Somewhere Only We Know(48)

I understood. How it was like a drug. Intoxicating and all-encompassing. I’d been floating along in that feeling for the past couple hours.

“You’re also good at a lot of things,” I said, turning to him, my arm draped along the top of my seat.

He shook his head. “Not like you.”

“Jack, I learned to get good at a lot of things,” I said. “Hours and hours of work. This is a job.”

Blast. Church choir was my job?!

Luckily, Jack didn’t seem confused by that. He was too busy concentrating on breathing like he did on the ferry to dodge nausea. “So, I asked you earlier. Does it still bring you joy?”

A chill went through me. I stared into the skyline alongside the water. The buildings reflected brilliant colors from the setting sun. “Yes. And no.” Those three words unpacked something in me that I had been keeping tightly locked away.

“You talked about why you liked singing. Do you still feel that?”

Twenty-four hours ago I had been on a stage, singing. And I remembered feeling the euphoria. But it had been mixed with something else. Weariness. Dread.

“I feel it. But it’s been a little polluted,” I answered carefully. Not sure when everything I was saying could turn into something that no longer made sense for a girl in a church choir. “Something’s changed but I don’t know what it is or what to do about it. So I do nothing.”

“And stay miserable?”

I looked up at him sharply. “I’m not miserable.”

He untied his green shirt from his waist, pulling it on as a cool breeze whipped over us. “You were running from something last night.”

It was true, but I didn’t like it being so obvious. “I was hungry.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said with a smile. “But you straight-up panicked when I tried to get you back to your hotel.”

The moment in the alley came back to me. When Jack was about to call me a car, moments before I passed out. It had freaked him out.

“I didn’t want to say goodbye to you,” I said.

A silence passed between us. Then Jack snorted. “Give me a break.”

I laughed. Always on the same wavelength. “I guess we’re both avoiding things, then?”

“I’m not avoiding anything,” he said defensively.

I raised an eyebrow. “Gap year?”

“Excuse me. I’m using this year to gain real-life experiences before I become a coddled college kid.”

“Give me a break,” I said, pushing him.

A family nearby looked over at us and I pulled the brim of my hat down.

Jack adjusted his position so that he was blocking me. Phew.

“Actually. I don’t think I’m going to college,” he said.

I startled. “Oh,” I said, not sure how to respond. “Why not?”

“I don’t think there’s any point,” he said, exhaling, as if he’d been holding in this information forever.

As a K-pop star who was barely getting a high school education, I couldn’t really say anything. But something nagged at me, regardless. “You’re too smart to think that.”

He made a face. “Only college students are smart, then?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “But I think that saying there’s no point to going to college is one of those overly simplistic statements that people say.”

“Wow,” he said, straightening up and visibly annoyed. “Maybe I’m one of those simpletons.”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” The friction between us was not what I was hoping for on this sunset boat ride. I sighed and decided to start over. “Why do you think there’s no point?”

He was still tense, his hands tightly folded in his lap. “College is archaic. It’s no longer relevant to getting what you want in life. Look at people like—”

“Please don’t say Steve Jobs, ghost of Steve Jobs,” I said with a smile.

Despite being rudely interrupted, he grinned and went on. “Yeah, Steve Jobs. But also like, a billion other people out there. We’re all stuck in this mind-set of what’s normal and expected. And it’s kind of … unevolved.”

“Okay. But that comes from a place of luxury, you realize?” For so many people, college was an unachievable dream. For K-pop stars, college meant a potential end to your career, your relevance.

He sighed. “Of course this is coming from a place of luxury. I fully understand that. But part of this privilege is having other options? And I’d rather explore those. Life is short, Fern. Why waste time on something that’s not a sure thing?”

I stared out into the water, reflecting the fiery red sky now. The sun was low, dipping below the horizon, hazy from the smog but still gorgeous. Life was short; he was right. I felt like we were somehow having the same argument all day and I wasn’t sure how to break out of it.

“Nothing’s a sure thing, Jack.”

I thought being a K-pop star, the best K-pop star, meant something. I don’t know. Fulfillment, happiness. But not only was the goalpost always moving, you found out that the stuff that made up your dreams could be dark, hard, and lonely. And if you complained, if you stopped, it was like you were quitting. And I wasn’t a quitter. My family hadn’t spent four years FaceTiming me on their birthdays and New Year’s so that I could give up.