Starry Night

twenty

And that's exactly what I do. Alone with my thoughts, I ponder everything that's just happened all the way up the last hundred or so steps of the mountain staircase. Wondering if I'll ever stop being angry with my dad. Wondering if I'm angry at Jungkook, too. And I'm so busy being lost in my own self-centered thoughts, it doesn't quite register that the water is getting louder. And louder. When the steps begin curbing sharply to the right, I suddenly see why.

Waterfalls. Two of them. Not the small, tranquil cascade of last one. If that was roar, this is God himself speaking. And he is fierce.

Blue water plummets off a sharp-angled cliff many stories down into raging white foam. It's flowing so savagely, a good third of the falls are nothing but gauzy mist. I even can feel mist on my legs - and the base of the falls must be a good quarter mile or more away.

I hike the last few steps to a large lookout area on a plateau twice the size of the one below. No one's here. How is that possible? I spy another set of stone steps at the end of the lookout leading to the topmost point. There appears to be a trail all the way around the falls, and at the top of the falls is where several tourists are taking photos and looking through viewfinders. If I'm not mistaken, there is a tram and a couple of toilets up there. Guess most people choose to ride up there instead of climbing the world's most dangerous steps.

I walk toward the edge of the lookout, dump my pack on a section of dry rock, and peer across the gap to watch the waterfalls.

"Emperor and Empress Falls," Jungkook says loudly from my side, ditching his pack next to mine. "They're actually part of the same river, but that bumpy rock formation that sticks out between them is what splits the flow. Three hundred fifty feet tall."

They are beautiful. I'm truly stunned. By the view, and by the entire conversation we just had. I wonder if I can just keep looking at the falls, just pretend it never happened until I come up with a plan -

"Suzy," he pleads from behind me. "Say something. Please."

I have to speak louder than normal to be heard over the roar of the falls, and it sort of turns into yelling. "If you confessed everything to your parents, then my dad didn't have anything to hold over you as leverage." I turn around to face him, bitterness in my voice. "Why didn't you tell me then?"

"You weren't speaking to me."

"Because I was under the assumption that you hated me!"

"I never hated you. I was angry that you shut me out, and I damn sure was furious about Taehyung. Seeing you with him in front of your locker was one of the worst days of my life - and believe me, I had a lot of bad days last year."

"I was only with Taehyung because I was trying to get over you." I'm crying now - half in anger, half in grief - and I feel as if my chest is going to explode and I'm going to fall over the edge of the lookout and die in the waterfall mist. Because not only am I thinking about what I did with Taehyung, but I'm also thinking about Jungkook doing the same thing with Lee Jieun. And I don't know which image is worse.

"And then," he yells, "I had to listen to Bogum - fucking Bogum, of all people - brag about how close he was to 'hitting that.'"

Ugh! What did I see in him?

"It was just a kiss!" I tell Jungkook. "One kiss, and it wasn't even that good. It wasn't good with Taehyung, and it was less than nothing with Bogum. Is that want you want to hear?"

"I don't mind hearing that, honestly," he says, cheeks dark with indignation.

"And what about Jieun? Taehyung and I had sex one time. Once! You probably screwed Jieun's brains out for months."