After a few silent moments, he asks, “How’s your mother? You took her to Parents’ Day, right?” He clears his throat. “How are things going? I know you don’t enjoy spending time with her.”
A mixture of surprise and wariness twists inside me. Has Sophie told him anything about my fights with Momma? Does he know about my family drama? Fear claws at my chest, threatening to freeze the breath in my lungs.
I study his eyes, searching for any recognition or knowledge, but there’s nothing. Just curiosity. And … worry. The realization slams into me so hard, for a few seconds I forget about the pain in my head and the mother who brought my fears across the ocean with her. Jason is worried about me.
Heat ignites in my stomach, spreads through my chest, crawls its way up my neck and all the way to my hairline. Until I’m bathing in the warmth of his attention.
I consider dodging his question, but instead I find the truth slipping from my lips: “She’s okay. She hasn’t really been impressed with the school so far.” I laugh, but it’s like I’ve been hit by a baseball bat.
We fall into silence, and I’m still waiting for him to jump ship, to tell me he’s got better things to do than hang out with me. But he stays, almost like he’s waiting for me. It’s my move.
“Do you—” I stop, watching him carefully. “I mean, do you want to come in?”
Half of me thinks he’ll laugh, wave a hand, and head down the hallway. But he doesn’t. He flashes me a smile.
And he says, “Sure.”
Jason comes into my room, and I get into the bed, and he sits at my desk, and we talk. I don’t know for how long. But as the minutes pass, I feel my migraine weakening until it disappears altogether and I’m sitting up and laughing and wishing I could spend every day with Jason Bae.
*
The next morning, I wake up to a new text from Jason, asking if I’d like to meet him for dinner tomorrow. We agree on a time, and as we send messages back and forth, I can’t stop smiling.
At noon, I head out to Momma and Jane’s hotel to show them around town, and an hour later, I’m standing at their door. Momma answers, looks me up and down, and purses her lips.
Her eyebrows pull up. “Feeling better?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I mutter.
As we get into the elevator, Momma asks, “So, where are we going? We should do a little shopping—I’ll buy you a new purse.” She juts her chin toward the fringe-covered one hanging from my shoulder. “That one looks like a cat tried to eat it. You should be carrying something nicer.”
I take them down to a Korean market, then to the waterfront to watch the boats. Jane loves everything, but I can’t get more than a semi-interested hmm out of Momma.
For dinner, I decide to take them to a nice restaurant, because surely Momma can’t complain about gourmet food. We step into the building’s air-conditioned lobby, then ride the elevator to the top floor, past the law offices, banks, and other high-end businesses renting the other floors. When the doors open, we’re let out into a packed foyer, where a hostess takes our names and shows us to our table by the gigantic windows that look out over the city and the ocean.
“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.”