Until it Hurts

This is a book that does not know if it is true.
It is stitched together from memory, longing, and invention-
a blend of fiction and reality, though reality here is slippery,
a mirror fogged by breath.

Irene exists. Seulgi exists.
But the Irene here is not the Irene you know,
and the Seulgi here may not be the Seulgi she believes herself to be.
Between them lies a love that might have happened,
that could have happened,
that perhaps is still happening somewhere else.

So I ask you: whose reality is this?
The girl who remembers?
The girl who imagines?
The writer who cannot separate one from the other?
Or yours-
the reader who will carry them forward in your own heart?

This story is theirs.
This story is mine.
This story, once you begin, becomes yours too.