Breeze pulled her notebook out of her backpack while she waited for the train. She had convinced Joonie to stay with his family tonight as she headed to the train station. And she had promised to return in three days.
She opened her journal to the page Joonie had begun to read earlier. He’d read only the first three words after her very traditional and always identical greeting of “Dear Joonie.” Now she read not only what Namjoon had noticed but also the remainder of the letter, the part that had scarred her heart to write. The part she was afraid he would read. The part she knew would cause him to leave her.
“Am I dying? Am I becoming someone else? Someone I don’t want to be? Or am I moving closer to my ideal? What is real? Who is the authentic me? The one no one sees.
“I’ve loved you for so long, Joonie. But I truly believe that if you met the real me, I would not live up to your expectations. I would fail to reach the heights of my persona, that part of myself that I show the world: the overachiever, the people pleaser, the sweetheart who is on 24/7. In my head I’m not always that person. Around my family I am often not that person. They see the worst of me, though I wish to show them only the best of me. If you got to know the real me, you would see the worst too, for at some point I would drop my guard, and then you would flee from me. My family has to endure me, but you would not be bound by any such duty.
“I am not as I would like to be. I disappoint myself daily. I want to be the person my friends see, not the one who yells at my parents or gets irritated with my little brother. I want to be the diligent laborer my boss expects me to be. I want to be the star student my teachers believe I am. I want to be the devoted daughter my parents dream of and the protective, always adoring, older sister my brother deserves. A true Noona. But it’s exhausting, Joonie, to shine that brightly all the time. That luster is a lie. The light is coming from behind all the cracks in my soul. When I fracture again, others see the light, but it’s not what it seems. And when it all becomes too much, I slip the mask on again, and the light is blocked, and darkness descends through my countenance and my actions. And I have disappointed myself again. And them too. And someday, should I ever meet you, the inevitable time will come when you will see the real me. And then what? Then you’ll despise me too, Joonie.
“I’m not beautiful. It’s no secret. You won’t find my form beautiful. I meet no standards of Asian beauty. I’m too tall. My frame is too large. I’ve eaten too many calories and not run enough miles. I wear glasses, even my eyes having failed to meet the ideal. I’ve tried hard to shed the extra weight I carry. I’ve even succeeded at dropping half of it, but I know that’s not enough. A gorgeous guy like you wants a model of perfection, a slender, sexy beauty to escort out into public. She’s who you deserve, Joonie. No one wants a rounded girl with too many curves.”
“My older friend tells me that’s a lie. She insists that there are plenty of real men who like girls with curves, but I don’t see it. Everything around me belies her words. All the swimsuit models are stunningly skinny. Even their belly buttons are perfect. Of course, my friend would tell me they are all airbrushed. Perhaps she’s right. Joonie, are you airbrushed too? I feel the need to be airbrushed myself. But I feel like the brush would not love me, its air would not caress away my faults as it does others’.
“All the heroines in the Asian dramas I watch are skinny girls with perfect noses and wide, dark eyes. They have long, slender limbs, and when the hero has to carry them home, he doesn’t hurt his back; though, he must walk blocks to rescue his damsel-in-distress. I fear I’d put your back out of joint, Joonie, were you to carry me anywhere at all.
“The point is: I’m not good enough. I’ve always known it. Underneath all my efforts, I’ve always known that I’m a failure. Though, God knows, I’ve tried. I’ve worked so hard to meet the mark, to be the paragon of perfection the world expects. Yet I find I fail every time. And I’m becoming more exhausted with every effort. What’s the point, Joonie?”
Tears filled her eyes. She was tempted to rip these pages from her journal so that Joonie could never see them. She’d shred them into a million pieces and let the wind carry them into the Han River.
Or perhaps she should let him read them. As soon as possible. Then this fantasy would come to a quick end, and she could return to her mundane life. Her rightful life. She didn’t belong with a prince. Eventually, he would see that. Whatever luster she held for him would begin to tarnish. And then her heart would break into a billion pieces. She’d never be able to find all the shards.
Maybe she wouldn’t return on Wednesday.
Hot tears were pouring down her cheeks now as she stood waiting for the train. Her greatest fears were written on these two pieces of paper. Her heaviest criticisms of herself displayed for anyone to see should they happen to find this book. Suddenly, she ruthlessly tore the two pages from the journal and walked towards a trash can. She tossed them into it before climbing on to the train.
—
Namjoon hid in the background, watching her. Something had made him follow her. He had been about to leave when he’d seen her pull the journal from her bag. He became concerned as he watched her reading it. Then, horrified, as he saw tears falling from her eyes. Violently, she ripped two pages from the journal and stuffed them into a trashcan before climbing onto the train. Instinctively, he knew they were the pages he had been tempted to read. He waited until the train departed before heading to the trashcan where he retrieved the two pages right before someone tossed half of an iced coffee into the can.