“Jaesung wouldn’t recognize you.”
“I’m not so different,” I said and ignored his stare. “What’d you find out?” I said and took his arm, steered him forward. The quad was emptying out. The next class period had started, but I couldn’t think of going now that Lloyd was here. Across the quad by the library was the shantytown where Heather and Faye were working on their house. The sound of hammers pounding in nails carried across the quad.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“Talk to me. What’s going on?” I said.
“It was terrible. I have nightmares about it.” Closer now, I could see his face was wet with tears.
I put my arm around him, and he put his around me, and we walked, huddled together like that. “What happened?” I asked. “Take your time, I’m here.”
“You’ve got to believe me,” he said. “You’re the only one who would believe me.”
“Of course I believe you.”
I felt hope bloom in my chest. It had been a little seedling, but now that Lloyd was here with me, I felt we would find you. Wherever you were, you weren’t able to get back to us, but you were alive. As long as you were alive, I could wait. He returned my hug, and I thought, We have to stick together, him and I. Wherever it would lead. We’d find you. Me and your co-secretary of state or the one who would be secretary of state before you became one. You had trusted Lloyd. So I would too.
58
When Daiyu walks through that open doorway away from us, I hold my breath. Surely Detective Sax will use this opportunity to bust through and rescue all of us? I brace myself, and I nod at Heather and Faye to do the same. Even though Faye has said things to save herself, I will try to forgive her, even though it stings, even though neither she nor Heather look at me with anything but disgust.
Daiyu walks out and closes the door behind her, and we hear her steps fade down the hall.
“You’ll go next,” I whisper to Heather. She doesn’t acknowledge me. Her head is turned toward the door. “You too.” I lean back so I can see Faye, who is staring at the spot where Daiyu just stood. If Lloyd let her leave, then he’ll let us too. This is going to be over soon—I feel it.
59
You and I loved the winds. The buses circled up and around on ribbons of roads beside the rice field–skirted mountains. At sporadic intervals, the tour guides would let us get off the bus and stretch our legs. Three busloads of American teenagers with our hair and shirts and skirts billowing out. The winds, cool enough to keep us from sweating, warm enough to prevent us from being chilled, wrapped us in tall gusts. The guides listed what we couldn’t see hidden in the thick pine-, fir-, and oak-filled valley below us: wild boar, roe deer, musk deer, elk, gorals, black bears, yellow-throated martens, three kinds of weasels.
We stood behind waist-high stone walls and looked into a series of valleys, and even when the thermostat read 98 degrees Fahrenheit, the winds would blow so hard we could hardly hear the person who was beside us talking. There was a disturbance above us, and you pointed. In the sky, banking sharply in the air, wide ribbons of birds swooped and circled and then departed. I envied them their separateness from everything but themselves.
Someone asked what kind of birds they were, and a guide called out, “Orioles.” Someone asked what kind, and another guide said we would call them black-naped orioles and then pointed into the valley. “Down there are special birds—cranes. Red-crowned cranes, white-naped cranes, hooded cranes,” he said.
When Lloyd and the others went back to the bus, you and I stayed. You climbed up and looked out, then offered your hand to me. On top of that wall, it was as if we had stepped out into air and hovered with wings.
60
When Lloyd appeared on campus that first day, we walked and talked for hours. I made him repeat what he remembered about the last time he saw you. There was smoke. There were fire trucks. You and Lloyd were invited to a meeting by these students who drove you in separate cars, and on the way there was an accident. “But Jaesung’s father said you were in the same car.” I stopped him.
“That’s a lie. I don’t know why they told him that. We were separated, and Jaesung told me we should do what they said—meet up later. They were taking precautions in case they were followed.”
“Who was following you?”
“Jaesung wanted to go with them. We agreed to whatever they said.”
“And then?”
“It was only my car, Yoona. My car was in the accident.”
“Your car caught on fire?”
“There wasn’t a fire. That was what was weird.” He paused and rubbed his eyes. “God, I’m tired,” he said.
“We could go to my room. Do you need to lie down?”
“You know what, actually, I’m more hungry than tired. Could I eat first?”
I took him to the dining hall, and we found Heather, Daiyu, and Faye. They welcomed him with curious but warm smiles. “They’ve got chocolate chip,” Heather said, holding out her cone to me.
Lloyd draped his arm around my neck. I squeezed his waist. No need to be nervous, I wanted to tell him. My friends made room for us at their table, but I didn’t sit down right away.
“We should get some food,” I said. “What’s good?” I looked at my friends’ trays. Remnants of mashed potatoes and roasted chicken were on one of them.
Daiyu stood up. “More cookies for me,” she said and came over, hooking her arm through mine. I expected Lloyd to follow. “Oh god, he’s cute,” Daiyu whispered as we walked toward the entrée line. “You never said how cute he was.”
We watched girls glance at him, and Daiyu giggled. I looked at Lloyd anew. I’d never thought of him that way. Without you taking the spotlight, maybe Lloyd was getting a chance to shine.