She hadn’t said anything, but he could sense something.
“Breeze, what’s wrong?”
She smiled at him, and his heart broke. Then she began to cry. She broke his heart again with his one glance at that lone tear trickling slowly down her cheek. Then she spoke, passion warring with sorrow in her voice.
“No guy has ever seen me, Namjoon! Nothing has ever happened to me! No kiss! No touch! No ‘I love you’! Until today, no one had ever even held my hand. I’m almost twenty years old, and I’d never held a boy’s hand before! So, all this doesn’t seem real. I think you’re just a daydream I’m having. At any moment, my teacher will announce that class is over, and my friend will tap me on the shoulder and rouse me from this fantasy. And I’ll return to my humdrum life. Still alone. Still aching for love. Still desiring companionship. Still longing for true intimacy.” Another tear slid down her other cheek, a late starter chasing its forerunner.
“My friends have had boyfriends. Some more than one. Some of them have even taken lovers. And left them to find another. Or been left by them, lost until someone else came along to fill the empty space in her bed. One requiring an endless string of meaningless relationships. Her attempts at healing the hole the first one created in her heart. I don’t want that. It’s a cold, hard, sad, unfulfilling existence. I’ve seen the damage it’s done to their souls.
“But I do want a beau! I want to be loved. I want to be cherished. I want to be desired for me. Me! The person no one can see.” She smiled crookedly, brokenly, then. “I guess that’s why no boy has ever seen me. I’m invisible.”
He was silent, staring at her with an earnest expression in his eyes. Then from that place of deep stillness, he spoke three words. She should have seen them coming.
“I see you.”
Then he shocked her.
“And I love what I see.” His lips lifted in that smile that caused the sun to shine as he uttered gratefully, “Thank God you haven’t been kissed, or touched, or loved! I’m so grateful that I was the first to hold your hand, but I am greedy! I want all of your firsts!”
She stood, rooted to that spot, her gaze unflinching as she stared into his eyes. She was now absolutely certain that she was dreaming. No one would ever say such beautiful words to her, especially not her dream man, Joonie. The best friend she’d never met. Until today. It had to be a mirage. If it was, she prayed she’d die of thirst before she woke up to an empty desert.
“You don’t believe me.” He was staring at her, a gentle sadness emanating from his eyes.
“I do! I believe you mean what you’re saying. I just don’t believe you’re real. I must be dreaming.”
“Why?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, trying to fill in the blanks, “Because you don’t deserve to be loved?”
She hung her head. “I’m nothing special.”
“Who told you that?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “What does it matter?”
“Who told you that?” This time it was spoken with more urgency and more vehemence. He was becoming angry. Oh, not at Breeze! But at all the people who had destroyed her self-worth with their cruel, lying words.
His violent tone shocked her into speech. “Boys.”
She thought of the guy who had asked her out as a prank. But again, a similar snippet of wisdom had been sitting on her shoulder, whispering into her ear that he wasn’t to be trusted. So, she had called his bluff. He’d been ticked off that she’d discerned his game. Then he’d gone on to attack her for having standards, for not being an easy mark. She could still hear his hateful words echoing in her heart.
“You’re no one special. You think you’re better than everyone else because you’ve never slept with a guy! But you’re just a prude. You’re just afraid to do it. You know you’ll be bad at it. And the guy will be disgusted with you. So, you’re running away!”
It wasn’t true. She was waiting for a real love. She was waiting for someone who cherished her enough to give her his life in exchange for her own before she gave him her body too. But she was surrounded by people who didn’t seem to understand her heart. She didn’t look down on them because they had made different choices than she had. But her heart did cry for them. Because she had seen so many of her friends get carelessly trampled on by a guy. Hurt and abandoned by someone they thought had loved them enough to be worthy of their first time. Of all their firsts. But almost all those relationships had ended badly. Some not before they’d created a baby who would pay the price for the rest of his or her life. A child torn between a mother and a father who had separated. An innocent life destroyed from the beginning by a love grown cold. Or worse yet, by a lust indulged and then abandoned.
She had known another truth. Any night she chose, she could become like her friends, but they could never again become like her. They could not turn back the clock and regain their first time. She wished they could. It made her so sad. And all the more protective of her own self.
But even though Breeze had known his words were lies, a small chink had been created in her armor where the first arrow had pierced her.
“You’re no one special.”
What if that were true?
That one burning question was the entry point to her heart, suddenly exposed to the elements and all the spiteful words that would be launched at her in the coming years. And when the other burning shafts had left his mouth, they had found that one small space of vulnerability, that tiny self-doubt that shone a light on her missing identity. She didn’t know who she was. She didn’t realize what she’d been created to be. She didn’t know how loved she already was. So, over the coming years, all the insults piled up in that unprotected crevice until the many arrows had created a gaping hole that could no longer be ignored. A cold wind had been passing through it for a long time now, freezing her. Even Namjoon could feel it from where he was standing.
He had to close the distance between them. Why did he now feel farther away from her than he had been before she flew to South Korea? He turned slightly, his hand stretched out towards her. But then he hesitated, suddenly wondering if he was enough. Was he enough to seal up that undefended breach? Did he have the words she needed to hear? How could he reach her?
She misread his hesitancy and lifted sad eyes to his own.
“It’s all right, Joonie.”
It was all she said, but that last word had slipped into his heart. Why did his pet name sound like it had been given to be spoken by her alone?
Then the most natural response simply flowed from his heart. “I love when you call me that. Like we’ve known each other our entire lives. Like you trust me with your heart.”
She looked into his eyes and was shocked to see tears trembling on his eyelashes.