Page 40

Now

Seth woke up to the smell of fresh kimchi fried rice, egg and soup. It turned out that Lina is a really good cook.

Jae was already seated at the table, when Seth stirred on the futon.

“Morning sleepy head. You snore loud as hell, by the way. Pretty sure the whole complex could hear you,” Jae professed, with a mouthful of kimchi fried rice.

A groan escaped Seth as he ran his fingers through his haggard hair.

“What time is it?”

“About 10am.”

Seth checked his phone, and saw that there were about 5 missed calls from his parents. He sighed, sending his Dad a brief text to let them know he was coming home that afternoon.

As he ate breakfast with Lina and Jae, watching their silly banter, Seth couldn’t help but crave the type of sibling-ship they have.

Maybe if he had a brother or sister, he wouldn’t have handled his parents’ situation the way he did.

He would’ve had a built-in best friend, someone he could always protect and lean on.

They played on Jae’s console for a couple more hours, until Seth decided it was time to head on home. On the train back, he rehearsed how he would walk in the door. Pictured what his parents might say.

Were they just meant to have a happy reunion, say their apologies and move on?

Seth doubted he could do that, but he’d like to take the right path toward that ending.

After all, he no longer saw any point in holding onto his anger. It did not fuel him, but only exhausted him.

Only pulled him away from what he wanted most: his happy ending.

And to learn how to love correctly. To love Nina correctly.

It took him an hour and a half in total to get home. When he went to knock on the front door, it opened, and he was greeted immediately with the sight of his parents. They stood at the threshold, taking in Seth’s appearance.

He could see their desire to embrace him, to take him in their arms, but they stood frozen in place.

Waiting for him to make the first move.

Slowly, he stepped through the door, and shimmied out of his shoes. In any other situation, he’d almost burst into laughter at how closely they were watching his every movement.

But there was something almost comforting in the way their eyes followed him as he moved past them, down the hallway and into the living room. It’s the most he’s ever felt seen by them.

As he reached their living room space, he leant his back against the couch, crossing his arms. Seth’s parents stopped, just a metre or so from him.

The air around them was imbued with a heavy silence, an almost tangible one that seemed to envelop Seth in an uncomfortable embrace.

Finally, it was his Mum who spoke first.

“Seth, darling. My baby boy. There-there is nothing we can say, to make up for the past. We fucked up, we really did. We were selfish, we were toxic, and didn’t even stop to think who we were hurting. And I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

Her voice broke on the last sorry, and that’s when Seth glanced up. His Mum was inching forward, close to Seth, her eyes shiny with fresh tears. The sight of her, so raw and stripped bare with her emotions, brought tears to Seth’s own eyes. He glanced away, swallowing hard.

“I’m your son ,” he whispered, and he despised the way the word son caught on his throat, like a thread that’d gotten stuck, “You should’ve cared.”

Something tickled his cheek, and he reached upward to brush it away. His tears, which now paved a path of it’s down, staining his face.

“We did care, Seth. We do care, and we will always care,” it was his Dad now, stepping forward, so that now both his parents surrounded him.

Encasing him in this bubble that he craved years ago.

“We love you more than you could ever believe. But it is 100% our fault. Your Dad and I, our relationship isn’t perfect.

And yes, we reached our lowest of lows years ago.

And yes, for a time, we did fall out of love.

But we fell in love again, we fell in love with the good, with the bad, and realised that we were willing to work through it together.

I’m sorry that our love scared you. But I hope that us getting back together can teach you that … that….”

“Love can heal. Love was what healed us, Seth, and I hope you see that. When your Mum and I were at our ugliest, love brought us back together. And I hope that it can heal you too.”

Love can heal.

His throat refused to move, to form words. He wanted to forgive his parents. Wanted the love that he had for them, as a son who wanted their love more than anything, to heal him. No matter how long it took.

He let himself lift his gaze, and meet his Mum’s eyes. Her face was damp now, stricken with her tears, but they held onto his stare. Held it, and didn’t let go.

She saw this one small action as an opening. Stepping forward, she gently took one of Seth’s hands into her own.

