Lia let the dial tone ring in her ear for at least the hundredth time that hour. There was no answer. After so many rings, it just shipped her through to the voice mail. Lia hung up.
There was no point in leaving another message; she was fairly sure that the five she'd already left had put her somewhere in the 'stalker' box. Sighing, she went back to cleaning the hallway cupboard, a sure sign that she was very upset.
Even Elly was tiptoeing around her. That was probably because Lia had yelled at her over the little girl's messy room, which was so unlike Lia that both of them had known something was wrong.
Elly was now very pointedly being a good girl. She'd cleaned up her room, even though Lia had apologised with hugs and ice-cream, and she was quietly watching cartoons in the living room.
It was easy for Elly to be quiet – she didn't exactly speak – but she made plenty of noise anyway: running through the house with Mr Ruffles in tow, sending her towers of blocks crashing to the floor, was one of her favorite games.
She was a bouncy kid and Lia loved that. She cringed inside at the thought of her own mood affecting her daughter so. Maybe it wasn't just her own mood. Maybe Elly missed Yeji, too. In fact, Lia was sure that Elly missed Yeji, too. The child had asked after the musician many times, several times a day, in fact.
There was more than one thing bugging Lia at the moment. The obvious top of the list was the fact that she hadn't heard from Yeji for a week.
They'd seen her the night after the -. Well, the night after. It had been moderately awkward, mostly because they kept going in for a kiss and realising they couldn't, shouldn't. And, to their credit, they hadn't.
Lia had hugged her goodbye at the door, feeling more frustrated and confused than ever. And now, nothing.
At least she couldn't argue that she'd been used in bed and dumped, because, well, firstly, Yeji wouldn't do that and, secondly, she'd come over the night after.
But why hadn't she heard from her? Where the hell was she? And why wasn't she answering her phone? Lia was worried, but she knew Yeji was alive because she'd seen her on Wednesday night at Elly's art class. One wave and then the brunette had disappeared. Lia was hating this.
The fact that she and Elly both missed Yeji was even more worrying. The whole point of their agreement had been to make things less complicated.
Instead, it seemed that both mother and daughter were miserable without Yeji's company. Three wasn't a crowd, it turned out. Elly never asked after Soobin, but she'd asked after Yeji with a determination that had drawn admiration from Lia.
And, to top it all off, Lia had to admit to being just a little sexually frustrated. Who wouldn't be, going to sleep in that bed? Thinking about it. Dreaming about it. Waking up, drenched in sweat from reliving it night after night.
Okay, that was on the bottom of her list of concerns at the moment but, still, it was always there in the back of her mind.
So, with all of her frustration, not to mention her angst at not getting through to Yeji, Lia cleaned the hall cupboards.
Then, she cleaned the kitchen cupboards and the bathroom. She stopped to put Elly and Mr Ruffles to bed, making sure she took an extra long time reading their story and giving them both lots of affection to make up for her grumpiness earlier.
As she moved to turn off the light, she heard a tap on the wall, Elly's way of getting her attention.
"Is Yeji coming over soon?" the little girl signed. "Mr Ruffles misses her."
Lia smiled weakly. "I hope so, honey. She's just busy with work at the moment. She'll come by and say hi to us soon, okay?" It might be a lie, but Lia was hoping it was the truth so much that she dared to give her daughter that hope, too. Switching off the light, she went to find something else to clean.
Two more days passed, making it nearly a week and a half since they had seen Yeji. Lia knew that something was very wrong. She ached with missing Yeji and not in a sexual way.
Her heart ached and she missed the presence of the brunette in her life.
She missed her hanging around the kitchen while Lia cooked dinner, missed watching her swing Elly around the living room, playing and laughing.
She missed everything and the aching wouldn't stop. Elly was still missing her, too, although she'd stopped asking so much after her. And, of course, that worried Lia even more.
Although Elly never asked after Soobin, Lia still tried to make up for her ex-husband's lack of fathering skills because she knew Elly felt a little abandoned by him. And now she was feeling it again. That wasn't Yeji's fault, God knew. It was Lia's, if anyone's, but, still, it made her worry.
She tried Yeji's cell again. Turned off. It had been for days.
Another week and Lia had found a new definition of torture. Her own worry about Elly and herself was now pushed firmly to the back of her mind.
