don’t know Skylar to be making those assumptions, as I told you, like, 10 minutes ago–“
“How did they even meet?” Haram asked. Her question caught me off-guard.
“Huh?” I said, not really knowing what else to say.
“Did you introduce Skylar to Shawn or something? You’re defending her as if she was once your girlfriend or something–” I immediately stopped the car on the side of the road, turning on the light in the car to finally face Haram.
“What is your problem tonight?” I argued. “You’ve done nothing but talked badly about the people I chose to introduce you to. It means I care about you enough to introduce to people that mean a lot to me.”
“Answer my question, Jaemin,” Haram demanded. “How does a native Korean man just know some random, American girl without some sort of a connection?”
“Does it make any difference?” I said even louder. All I wanted was for Haram to let this go and to stop asking all of these questions. No, I do not want to continue having this conversation about somethin I am constantly battling internally with.
“She was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?” Haram scoffed and turned her body away from me, facing the window. “That’s unbelievable, how you would just allow your ex-girlfriend to fall in love with another man, but I guess–
“Ya!” I shouted, now fuming. “Skylar isn’t my ex-girlfriend, Grace is!” I looked at Haram, who is now looking back at me.
“Grace? Who–” Haram asked before realizing who I was talking about. “The redheaded woman that was with us at the hotel room?”
“Yeah,” I said, “Skylar’s cousin.”
…
I finally get back to my house after dropping Haram off at her apartment. She didn’t say anything to me once I told her about Grace. She simply looked out the window and didn’t even bother looking at me for the rest of the car ride. I dropped her off in front of her apartment building, and told her I would call her. She slammed the door, walking straight to her apartment, never looking back at me.
I parked my car on the street and got out from the driver’s side; I wanted nothing more than to just go straight into my house and collapse into my bed. I didn’t. I froze in place as soon as I got to my front steps.
“Grace?” I said, looking at her sit on the steps. She looks at me and gets up, brushing off the dirt from her clothes.
“Hi.” She said.
Letters From Liz. 