Page 19

I stare out the window as we pass through a cluster of neighborhoods and force my mind elsewhere. It’s been two years, and I still have troublenotthinking about him.

Eli was such a part of my life for so long that it’s still surreal to believe he’s gone.

My right hand subconsciously drifts to my left wrist and adjusts the bangle bracelets I wore on purpose today.

They’ve become a staple since the night in the alley. The night I wasmarked.

The thick black Baekho Pa symbol is still as deeply etched onto the inside of my wrist as ever.

I’ve tried everything.

Soaps. Ointments. Bleaching creams. Fading gels. Spot-correcting treatments that burned like acid. I’ve rubbed my skin so raw it almost has a permanent red tint to it that’s suffused with my natural medium brown complexion.

I even visited a local calligrapher—an old man who blinked at me like I was crazy when I showed him the mark and asked him how to remove it. He said the muk was unfamiliar, not like the traditional kind. He claimed he’d never seen anything like the one I was marked with.

Then there was the old woman in the local marketplace who sold herbal balms and healing salves. She gave me something that smelled like fermented mint and told me to apply it twice a day with prayer.

It only made my skin more tender. More swollen and irritated.

The mark remained.

So now I just hide it behind a stack of bangles and hope no one notices it.

Every day it’s still on me feels like a countdown. As if I’m close to the kind of trouble Jin seemed to believe I couldn’t outrun.

“Moni baby, what’s that place there?” my mom asks, pointing at the window.

I blink out of my thoughts and look up. She’s pointing at a stretch of ancient towers in the distance.

“That’s the Haedong Yonggungsa Temple,” I explain. “It’s one of South Korea’s famous Buddhist temples.”

“Ohhhh,” she says, leaning even closer to the window. “It’s beautiful. Look at all those colors. We have to go there!”

I smile despite the dread coiling in my stomach.

She hasn’t noticed the way my voice wavers or how my smile fades. I’ve been staring distractedly out the window, lost in thought.

“Look at those little market stands!” she gasps next, tapping my arm. “We’re hitting those up too, you hear me? You know I love me a good sale!”

“We’ll definitely get plenty of shopping in,” I say softly, and I mean it.

I really do.

As we pull up outside my apartment building, I lean forward and thank the cab driver in Hangugeo.

Mom carries her carry-on bag while I take her larger suitcase, and we make our way toward the front gate.

“This is your place, baby?” she asks with pride. “You’re right in the city! I like that.”

I smile faintly. “It does the job.”

But as we step through the gate and into the building, the calm I’ve been putting on for her feels like it’s slipping.

My mother’s still chatting beside me, animated and blissfully unaware.

She’s got zero clue about anything I’m feeling. She doesn’t understand the deep grief I still feel, and she would never understand the intense dread and anxiety about the mark on the inside of my wrist.

I adjust the bangles again, letting the metal rings clink against each other.