Before you disappear

Chapter 56

"I understand you're angry with me. And I know this is hard for you to hear, but I am an adult and I can make my own decisions."

"This isn't about you being an adult. This is about you being my sister, having gone through a trauma, not keeping me in the loop as you promised you would and now being even further away from home – which is a decision you wouldn't normally have taken!"

I took a deep breath and tried to collect my thoughts as my sister Amy rambled on. I knew she was worried sick. I knew she was only angry with me because she loved me so much. And I loved her, too, yet there was no way I could explain my decisions properly. I couldn't tell her about what had happened between me and JK.

If I even tried, she would for sure think I had lost all my marbles.

"Please trust me on this. Please hear me when I say I am fine. There is nothing wrong with me. I understand that the timing of all of this is weird. And I realize the error in not keeping you in the loop. I'm sorry for worrying you so much. That was never what I intended. You know how much I love you."

"And I love you, too." Her voice broke a little when she spoke those words. "If I could, I would take the first flight to come see you. I'd rather be with you in all of this then scold you over the phone."

"You'd rather scold me in person?"

That made her chuckle. "Well, yes, and I..." She stopped talking. "Wait."

I frowned. "What's going on?"

"JK went live." She went silent again.

My thoughts were racing. JK went live? Why would he go live? He went to arrange dinner. How did he go from that to going live?

But before I could ask, my sister did what she always did when she saw something while being on the phone with me; she gave me a recap as it happened intertwined with her thoughts while processing everything.

"He's saying something about a woman he met. Wait... Is he in a relationship or something? Oh no... He's saying there's nothing romantic going on, just that she too was in the hospital... Oh, that's funny. He said she's also ARMY... He said they both had something happen to their heart and that's how they connected over that.... Wait, why is he telling all of this? Oh, he says she's with him right now, because she hadn't been able to see the concert due to her condition. And he's telling us because he doesn't want us to think there's anything more than that and... " Amy gasped. "Wait. Is he talking about you?"

And then it hit me why Jungkook had gone live. He had heard me on the phone. He'd come back into the room while I was talking to my sister and accidently eavesdropped. Why else would he feel the need to go live and explain the presence of a woman in his life right now?

Wait.

My heart stopped. He said the woman was with him right now?

"No, no, no, no." I jumped up from my seat as the worst case scenario of what would happen unfolded before my eyes. This wasn't what idols did. They couldn't talk about any woman in their life. What if Jungkook would get hate from his fans? Or anger from his management? Wasn't this some kind of contract breach?

He can't be doing this!

I wanted to stop him, reverse time, make him tell his fans that it was just a story. He made everything up. There wasn't a woman with him right now.

But I knew I couldn't do that. Because knowing Jungkook and having been him, I knew how much highly he thought about integrity and being humble and honest – especially to his fans.

I heard my name called out, two times. The first time sounded far away, but the second time was urgent and it stopped my thoughts from spiraling, pulling me back to where I was. In my room, with my sister on the phone.