Yeji wasn't home. Yeji wasn't answering her phone. Yeji had someone cover for her at both the hospital and the community centre. Lia knew she was bordering on scary with her checking of these places but now it was genuinely out of concern. Her friend had disappeared.
Yeji's bosses had just shaken their heads and done their best to reassure Lia that Yeji was okay. Well, the fact that they'd heard from her meant that she was alive. But okay? No, Yeji was not okay.
There was a feeling deep in the pit of Lia's stomach that she could no longer ignore – an instinct, perhaps – but one that the blonde was willing to trust. Yeji was not okay. Now, if only Lia could find her and find out why, she might be able to do something about it.
Lia sat at home, chewing her fingernails in desperation. She'd asked her parents to take Elly and they'd agreed instantly.
Her father had taken in the bags under her eyes, her slightly drawn face and her worried look and had given her an almighty hug.
After reassuring him to the best of her abilities that she was fine, she admitted to being worried about Yeji.
Doing his social worker best, he'd pulled her inside and made her talk. After letting it all out, she felt better. She was still worried, but better than before.
She remembered her father's parting words: "You're a good friend, Lia, to worry so. She could do a lot worse than depending on you." Lia hoped so. She was just scared to the very root of her being that she was, in this case, the cause of the problem and therefore could never be the solution.
She started out by ringing all of Yeji's numbers again. They were still turned off or, in the case of the home number, ringing straight through to the answering machine.
Still determined, Lia set off for the musician's home. If she wasn't there, Lia would camp out. Or something. Or find one of the brunette's bosses and shake them until they declared the whereabouts of one Hwang Yeji.
Pulling up in the rapidly darkening dusk of the evening, Lia spied a light on at the back of Yeji's house. That definitely hadn't been there the last two times that Lia had driven past.
And it looked like there might be a car in the garage. Well, that was good. Now, all she had to do was pound on the door until Yeji let her in, or until the neighbours called the cops. Maybe the cops would let her in. Unlikely.
Taking a deep breath, Lia moved purposefully across the road. This time, there would be no waiting at the door, memorising the grain of the wood. And there would be no agonising.
This was definitely no longer about Lia. If only her friend, the person she cared more about than anyone else in this world bar her daughter, was all right, then everything would be fine. Taking another deep breath, she knocked on the door.
There was no answer, so she knocked again. Still no answer. But the light in the back of the house did flick off and Lia didn't miss it.
Setting her mouth in a grim line of determination, she knocked again and again until, finally, under her bruised knuckles, the door opened.
Yeji looked like a wreck. Her hair was down, but her face was gaunt and there was no light in her eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a comfortable sweater, but Lia could tell from the clothes that half the life had gone out of her friend. It was awful.
"Yeji." Lia reached out to the girl, face creased with concern.
"Lia." The blonde's name was dull on Yeji's lips. The life was also missing from her voice, and the cadence that always gave the brunette's tone such song was missing, too.
Lia quivered. She had been right: something was desperately wrong here.
"Um, look, I can't...Can you come back another day?" Yeji's voice was limp.
"Hell, no!" Lia said. "Yeji, what's wrong? Talk to me." She reached out, brushing a hand along the brunette's cheek and recoiling when the other girl pulled away as though stung.
"Lia, I..." Yeji swallowed visibly. "I can't right now."
There was so much choke in her voice that Lia knew another word would mean tears. She was horribly torn between wanting to make her friend feel better and worrying that pushing her would make it worse. But she couldn't leave Yeji like this. She just couldn't.
"Yeji, I'm just here to make sure you're okay. I was worried about you. And you're clearly not okay, so..."
Lia watched her friend take a defensive step backwards, and the body language that screamed 'Leave me alone. I want to curl up and die'. Lia stepped inside the other girl's house, refusing to leave.
Closing the door behind her with one hand, she took a few steps forward, invading the other girl's space and throwing her arms around her. She pulled Yeji into the unavoidable embrace, sheltering her from whatever storms were raging within, and holding her tightly.
She felt Yeji's head drop to her shoulder and then her arms went around Lia's waist in a final burst of pain and defeat. Lia could feel her shaking and tightened the embrace harder, pulling the smaller girl against her and cuddling, stroking, soothing.
