oneirophobia (n.)
o·neir · o · pho · bia
The fear of dreams.
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The last time I saw Seoul, I was nine years old, and didn't know it would be the last time.
I don't remember much what with the lack of memorabilia, so the majority of it remains spotty even to this day. But I remember the beginning.
I sat next to my mother on the way there, pestering her late into the red-eye, making her tell me all kinds of stories of friends, boyfriends, the Before, the After, my father, her mother, Korea, Jeju, me.
"Umma," I said. "Do you like your life?"
Midnight left me and her in the purpled lights of the airplane.
She gave me a quizzical look. "Why're you asking such serious questions?"
"Just curious. Miss Zayas told us to answer homework questions and one of them was what you want to be like in ten years." I said, "Are you where you thought you'd be ten years ago?"
My mother stared, her brown eyes black in the darkness. They drowned me like starless seas.
"No," she said. "But I'm happy with that."
"Really?"
She nodded. "Ten years ago, I thought your father and I'd be back in New York, living together with no kids, working in finances and having more money than we knew what to do with," she laughed.
I frowned. "What about me?"
"We didn't know about you back then," she said, pinching my cheek. "Where do you wanna be in ten years?"
"Easy," I said. "Rich and famous."
She snorted. "You'll only be nineteen."
"So?" I said. "Nineteen year olds can be rich and famous."
"Is that really all?"
I cackled. "I'm kidding," I said. "I put I wanna be a famous artist. And go to NYU like you. And then take you and Appa with me and we live in a penthouse with five cats."
Her face glowed like moonlight. "Is that so?" she chuckled. "Five cats is a lot."
"I'll be rich and famous enough to hire someone to take care of them."
"Wow, in that case, you're gonna be so rich and famous you'll forget about us by then."
"Never," I vouched.
My mother ruffled my hair, then she whispered, "But you know, Angel, it's okay if it doesn't work out that way."
"Who says it won't?"
"I'm not saying it won't, but it might not," she explained. "I didn't think I'd be where I am right now ten years ago."
"So...you don't like your life?"
"No. I love my life. It's not what I thought, and it's different, but I love it very much," she said. "Just because something changes doesn't mean it's worse. Different can be better."
"How do you know if it's better?"
My mother hummed as the drone of the plane rumbled on around us. The violet light made her face into a crescent moon.
YOU ARE READING
Suicide Buddies
Teen Fiction"My mother once told me there are three, and only three, truly defining moments in your life. One: When you don't know. Two: When you realize you don't know. Three: When you know. This is about the third one." --- Angel Young is going to die. Or at...
