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.”