“I’m sorry we weren’t the greatest parents back then, and that’s a price we’ll always have to pay. Those years we’ll never get back, and we’ll forever be tormented by it. But no matter how old you are, you’ll always be our baby. If you let us…I hope we can…”

“We want to be in your life, properly son. We want to know you, as we should’ve.”

Seth’s chest heaved, a sob threatening to break through.

Love can heal.

It wouldn’t be an easy journey, and it wouldn’t happen overnight. He understood that there’ll still be days, many of them, where he would lay in his hatred for his parents, hatred he’d become so accustomed to. But he’ll let himself embrace their love, now.

He was done running.

“We can start by making sure you ask me if you need to go through my stuff,” Seth whispered, with a small chuckle.

A strangled laugh left his Mums mouth, one that mingled with her sobs. She fell forward, pulling Seth into her arms, squeezing him with an intensity that he hadn’t felt in a while. His Dad joined, embracing them with his large arms, as if holding up a fort and trying to keep it from falling.

This time, Seth would help too.

They ate lunch together, the three of them, a proper one that involved genuine conversation. Not once did his parents let Seth stop speaking. They asked him countless questions, about his capstone project, about Jae. About his jogging, and about his favourite video games.

Then, his Mum addressed what’d been weighing on them.

“What about this girl, if you don’t mind me asking, Seth?” she asked, her fingers stroking the top of his hand.

Just the thought of her name made Seth’s throat close up. He shook his head. He wasn’t ready to talk about Nina yet, at least, not before he figured out his next steps with her.

“One word of advice son? If she’s the best thing you’ve ever known, don’t make my mistake. Hold onto her. Fight for her. Do everything you can to show her you love her. And if she still doesn’t reciprocate, if it doesn’t work out, at least you know you’d tried.”

His parents exchanged a glance, carrying a weight that Seth only now understood.

The look of love, with all it’s ugly, with all the bad. The look of love, with the sun that promised to always rise after the night. A love that had been dragged through glass, but with wounds that were mended with each other.

When Seth went to his room after lunch, he saw that the mess was still there. The strewn yearbooks, and his old school bag.

It seemed his Dad didn’t want to disturb it anymore, after Seth’s outburst. He gathered the fallen yearbooks, glancing at the years as he piled it atop each other.

2013. The year she fell in love.

2014. The year they formed a friendship.

2017. The year he realised he liked her back.

He placed it on top of his study table, promising to shelve it somewhere better. Somewhere he can be reminded that at one point of time, Nina’s heart was his. Even if it wasn’t anymore.

As he picked up his old school bag, a flash of white caught his eye. It’d flown out of the open zipper.

An envelope.

Wait…

Tossing the bag aside, he carefully picked up the parchment. The years fell away as he felt it between his fingers. Slowly, he unfolded it.

And there, at the top of the paper, his eyes traced the lines of his name, his heart beating furiously with each passing second.

Dear Seth…

And suddenly, he was momentarily back in his 14-year-old body, hovering over the trash can after science, reaching forward toward the paper that lay on top, only slightly crumpled. There, in a neat script that he could never be capable of, was his name.

The letter that Nina had written to him, and intended to pass onto him in class one day. Discarded. Maybe he shouldn’t have grabbed it, but 14-year-old him was much too curious to read what another wrote about him.

Maybe she’d written him in a light that he failed to see.

Foolishly, he’d forgotten that the letter got pushed to the bottom of his bag, stampeded by his textbooks and notebooks. Romantics would claim it to be fate that the letter stayed hidden there, all these years.

Certainly, it must be fate. All of it.

Seth allowed the words to wash over him. He could hear Nina’s voice emanate from the pages, wrapping around him.

He drank in the love she had for him, a love that was now immortalised through her scribbled handwriting. Once he reached the end, he wiped away the tears that’d built up, and forced himself not to cry. He couldn’t stain this letter, this physical affirmation of her love for him, with his tears.

It wasn’t right to just read it.

Seized with purpose, Seth scrambled toward his study desk drawer, and pulled out an old notebook, along with some pens he’d hardly used in years. Ripping out two lone pages, he sat down, and prayed that this time, words don’t fail him.

Please.

For the first time, he fought against the desire to run. To just revert to what he’s comfortable with.

No .

If there is one thing he was certain about, it was his love for Nina.

And so, after all these years, he finally penned a response.