Some girls do

Chapter 1: Chaewon

There's an art to the extraction. First, I take Sunghoon's arm—heavy across my stomach—and slide my fingers beneath. I lift it slightly and move centimeter by centimeter to the right side of the bed. And when I'm mostly free, I grab one of his pillows—warmed by my own overthinking head—and slip it under his arm.

If I'm lucky, he'll snuffle softly in the moonlight streaming into his messy bedroom, hug the pillow, and stay sleeping. If I'm unlucky, he'll wake up and ask me where I'm going: Chaewon, just stay. Chaewon, please. Chaewon, it won't kill you to cuddle. I don't have the energy for that.

Sunghoon's messy brown hair falls into his face as he smiles in his sleep and hugs my pillow replacement a little tighter. I got lucky tonight—in every sense of the word. I grab my boots, leftovers from one of the ten million Western-themed pageants I've smiled my way through over the years, and creep out the front door barefoot, careful not to let the screen door slam and wake his parents.

The motion-sensor light clicks on as I shove my feet into my boots and make a beeline for my car, my soul, my lifeline: my baby-blue 1970 Ford Torino. Yes, it's old as hell, but it's the one thing in this world that's truly mine. I bought it, rusted and rotten, off my great-aunt Maeve's estate for three hundred bucks. I painstakingly put it back together, scavenging pieces from junkyards and flea markets. I restored it to its current state of splendor. Me. I did that.

Okay, so maybe I had a little help from Kim Hyojong, the town's least-crooked mechanic, but still.

I climb inside and shift it into neutral, taking off the emergency brake and letting the car coast backward down Sunghoon's long hill of a driveway and into the street, where I finally flick the ignition. It rumbles to life, the sound closer to a growl than a purr. I resist the urge to rev the engine—god, I love that sound—and point my car toward home, feeling loose and boneless, relaxed and happy, content in the way one only can during that tiny glint of freedom between chores and obligations.

Not that Sunghoon is an obligation—or a chore, for that matter. He's nice enough, our time together fun and consensual. In another universe, we'd probably be dating. But we live in this one, and in this universe, I love exactly two things: sleep and my car.

Sunghoon is a great stress reliever, an itch to scratch, a good time had by all. Nothing else. We have an arrangement, a friends-with-benefits sort of thing. No strings. If he called me tomorrow and said he wanted to ask a girl out, I'd say Go for it as long as it isn't me—and I'd mean it. I hope he'd say the same. Which is why I'm driving home from his house two hours after getting a text that simply said: big game tomorrow, you around?

Be still my heart.

But then, a couple weeks ago, I texted him: pageant in the AM, come distract me? And he was crawling through my window within minutes.

See, it's not an all-the-time thing; it's an as-needed thing. Some people get high; Sunghoon and I get twenty minutes of consensual, safe sex—always use a condom, people—and a subsequent awkward exchange about how my leaving right after makes him feel weird. Thus, the sneaking out once he falls asleep: the ideal compromise, at least on my end.

I pull into the dirt-patch driveway in front of my trailer. It might not seem like much to some, but it's ours and it's home. Just me and my mom. Well, some of the time, anyway. The better times.

But the lights are still on in the kitchen, the TV flickering in the living room, and my heart sinks. Mom works the overnight shift cleaning offices, and her car's not here, which means this will not be one of those 'better times.' Literally nothing could drag me down from a good mood faster than having to be around her boyfriend, Yong Junhyung.