The Red Palace

by June Hur

I dislike being around people for too long. But when I am with you … I never feel the need to be someone I am not.”

My voice wavered, and at the thought of losing him, my voice cracked. “Please, just stay alive. Don’t let go of me.”

The only consolation I could find was in imagining their life to come. Perhaps Inyeong would open her eyes to find herself a child once more, resting in her mother’s arms—a mother with a warm, smiling face, cooing down at her. They would live life, grow old together, and this time—please, just this once—they would choose a different path.

He did manage to send me a letter, consisting of three barely legible words: Wait for me.

“I decided on that day, just that day, I would be your daughter for the last time.”

Some dreams, I’d learned, were meant to fade away. And to let go of them didn’t mean to let go of myself, but to release the life I’d imagined I wanted.

When Eojin chuckled over something, my chest ached and my eyes grew damp.

“The first time I met you, I don’t think I quite knew,” he said softly, looking back at me, “what a surprise you would become to me.”

And that was my greatest nightmare—that Eojin would stay and find out that I was not enough.

“We endured so much together. You didn’t let go of me then. Don’t let go of me now.”

“I won’t let you go, no matter what.”

it occurred to me that love wasn’t all that I’d feared it to be. I had imagined that it was a wildfire that incinerated everything in its path. Instead, it felt as ordinary and extraordinary as waking up to a new day.

“There will only ever be you. I promise, Hyeon-ah.”