Doctor Kim

Chapter 26

Everything changed after that night.

I hadn't allowed myself to think about a future with Dr. Minji Kim, but that restriction vanished as the sun rose the following morning. We had everything working against us. Her schedule, the age difference, and the Jay situation. Despite it all, I wanted to try, and she seemed to as well.

We saw each other as much as we could during the final week while Jay was out of town. Minji inflicted her "new classics" movies on me while I tried to teach her how to use Snapchat. She told me the filters were stupid, so I put flowers in her hair and showed her how gorgeous she looked. She'd ripped the phone out of my hands, threw it onto her bed, then tossed me down beside it, her hands going for the button of my shorts and an evil grin on her face.

On Thursday evening, she texted me she was leaving the hospital and invited me over for a late dinner. I quickly replied.

Hanni: See you soon.

I was halfway out the door, my purse slung over my shoulder, when my mom's voice rang out from the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" she asked lightly. "Jay's?"

I skidded to a stop. It wasn't until that moment I realized I hadn't told her we'd broken up.

My mom was a genuinely busy person. When I was in high school, she'd been crazy active in volunteering. PTA vice-president. Music boosters. Senior class trip chaperone. She didn't do it to invade my life, and hadn't either. She just liked being involved and couldn't sit still. Even during the weekends when she was home from her demanding IT job, my mom was go-go-go with her nine million hobbies.

The latest one was her garden in the back yard. She was growing everything from vegetables to roses, and determined to make it all the best it could possibly be. She was out there from sunup to sundown, digging and planting and fertilizing and watering.

It meant I rarely saw her this summer.

I closed the door and pivoted on my heel to face her. She wore an old marching band t-shirt from my sophomore year, cotton shorts, and a baseball hat to shield her eyes from the sun. She stood at the fridge filling her water bottle. Even in worn-out clothes and no makeup on, she looked good. Young and pretty, with sharp eyes and mouth that was quick to smile.

The easiest, fastest way to get out the door was to say yes. It wasn't a lie technically. I mean, I was going to Jay's.

My mom and I were close-ish. In high school, I'd felt like I could tell her anything, but the year away at college had changed us a little. After eighteen years of it just being the two of us, I thought we both liked the privacy. We got to be women on our own.

"Uh." Guilt coated my insides. It tasted like a lie as I said it. "Jay's. Yeah."

The water dispenser dripped, and my mother wiped her hand on the side of her shirt. "Oh, I saw Dr. Kim yesterday."

My breath caught. "What?"

"I took my car into the dealership. Turns out I had a nail in the back tire, and she was there, waiting on an oil change."

"Yeah?" Could she hear how I forced casualness into my voice? "Did you say hi?"

"Yeah." Her tone was matter-of-fact, but then her eyebrows pulled together. "Well, sort of. She was on the phone at first." She screwed the cap shut on her water bottle. "I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I heard her asking for restaurant recommendations to take her girlfriend, so I told her about that seafood one we went to last month. That place was great."

My heart slammed to a stop. "Girlfriend?"

She must not have heard me squeak out the word. "She gave me the strangest look." Her eyes abruptly zeroed in, and I used every ounce of acting strength I possessed to look indifferent, even as I cracked into a million pieces inside. Somehow, my mom didn't seem to notice. "If anything," she continued, "she was kind of rude."