When she realised that Yeji wasn't going to let go any time soon, Lia gently manoeuvred them to the living room, keeping a firm grip on her girl. Once they were on the couch, she let go slightly, but only so she could press kisses into Yeji's temple and smooth back her hair.
The brunette was less shaky now but still crying, and the tears fell straight into Lia heart, burning like acid.
As the crying slowly stopped, she pulled back and looked deep into Yeji's eyes. The brunette hiccoughed slightly, the way you do when you've just cried your eyes out, and Lia smiled warmly, though still with a patently worried look. She gently wiped a tear off the musician's trailed cheek.
"I'm here," she whispered. "It's going to be okay. Whatever it is, we'll sort it out, okay?" Lia was murmuring words against Yeji's forehead, letting them come out without really thinking them through.
She was just so worried. This was so unlike the Yeji she'd come to know, she had no idea where to start. But maybe just being a good friend was the only start she needed to make. She guessed time would let her know, once she'd found out what the hell was wrong with Yeji.
****
Lia didn't really know how to deal with Yeji in this situation. The brunette was leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees and pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.
All the blonde could do was run slow circles on Yeji's back and sit there next to her, looking worried. She could feel the intensity in the room, and it flowed out of the brunette in waves. The urge to say something was fighting inside Lia, and she found the silence overpowering.
"Yeji, talk to me." Lia hoped her words were the right ones and, yet, her instincts were screaming again: Don't push her. Don't push too hard. Okay, she wouldn't push.
"Lia," Yeji rubbed her eyes again, "it's okay. I'm fine. Can we just leave it?"
Well, maybe she would push a little.
"For how long, Yeji? Till it eats you from the inside out?" Lia kept her voice deliberately soft and she slid a little closer to the girl next to her. "Until you talk to someone else? Because, if I actually thought that might happen, I'd leave it. But I know you well enough now to know that you're going to throw this down inside and pretend it's okay."
"It is okay!" Yeji was not being the most convincing of liars at this point.
Lia leaned forward, brushing the hair off the brunette's cheek and face. "Yeji, please, talk to me. Everything will be fine, I promise. Just talk to me."
"I can't!" Yeji cried in response, a cry so deep and guttural that it made Lia's insides twist. "You don't understand who I am, what I can do, Lia."
It was clearly getting worse. Yeji was keening with some inner grief that Lia couldn't identify and all the blonde could do was pull her close and hope to help her ride through it.
"You're wonderful, Yeji. You're amazing." She was murmuring whatever she could think of to calm the situation down and it wasn't working.
Yeji had worked herself up and she was becoming insensible. "Yeji, Yeji." Lia pulled her closer, into her arms, rocking and praying that things would be all right. "Yeji, sweetie, it's okay. Shh, I'm here. It's okay."
"Lia. God, Lia." Yeji's head was pressed into the crook of Lia's neck and she let her body fall against the blonde's. "I can't do this. I'll... I, I want so much. I can't -"
"Shh, shh. It's okay, Yeji. It's okay. We'll work it out, whatever it is. We'll work it out. Shh." Lia rocked the girl in her arms back and forth, soothing and praying. She hoped some divine intervention was going to appear soon, because seeing Yeji this upset was breaking her up inside.
To her somewhat relief, the crying subsided slowly. It didn't make a huge difference since the turmoil was still radiating off Yeji in waves and Lia still didn't know what the hell was going on, but she decided this time to keep quiet. She'd pushed and that hadn't gone so well. Now she'd just hope that Yeji would feel the need to fill the silence.
They'd fallen backwards slowly, more like a general slump. Lia rearranged them so that they were side-by-side, Yeji's head still tucked gently into the crook of her shoulder as Lia stroked the brunette's hair, her shoulders, her arm, and murmured gentle whispers in her ear. She felt fingers tighten on the back of her shirt and pulled back slightly.
Yeji's tear-stained face peered up at her. The pain in her eyes was so evident it brought tears to the corners of Lia's own.
Wrinkling her brow with concern, care, and just a touch of confusion, Lia leaned down and kissed her companion gently on the forehead, still soothingly stroking her arm. She let her instincts carry her, brushing kisses down to the corners of Yeji's eyes, where moisture still gathered, kissing her temple, trailing them down her cheek.
She kissed the downturned corner of her sweet, soft mouth, her chin, the other corner of her mouth. She lingered there, maybe a second too long, because while Yeji hadn't been moving at all for the last few minutes, she was quick now.
