A local thief and outcasted police detective, Park Seonghwa, become unlikely partners in crime to solve a string of murders.
START: 3.31.2020
FINISH: 2.20.2021
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record 17...AUGUST 5
12:34 PM
IT'S ONLY HALF PAST NOON when Patrice stumbles into the trailer in a drunken stupor. She hobbles over the threshold, barely managing to shake her feet out of her sandals without falling on her face. Her chubby face is flushed as her gaze darts to Levi seated at the dining table. Patrice freezes in place as if she is a child caught doing something wrong by a scolding parent.
Day drinking, again. Probably at that shifty bar downtown where the bartender is too heavy handed with the alcohol and too generous with grimy pick up lines.
She blinks at her aunt, feeling disappointment dry her mouth. Oh how she wished it was anger instead. It is always much easier to digest.
Disappointment makes Levi realize how much she keeps foolishly hoping for her aunt to one day wake up and be the same goofy Patrice from two years ago. The one that used to greet her with unfunny knock-knock jokes and fast food instead of alcohol-warmed breath and a guilty grimace. But that Patrice died with Maya on the beach that summer day.
Levi drops her fork, appetite completely lost. The sound of it tapping against the rim of her plate jolts Patrice out of her thoughts. Levi stands silently, refusing to even so much as look at her aunt for a second longer, something threatening to burst deep in her chest. She clutches a hand over her heart, wringing her shirt between her fingers.
This is not okay.
She is supposed to be numb. She is supposed to use her anger as a shield, not buckle under the weight of the past. Even so, it proves to be all too heavy as she flees down the narrow hallway with hurried steps.
"Levi," Patrice slurs slowly, pleadingly, as she wobbles after her niece. Levi can hear her bump into the walls as she slams her bedroom door shut. The single-wide trembles with the force of it.
"Levi!" she shouts again, banging on the door. "Please let me in. Let's talk about this."
"You're drunk Patrice! What else is there to talk about?" Levi turns the lock before sitting on the edge of her bed. She digs her nails into her knees, trying and failing to get a grasp on her emotions. "I've said enough to you."
Years of constant begging for her aunt to get help, to get sober, had done nothing but eat away at her sanity. As much as Levi despises admitting it, she needed her to be there for her when everyone else left, but she was too busy getting shit-faced to notice Levi falling apart.
After the death of Maya and her mother's imprisonment just months later, something in her had snapped. Gone was the quiet Levi that liked to wear bright colors. Gone was the Levi that liked to paint, study, and volunteer at the shops downtown. Only an empty, furious shell remained as she gave up on a future at university, pushing away her friends in exchange for cheap distractions like Jarrod, theft, and fights. No matter what she tried to fill it with, the hole in her chest never fully went away.
