Yolk(78)

I led him back to his truck by his hand. It was surprisingly warm and soft. He had a rough, woven blanket in the bed. All I could think while his hands groped my breasts was that I hoped he wouldn’t go for my pants. I’d heard that you could contract tetanus in your cervix if you got fingered by a guy with dirty fingernails. I tried to check his nails, but it was dark, and when he switched from sucking on my neck to kissing my mouth again, I moaned in that way that every girl knows how even if they don’t want to.

It was surreal when he took my hand and guided it to his fly. I was shocked by how suddenly I was touching Holland Hint’s penis. And by how hot his penis felt. It was not unlike petting an unseeing animal wholly separate from him. Like caressing the spine of a small hairless cat. When the spurt of feverish ooze landed on my hand, it glistened as it cooled. I couldn’t tell if I was sick from giddiness or loathing. I knew that this part I wouldn’t tell anybody about. I checked my own nails. They were clean.

I also saw that my ring was missing.

“My ring.” I sat up, heart hammering. It was everything she’d left me, and I’d lost it down some stoner’s pants.

“What’s that?”

“My ring,” I heard myself say, hysteria edging. “We have to find it.” Holland, who was prone to doziness in the sober light of day, was practically comatose. He didn’t stir. Didn’t help me look for it. Didn’t jump up and down to see if it fell out of his pants. Didn’t so much as pull his phone out to help me search his car filled with garbage.

The next morning, he passed right by me as if nothing had happened. And still, two weeks later, I’d silently lost my virginity in that room. I’d watched my own condom wrapper falling to the floor. I was grateful that we’d done it standing up. Even if it hurt. Even as he crashed into me at angles that felt brutal and wrong. I was careful not to touch anything. A week after that Holland Hint never spoke to me again.

It’s how I learned that nothing ever met expectations.

Every time I saw him kissing his willowy, glossy girlfriend in the hallways, pulling her narrow frame toward him as he draped his arm across her shoulders, I felt a deep, digging pain through my midline.

They both had the same straw-colored hair. From the back they looked like siblings.

I thought no one knew. But a few days later, the rumors began. My friends became distant and more boys came calling.



* * *



June kills the engine.

“Every time someone hurts you, you find a way to hurt yourself ten times worse.”

It doesn’t sound untrue even if it feels wounding coming from my sister.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter.” I hear the tears fall dully onto my lap. Onto her borrowed clothes.

She’s right, though. The completeness of Holland Hint’s disregard gave me purpose, direction. It became a brittle carapace of protection. Beneath the veneer I was the thinnest I’d ever been. I didn’t need Holland Hint. I didn’t need Mom, I didn’t even need June. By the time my older sister left for college I was ready. Mom, Holland, my friends, they all served as great practice.

“Can we go?”

She sighs. I keep staring at the white streaks of shoe polish on the van next to us. I hope someone gives them a kidney. Even if I don’t know why anyone would.





chapter 36


I sneak up to Mom’s bedroom. She and Dad are watching TV downstairs, June’s in the shower. When I was little, I’d take off all my clothes—underwear and everything—and get into Mom’s bed pretending I was her. An adult. A beautiful woman. A desirable woman.

Little kids are such creeps.

I slide the mirrored panels of her closet aside. The scent of mothballs overpowers Mom’s perfume. I breathe deep. I love the feeling of the fabric on my face. I dig in the back, beyond her everyday boring work stuff, for the white garment bag. It’s all still there. Unworn. Waiting. I unzip it, pulling the hanger through the hole in the top of the nylon bag, freeing just the blazer’s shoulders. Her suit is tiny. With the prim, shiny, outdated buttons so close together that it gives the impression of doll’s clothes. I hold my cheek against it, the crepe whorls scratchy against my skin.

I return it and search for my favorite. Mom’s hanbok. It’s still as delicate as I remember, but as I pull it closer, I see them: pinholes of light. A series of holes. A greedy moth’s meal clustered under the armscye of the jeogori. An ache branches along my chest at the stolen potential of all these beautiful clothes. Saved with such earnestness only to be ruined.

When the water stops, I return the clothes and slide the closet door back.

I’m watching June as she watches Mom watch TV. This is it. I’m on pins and needles wondering if she’ll tell them everything. The cancer, the surgery, that she won’t be able to give them grandkids.

“See, this is not representative of contemporary Korean entertainment,” June says to me instead. I glance up at the screen. It’s some show where contestants come out singing, while wearing huge, strange masks or cartoon mascot heads.

Our parents are on the couch while we’re lying on the floor at their feet. June’s using the wooden block that Dad keeps trying to convince us promotes circulation as a pillow and my arm’s going numb from supporting my head while lying on my side.