Before You Go

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The beginning of March came in one big rush, fleeting and out of focus. One moment, I was watching Charlie Yang's receding taillights through closing elevator doors, and then the next, I found myself alone at the airport, waiting for my luggage at baggage claim.

It was the first weekend of the racing season, and I was probably making the most regrettable decision of my life. Somewhere in the haze of the past month, I had committed to going, and had booked a flight—a total lapse in sanity, which was only made up for by the fact that I had successfully ghosted Charlie during this time as well, sending all his calls to voicemail and leaving all of his texts unanswered.

"You're not ghosting him if you're flying to a different country to watch him race," Yeona had informed me the other night, while I'd mulled over my decisions as of late. And I supposed she was right in theory. But my plan had been to just suffer through the whole ordeal in General Admission, as just another person in the crowd. He'd never know I'd been there, and I could stop feeling like I owed him—a feeling that'd been hanging inexplicably over my head for weeks now. A feeling I wanted to be rid of as soon as possible.

Now, as I wrestled my luggage off the conveyor belt and headed for the line of taxis waiting outside, unease settled heavy in the pit of my stomach. Just as I'd felt stepping through the doors of my childhood home on New Year's Eve, I got the sense that I shouldn't be here. That I was walking into something terrifying and absolutely irrevocable.

That, and it was all just painful. My grief was rarely vivid anymore, but it was slowly creeping back to full saturation with every passing second.

The tattoo behind my ear became suddenly itchy at this thought. I gritted my teeth and ignored it, instead waving down a taxi driver to help me load my bags into the trunk of his car. It was Thursday morning, which gave me approximately forty-eight hours to hole up in my hotel room and avoid reality until race day.

Except for dinner tonight.

Dinner being the hole in the wall restaurant in Chinatown, where my brother had insisted on eating every Thursday evening of race weekend. His reward for surviving media day, he would tell me with a wink, before he'd indulge in a single serving of shumai, half of which he always made me eat anyway.

And as much as I liked to believe that I didn't need to hunt down and relive every ghost in every crack and crevice of the city, I couldn't help it. Much like the rest of the weekend, I felt obligated to live it. To experience it just this one last time.

I kept my head down the entire ride to the hotel, and thankfully my driver was quiet, only glancing at me here and there in the rearview mirror, almost as if to make sure I was still there. Or maybe because he felt like he recognized me from somewhere—being practically attached at the hip with my brother in our later years had put me in a spotlight of my own, one that I had adored once, but much regretted now. Especially in the days after his death, when his notoriety only continued to grow.

I could still see the grainy picture of me watching as his casket was loaded into the hearse, my hair matted by the summer rain, mascara on my cheeks. The image had gone viral in the weeks after we buried Joshua—The Ethereal Crier I had been called by strangers on the internet. And it was almost cruel how, after so many years longing to be recognized outside of the Park legacy, I had finally gotten my wish—on the worst day of my life, in the most violating manner.

For months after, I'd hated my face. My reflection. To see myself, with the same eyes as my brother, staring back at me like an accusation. This is what you wanted.