Highway with Green Apples

by Bae Suah

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.

Even if we break up, you won’t be forgotten.

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.

I asked myself over and over, When will I ever get out of here?

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.

but no matter how loudly you yell, you cannot stop me from leaving.

“I don’t think about the future. You said you don’t, either. All I think about is death.”