Teenage Love

Chapter 13

Haerin had just returned from home.  She had told her parents that she would be home late for a party at the house of a friend of hers. 

Sometimes her parents believed it while other times they didn't care, thinking carefully about what her daughter could actually be doing in those hours. 

Lying wasn't part of her choice but she didn't want to stay at home with her parents.  She had always hated them even though they had the same blood that supported her in her veins.  She still remembered those lonely and sad Sundays in front of the television while her parents thought about how each other disappeared or how they could go out partying without caring about their six-year-old daughter at home.

  Her parents were not nice people, they were trusted as magnificent figures in front of others only physically but their real personality had always been a mystery to others.  Haerin knew well what was behind her parents and she was honestly ashamed of having such parents even though she hated them regardless of her. 

Sometimes she didn't look at them for the whole day, locking herself in her room ignoring every word from her mother who told her to come down and eat with them all in the family.  Haerin ate always alone.  She didn't like hearing them talk and feel about her fake interest in her, especially her father who knew well what she felt about her: total failure. 

As her mother always gave her a disgusted face when she saw her around her even though she had a higher species rank than her.  Haerin was essentially a total failure to her family. 

When her uncles and aunts came to visit her they always asked her how she was doing at school and her parents, so as not to feel bad about her, always said that things were going wonderfully. 

She knew well that the two didn't want to have anything to do with her and her life but being a failure in front of others was something impossible for her parents. 

She sat in her room with the phone in her hand and the room key in her pocket hoping that her mother wouldn't wake up to find out why the door didn't have the key facing outward. 

She lay down on her bed throwing her shoes on the floor and staring at the ceiling above her.  So much dark in the dark but so beautiful to look at.  She would have liked to stay on that ceiling and hang herself with ropes until she remained a fossil so that her mother and father would no longer bother her or call her and force her to obey their orders.  Her phone began to vibrate: Hanni was calling her.

  She hadn't asked for a ride from the girl for various reasons these days and she knew well that this evening she wasn't at some party wasting time but rather at Hyein's house having fun in a pajama party. 

She knew well that Danielle was also with her so who knows why she had called her.  She decided not to answer her.  She could pretend to be asleep and ignore the call.

  She thought for a while about whether to turn to the other side of the bed and put a pillow over her face so she couldn't see or hear anything but as soon as she finished the phone vibrating, a second call came immediately after, always from the same person.  Hanni had always been very pushy. 

She picked up the phone and answered "What's going on?"  Haerin asked in a rather serious but at the same time annoyed tone.  Hanni wasn't answering on the other line, she could feel the panting reaching her ears as if she had Hanni's mouth right in her room that was pulsing together with her heart that accelerated so much.

  Had she run?  Had she run a marathon?  Had she run away?  She didn't know, she had to tell Hanni what was happening at that exact moment.  "If I tell you that I did something very stupid, what do you answer me?"  Hanni asked after and seconds. 

Haerin stopped for a moment: his head began to go backwards along with her thoughts.  She was remembering all those times when she had been forced to take Hanni somewhere deaf in the middle of the city after she had gotten drunk until she vomited on her shoes, or when she had slapped a police officer thinking she was some pervert who he wanted to rape her. 

How could she forget that time when she Hanni entered a club with a fake ID?  She had to explain to the police that her friend was stupid and obsessed with alcohol, and that she had gotten confused with the identity card of one of her friends who had asked her to keep it for her. 

She told more lies for Hanni than for any other person.  "I would tell you that you will have to manage on your own" it was a lie, even Hanni knew it, she had laughed between nervousness and the desire to cry at those stupid words of Haerin's.  “Really Haerin..” Hanni whispered with a rather silent pause. 

Haerin sat on the bed looking at her feet dangling in the air.  "Where are you?"  Haerin asked, tired of hearing the girl's stupid comments.  "I'm at Seoul station" she said, making the noise of the railway slamming forcefully on the tracks heard for a few seconds. 

"Why?"  Haerin asked again, "To escape from the guilt" Hanni replied immediately after between a sob and a word.  Haerin let her speak when she calmed down.  She took the keys from her desk and then walked to her door, opening it. 

Her mother was right there in the hallway with a cup of tea in her hands.  She gave her a nod of indifference only to warn her that she had once again seen her running away into the night. 

Haerin really wanted to know what was going on but she knew at the same time that such emotions couldn't be told through a call.