Hesitation

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Taeyeon spends a lot of her time just standing by the riverbank, completely still, and watching as the water makes its way past her. She can hear the birds singing their days away. She can feel the breeze plucking at her hair, brushing her cheeks. She can stand on the hard, dry ground beneath her feet and take a deep breath. She can watch as life passes her by.

The first time she had felt this empty was in the summer, a few years ago, in the middle of the day. She had been sitting in her house, her eyes tracking the movements of the figures on the TV screen. Her ears had been met with the music and someone else’s voice. Her mind had been filled with the song and hopelessness of regret.

Another life passed her by.

Taeyeon doesn’t like to talk much. Sometimes she thinks maybe she’s afraid of what she will say. She doesn’t want to say things that are misunderstood, or just not expressive enough. She wants words to count, and to really convey what she’s feeling. She uses words together with her emotions. She doesn’t like lies.

A lot of people don’t understand Taeyeon at all. She has maybe three close friends at any given time throughout her life, and feels that too many more friends will make it harder for her to convey the increased emotions. So she stands by the river, alone. She thinks about things.

She thinks about that time a few years ago when she had been two steps away from the doors to the building where a competition was being held. She thinks about how she stood there, shaking, with clammy hands and jelly for muscles, staring at the door handle as if it were on fire. There were sounds from the other side, the voices of young girls just like her, eagerly exposing their hearts for the world. She had been frozen there and listened as song after song was sung and hearts bled.

Taeyeon thinks about the exact moment when she had turned around and started running. She had gone away from the building, around the corner, down streets and roads and paths through parks, running and running, almost falling into the river. That day, she had collapsed onto her knees by the riverbank, and she had seen her own tears in the body of water before her.

Taeyeon sighs. She zips up her jacket. She stuffs her hands in her pockets. Futile, pointless actions, not intended to stave off the cold but rather to bring her back to the present. She thinks now about the books and papers waiting impatiently for her on her desk at home. She thinks about her never-ending schedule of tests, exams, tasks to be completed for her academic future.  She gazes at the moving water, and relishes the feeling of standing still.

Eventually, with the memory of running still ghosting in her mind, she turns and slowly makes her way home.

It’s been years since Taeyeon sang. The moment she ran from her dream, she locked her voice away deep in the depths of her heart and only let it out for a few words every now and then. After all, she thinks to herself every time she drags herself home, what good could singing do for her now?

The pen feels heavy in her hand as she leans on her desk. Her eyes read the words on the paper; she knows it’s asking her something but does she care? No, she decides, but then again there’s not a lot she does care about anymore, so she shakes her head, reads the question again, and mechanically begins to write a response.

Taeyeon goes to sleep in the early hours of the morning, time already pushing against the hour when she will wake up and go to school. As soon as her head rests on the pillow, she closes her eyes tightly and disappears into the darkness.

Then there comes the moment every morning when Taeyeon lies on her back and stares at the ceiling. She tries to make herself get up and go on. She tries and tries and tries. After a while she lets a few tears escape, and in return her body agrees to move.

An envelope from an American university is lying on her desk, still unopened even days after its arrival. Taeyeon runs her fingers over it in the early morning light. It’s all she can do to strive for academic achievement. She knows most of her classmates are attempting to get into Korea’s top-level universities, but an American university would be considered almost better by her family. And that is the main driving factor for Taeyeon; she does what is best for her family, since she couldn’t do anything for herself.

The envelope is open and the letter lies in her hands. She reads it slowly and deliberately to make sure her English skills don’t fail her. She takes a moment to reread a few words – accepted, arrival, accommodation, fall term – and even checks some of them in her dictionary to be absolutely sure of their meaning.

The paper once again lying on her desk, Taeyeon sits down on the chair and gazes down at the dictionary still in her hands.

She flips through the pages absently, and stops in the section marked H. Her fingers trace the letters, and she repeats one word over and over in her head in the silence surrounding her.

Hesitation.