Lia found her lips captured in a kiss that began as soft and needing, but almost instantly deepened into something far more powerful.
She felt Yeji's hands slide around her, one of them rifling through her hair almost painfully as the kiss became one of the most intense experiences of Lia's life.
She could feel things slipping beyond her control rapidly, Yeji becoming so wound up in the movements that Lia wasn't sure she could extract herself. This was probably a mistake, right now, at this time. Yeji wasn't exactly in her right mind.
Yeji's hands were on her and the musician's body was pushing her back into the cushions of the couch. Despite Lia's misgivings, she could feel frissons of want and need, pure sexual energy streaming through her.
She felt Yeji's hands find her breast, bringing her nipple to a sudden hard peak, and a knee slid between hers, finding its mark successfully. Lia couldn't help gasping into Yeji's mouth as the slender girl ground down into her. She moved her hands to the brunette's shoulders, trying to find the strength inside – or at least some manner of control – to get her to stop.
Only, it wasn't that easy. Part of Lia was screaming for Yeji to rip her clothes off, thrust inside her and make her climax so hard she would forget her own name. But a reasonably sane part of Lia – and, at this moment, that was a fairly sizeable chunk – was telling her that this would be a mistake.
Yeji's hand was skimming up Lia's skirt, reaching the edge of her underwear and dipping under, almost before the blonde had time to register what was happening.
"Yeji!" she gasped, fingers suddenly making it impossible to think of anything else. And then the brunette was inside her, thrusting. Lia was barely ready, and she gasped again, a slight pain throwing her off.
But with the next thrust Yeji's fingers hit the right place and her head fell back. She gripped the brunette's shoulders, moaning and arching her hips, losing herself to the feeling.
Oh God, this had to stop. And yet it felt so fucking good. Lia wanted to let it go on, feel that incredible crest she knew, but she knew that it wasn't right.
Even with the incredibly arousing sensations that Yeji's fingers were creating, Lia could feel it wasn't right and she didn't want that. She didn't want it to be like this.
"Yeji," she groaned, "st-. Oh, God." It was hard to talk when someone was pushing you very, very close to the edge. "Stop," she croaked, and yet the thrusting kept coming, insistent and more forceful. Lia bit her lip, grasped Yeji's shoulders and forced it out of her mouth. "Yeji, STOP!"
That had an effect and she felt the movements cease. Then Yeji was pulling out of her, propping herself up on her hands and looking down at Lia with a look of absolute horror on her face.
"Yeji," she began, but couldn't finish the sentence. The brunette in front of her was scrambling backwards like she'd been burnt, off the couch and down the hall. Lia shook her head for a second, thoroughly stunned, and then righted her clothing before following her friend.
She could hear whimpers coming from the bathroom and knocked softly. "Yeji, it's okay. Let me in." There was no reply. "Yeji, I'm worried. Please, let me in. It's okay. You didn't do anything wrong." Still no reply.
Lia tried the door handle and, to her utter relief, she found it wasn't locked. Pushing the door open slowly she found her friend curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor.
"Go away," Yeji said dully.
"No," Lia answered. She knelt down on the floor in front of the brunette, but the other girl had her face turned away, hiding it in the corner of the bath and the wall. "Yeji, it's okay. You didn't do anything wrong."
The scared, emotional, internally battle-scarred face of the woman she was falling in love with turned to face her. "How can you say that? HOW? After... After I just jumped you?" Yeji broke off with a sob. "How can you stand to be near me?"
"Yeji, Yeji, you didn't do anything wrong. Shh." Lia knelt closer, urging the other girl to believe her.
"Aside from goddamn assault you, Lia! How could I? How?"
"How could you stop when I asked you to?" Lia cut in. "How could you reach out when you needed someone?"
"Lia, I'm poison. You can't be near me." Yeji pulled her knees in closer, like she was shutting herself off from the world completely, pulling away.
"Yeji, you're being stupid. You're not poison." Lia put her hand on Yeji's knee and sat crosslegged in front of her. She wasn't going to let her pull away, and she wasn't going anywhere. "Yeji, talk to me. Please. Tell me where all this is coming from."
"You'll hate me," Yeji whispered.
"Not possible," Lia replied.