“I want to show you something.” Tae was speaking softly, but not that quietly.
Why did it sound like he was under water? She felt far away from him. Like the sensation of drowning that had overcome her the day she learned her parents had died. The whole world had fled from her that day. Everyone, Julieta included, had taken flight so far from Tia in that one horrifying moment that she had never truly connected with anyone again.
Or perhaps it was Tia who had flown far away from everyone else. Wrapping herself in freezing, anesthetizing insulation to protect her heart from any more pain. Until she had met Tae. Somehow, he had broken through that frozen fog in a blaze of fiery light. But then he, too, had disappeared. And this time the abandonment had been purposeful. Her parents hadn’t chosen to disappear. But Tae had resolved to leave her lonely. He had made a firm choice to forget her. But she had been unable to banish him from her thoughts. He had burned a hole through her frozen heart. Emblazoned his name and face upon her memory. Now she wasn’t sure she had enough courage left to face possible rejection once more.
She was alone. She had been for a very long time. She didn’t dare try to rectify that situation again. Once, she had tried to reach Julieta, but her sister had also fallen through the ice and had succumbed completely to the cold, remaining frozen for a decade. It seemed that perhaps Jin was beginning to thaw the ice around her sister’s heart, but it was a slow process; Tia and Julieta still hadn’t made a true heart-to-heart connection.
Why did facing Tae again seem so akin to the pain she’d experienced when she’d lost her parents? No one had died. No calamity had struck. No disaster was overtaking her life. So why was Tae across an ocean now? Especially since she had come so far to see him again.
Perhaps she really had drowned. Maybe even now she was floating in those crystal waters, her eyes open, but her life having also left her. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t seem to see anything but her memories. Maybe that was the reason she couldn’t feel anything but her broken heart. Perhaps that was why Tae sounded so unreachable.
Tae glanced at her as he pulled his phone from his pocket. Her eyes held a faraway look in them, like Jungkook’s thousand-yard stare. What was she looking at? He followed her line of sight, but he found nothing that required such intense focus.
“What are you looking at?”
“Another world,” she whispered. “One I have been barred from for a long time.”
What on earth was she talking about? She was every bit as strange as Tae himself was! He grinned down at her. He loved that about her!
Just then she glanced up at him. His boxy smile shocked her. Why was he grinning down at her? And why did her heart start racing in response to those shiny, white teeth unveiling themselves in all their brilliant glory?
He held his phone out to her. She looked down at it. And another shock filled her eyes. She saw herself gazing up at Tae with stars in her eyes. This was one of the pictures from the Eiffel Tower!
She stared at the photograph – that priceless photograph – for several moments as she wondered why Tae was showing it to her. After waiting patiently for a full minute for her to respond, Tae finally spoke.
“I never forgot you, Woong. Tia, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to spare you further pain.”
Further pain? Did he know what she had endured? She glanced up at him as her eyes filled with tears.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. Right before she walked briskly away from him, ignoring the little dog that yapped at her heels.
