Highway with Green Apples

by Bae Suah

I am one week away from my twenty-fifth birthday. I hate being that age. That age is neither as fresh and full of life as fifteen years nor as jaded as the afternoon of thirty-five years. I never know what the next day will bring, so I am always uneasy.

I am a twenty-five year-old who goes to bed every night wondering what I will do the next day. By now, all the other women I know who went to the same all-girls high school as me are at their most self-assured, having married or living as career women in the big city, but I am as unsure of myself as I was at fifteen.

sigh

You don’t know, do you? How much I love you. My love for you will never change, even after an ocean of time has passed.

No matter how far you go, like the wind, I’ll be with you.

I take a bite out of the last of the green apples rolling around in the backseat. The sour, astringent taste fills me like fog. I look over at the side of his face and think, Even if we break up, you won’t be forgotten.

“I met someone. I think I’m in love. She’s tiny and cute. You would like her. I told her all about you. She’s…” Here, he lights a cigarette. I hear the all-too-familiar sound of his lighter over the phone. The blue-green flame. “She really puts me at ease. It’s different than when I’m with you. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I had a problem with you. Not at all. It’s just that, with ...

“I wish you were a different type of girl,” he continues. “The type who cries and refuses to let go when a guy breaks up with her. The type who says, ‘How dare you see another woman, I won’t stand for it.’ If you were that type, you would never have gotten this call from me. But, we were good in the beginning! You said so yourself.” Those words—You said so yourself—sound so oddly like begging that I find myself saying yes despite myself. He forgot it was my birthday. I don’t feel like reminding him, either.

this is sad

“You told me from the start,” he says. “That you were only seeing me because you were depressed. That we would break up eventually. Once I met a girl I really liked.” “Yes, I did.” “You said you would turn into a good girl, a virtuous one, and leave me for good.” “Yeah, so don’t worry about me,” I tell him. “You have nothing to worry about. I’m not going to run off and become a nun or start drinking or anything.”

Because life has not turned out the way I wanted it to. Because that’s how it always is—as a child, you get no love from your parents, and at school, you get bad grades and never catch anyone’s eye. And after you’re all grown up, you keep peeking in the door of the gynecology clinic, and then wait for an hour, and another hour, at the café where a man has promised to meet you, gulping down several cups of weak coffee before leaving alone in the dark. Then, to top it off, the cat that crosses your path one day on a highway with green apples turns out to be a black cat.

I was the kind of girl who felt defeated at the sight of pretty girls walking around confidently. I never trust anyone who tells me I’m pretty or says they like me.

The sound of the nail clippers must have annoyed my brother, because he stuck his head out the door and yelled at me to be quiet. My mother, who felt nothing for my father, discovered the glass I’d broken while doing the dishes and scolded me from inside the kitchen, as if she’d finally found the proper outlet for her frustration. Crickets chirped in the corner of the yard. I asked myself over and over, When will I ever get out of here?

yikes this hit home

If I’d been cute, smart, or charming like Eun-gyeong, maybe people would’ve liked me more.

Dear Eun-gyeong, I am leaving. I have fallen in love, and I don’t want to live at home anymore. I paused for a moment and stared blankly at the words fallen in love. It wasn’t true. I wasn’t in love with anyone. That in and of itself made me sad.

The mere thought of loving someone who wasn’t one of my family members made me so happy I felt like I could fly.

“Who do you think you are? Is it too much to ask for a cup of coffee? You’re a woman, aren’t you? What do you think you’ll do once you’re married? I shouldn’t have to call for you all day long just to get a glass of water! You’re pretty stuck-up for someone with grades like yours.” My father said to my mother, “What’s wrong with her? She used to be a good girl. It’s your fault she turned out that way. All she does is sulk.” My mother’s face turned deathly pale. I witnessed all of this through the wide-open door of my parents’ room. “She takes after her aunt,” my mother said. “You know as well as I do how stubborn and empty-headed that younger sister of yours is. Besides, it’s not like I had her alone. Why do you blame everything on me?”

dude dysfunctional family at it's finest. toxic Asian household.

It seemed I would never meet a man who would be sweet to me, a man who would hold my hand as we crossed a raging river, a man who would come to mind whenever I got sick.

I felt certain that just because practically every single person found someone to marry did not mean that they’d found a love as gentle as a spring breeze or that shook them up like a midsummer storm.

“Everything’s different now that everyone’s grown up. In the old days, all the cousins would get together every holiday to take a family portrait. Remember that shabby old photo studio on the edge of town? We used to huff and puff our way up three flights of stairs and stand in front of a dusty black velvet curtain, trying to catch our breath. Back when Grandma and Grandpa were alive.”

A cousin isn’t something solid. Neither is family.

“It doesn’t make you carsick?” he asked. “It’s just a sketch,” I said. “And anyway, it’s not me drawing but a stranger inside of me who compels me to draw. When that happens, I have no choice but to draw, even while driving.” “Why do you talk like that?” He was always criticizing me for not sounding more like his mother or older sister. “Why can’t you just say, ‘I feel like drawing, so I have to draw.’ I think you like it when I can’t understand you.”

wtf is wrong with this dude

He once admitted that he’d felt disappointed to discover that I didn’t know how to make pickled radishes or grilled fish, and wouldn’t sweetly knot his neckties for him like I did when I was working. I’d told him I wasn’t looking for a man who would be my rock in life. That was another shock to him.

“If you like painting that much, shouldn’t you be a painter instead of working in a department store? If you don’t want to live an ordinary life, then why are you dating a good-for-nothing like me, instead of finishing college and meeting someone in the same league as you?”

“Daddy, why do you drink so much?” He says, “I drink because life is hard. No one understands my pain. Don’t be like your mother when you grow up.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” “Yes, she’s a year older than me. She goes to modeling school.” “Why didn’t she come tonight?” “She works the night shift at a convenience store.” “How long have you been dating?” “Around six months.” “What kind of things do you fight about?” “Hmm. I guess we fight about things like showing up late for dates, her borrowing my credit card and buying a suit from Anne Klein, or me staying out all night drinking with another girl. Nothing serious.”