Finding the Right Words

Chapter 140- The Last Show

There was a special place in Hell for the man who drove the red car. If there wasn't one already set aside, when I got there, I would make sure there was one for him.

Maybe I'd gotten cocky-- had nothing but success, even in romance, and was ready for a happy life. I was one of the world's top stars, and was getting anything every teenage girl had ever dreamed of, and I had done it while maintaining my values. I had won too much in life, and so life decided it needed to take some things away.

I don't know how long I cried. Time was distorted. I may have only cried for a few minutes, but to me, it felt like years, bleak and gray. The hospital room had turned into a black abyss, and I was falling into it, crumbling and dissolving, desperately clutching Zhou Mi's hand, because it was the only thing keeping me from disappearing completely into the pit.

When I had lost my dog, I had thought, "If this is punishment for something I've done... why didn't you punish me? I could have taken it, I deserved it. Why did you have to punish him for something that I did? Why?"

When I had thought I had lost my sister, I had felt like this. I had been desolate and empty, so deep in despair that the person people looked at with pity was only an empty shell, incapable of really seeing any of them. I was a doll, with dull, lifeless eyes, the real me lost and shrunk so deeply that there was no way they could possibly see it.

 It was a long time before I was able to really see with my own eyes. When the tears had dried up, and I could finally stop screaming, exhausting my mental voice, while my own throat ached like it had screamed for hours, though it had never made a sound.

When I escaped the abyss and went back into the real world, I was exhausted. And because I was exhausted, I fell asleep, my cheeks salt-stained. And when I slept, I had nightmares.

In my dreams I watched the accident over and over, time and time again, only this time I was watching Jung Ah as the accident happened. Watched the way she saw the red car and turned just a bit to the right, so it was hit only on her side. Watched it over and over again, each time a different scenario. I tried to reverse it, tried to tell her no-- just hit the car in front of us, it'll be okay. I screamed at her desperately, but my voice wouldn't work. I tried grabbing the wheel, opening the door, everything. But it always ended the same way-- me, fighting my way out of a burning van, leaving the crumpled and bloody shape of my manager behind.

I woke up in a feverish sweat, shaking with fear, my mouth filled with bitter bile that burned my throat when I swallowed it back down.

"It's okay, Niuwang. It's okay, I'm right here," Zhou Mi was saying, trying as hard as he could to hide the desperation in his voice.

I shook my head. No, it's not okay. It will never be okay, I wanted to say.

He brushed my sticky bangs out of my face, then dabbed at my forehead with a cool cloth. "You're worrying yourself sick."

I made a face at him, at the blanket he'd laid out on the floor, at the injustice of the world, and patted the bed. Come here, I mouthed, still shaking.

When finally he accepted, crawling next to me on the small hospital bed, it wasn't difficult for us both to fit. I curled myself next to him, feeling smaller than I'd ever been.

 ~

We were able to convince the doctors to let me out of the hospital early, so I could go to the funeral. I went with Min Hee, but couldn't let her drive. Nor could I let myself drive. We took a taxi, and I watched Seoul go by, wondering why it looked so different.

I was surprised, when I arrived, that Jung Ah's family held out an arm band of two white stripes. I tried to refuse, shaking my head, but they insisted.