CALL ME • MYUNG JAEHYUN - Chapter 11: Chapter 11

EUNHYE
The street air outside the hospital was frigid compared to what I'd remembered.
Or perhaps... I hadn't been breathing this kind of air in a long while.
I folded the hospital release papers deeper inside my bag, and stepped onto the street where the pale sun swept over my skin.
They told me that I'd be needing more treatment. Soon enough.
They told me that I needed to rest.
But all I wanted was to return to school.
To be normal-for a little bit.
I strode like a ghost through morning rush.
My glasses crept a bit further down my nose as I entered the schoolyard.
No one really noticed me.
But I wasn't looking for "everyone."
I was searching for someone.
Jaehyun.
I saw him over by the lockers, clustered with a handful of classmates.
Laughing.
Busy.
Fine.
I edged forward one slow step, and then another.
My heart was racing, not due to fear, but because of what the doctor said.
Due to the way my head hurt that morning once again.
But most of all-because of his message.
| So that's why you didn't come here huh.
I simply wanted to clarify.
To let him know that I wanted to come.
To know about what he meant.
To know if he still... cared.
"Jaehyun..."
He looked at me.
Then back at the person beside him.
"Oh-yeah, I'll assist you with that project later," he said, voice light.
I stood there uncomfortably.
Trying again.
"Jaehyun, can we speak?"
He turned to me, eyes flat. "I'm busy at the moment."
And left.
Just like that.
As if I didn't exist.
My fingers clenched into fists beside me.
Something snapped in my chest.
I walked to class in silence.
The whispers came back.
Faint murmurs I couldn't quite decipher.
Then I heard it.
"Isn't she the girl Jaehyun used to have a crush on?"
"Apparently, she's the one who caused his best friend's death."
"No surprise he's avoiding her."
I came to a standstill in the hallway.
A piercing ringing in my ears.
My vision blurred.
He knows.
He knows.
And he didn't even ask me.
Didn't give me an opportunity.
I couldn't catch my breath.
My legs shook under me, but I didn't stop walking.
In class, I glared at my desk, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Later that day, as I was taking my stuff out of the locker,
a small envelope fell from within.
I opened it with shaking hands.
No sender.
No signature.
Just one photograph.
Of him.
Jaehyun.
And him.
His best friend.
And at the back-scribbled in hasty, black ink:
"You were the reason he died."
I dropped the photograph.
Heart shattering.
Breath lost.
Everything
-fell
apart.
In that moment-
I knew what real loneliness tasted like.
Not the kind that results from solitude...
But the kind that occurs
when the one person who had made you feel less alone-
leaves.
The rooftop was colder than it ever had been before.
Perhaps because it wasn't the same.
No longer.
I stood there again-by the edge, where I always felt I could catch my breath.
Where I could be myself, even if the world were determined to crush me.
But now, there in the increasing quietness, it felt like the air had grown denser, chocking me under the burden of all that I had been hiding.
Jaehyun emerged, footsteps heavy.
I didn't turn initially.
Perhaps I had been waiting for him to utter something.
To ask.
But no, and instead, he spoke as though the words had been seared within him for days.
"So," his tone was colder than I had recalled.
"So this is how it's gonna be?"
I couldn't meet his eyes.
Not yet.
Not when I could sense the pain in his voice, hear the heaviness of his incredulity.
"You didn't come because... you're ashamed of me, right?"
I clenched my eyes shut, as if shutting them would prevent the world from shattering.
I sucked in a shallow breath, grounding myself.
But my body trembled in spite of it.
"No... Jaehyun, please, listen."
I spun around to face him, and as soon as I did, I could see the anger, the pain.
The same pain that had been behind his eyes for days.
"You're wrong..." I began, my voice softer than I'd have liked.
"Wrong?" He took a step closer, his eyes growing harder. "You're the reason he's dead. And you can't even tell me that? You can't even admit it?"
The accusation burned.
But I swallowed it back.
I needed to explain.
I needed to let him know that I didn't stay away from him out of shame.
Not out of him.
But out of me.
"I... I never meant for any of it to happen," I whispered, voice trembling. "I didn't want him to die. I didn't want any of this. I didn't want you to know this way. But if I told you the truth-if you knew what was really going on with me..."
I let it hang there, my chest constricting.
I couldn't say it.
Couldn't say the truth about what was really wrong with me.
The truth that I was trying this hard just to survive.
"I couldn't take the chance, Jaehyun. I couldn't risk you finding out that. that I am not who you believe I am."
But I was about to go on, about to tell him why I couldn't tell him, why I was avoiding him-he interrupted me.
"True," he murmured, now shaking with a voice that was almost bitter. "Not because of me, was it? You could not confront me. You did not want to give me the truth, because you knew what it would do to me."
I shook my head, attempting to reach out to him, but he took a step back from me, shoving me away with the power of his words.
"Tell me, Eunhye-tell me what happened to him. Tell me why you didn't pick up the phone that day."
The question stung deeper than anything I had ever heard.
His eyes were accusatory.
I couldn't handle it.
"I couldn't save him, Jaehyun," I whispered, my chest creaking. "I couldn't save him, and I couldn't save myself. I'm struggling so hard to live, but... I don't want to hurt you too."
But he wasn't listening.
He wasn't hearing me.
Not really.
"Then why didn't you just tell me?" His voice broke on the last word. "Why didn't you let me in, Eunhye? Why didn't you trust me?"
I wanted to scream.
To tell him that I was scared-scared of him finding out the truth, scared of losing him.
But the words were trapped in my throat.
Because I knew in my heart, that if I told him, it would destroy him.
I had already hurt him enough.
Instead, I simply stared at him.
A tear rolled down my cheek-unwanted, uninvited.
"Because I didn't want you to see me like this, Jaehyun. I didn't want you to know what's really going on with me. What if I told you everything? What if you couldn't look at me the same way again?"
His face softened for a moment, but then hardened back.
"You should have trusted me," he said softly. "But you just went away instead. You kept running from me. And I..." He caught himself. "I thought I could understand, but now... I don't even know who you are anymore."
I took a step back, the impact of his words crashing down on me.
I had shattered him.
And there was nothing to put it back together.
"I never wanted to hurt you," I whispered, shattered.
"I know," he said quietly, his voice far away now. "But you did."
And with that, he turned, moving away from me.
Like that.
And I was standing there, on the rooftop where it all started.
Waiting for it to be over.
The home walk seemed interminable.
As if time itself was expanding, not moving forward-won't let me off that rooftop, his voice, his eyes.
Each step weighed heavily, as if it were someone else's.
Someone who should not exist here anymore.
My bag hung loosely on my shoulder, my hands trembling, though not from the cold.
I stepped into the street when the light was red.
I wasn't thinking.
Wasn't seeing.
The horn blasting woke me up.
A car skidded to a halt inches away from me.
The driver shut his door aggressively and stormed out.
"Are you crazy?! Do you want to die or something?" he screamed, voice trembling with incredulity.
I stared at him.
Straight into his angry eyes.
And for an instant, the world went mute around me.
Do I want to die?
But within-within I heard the question ring louder than his shout.
Do I want to die?
Or am I not supposed to live?
Because nothing I ever did felt right.
Because every soul I loved just faded away.
Because I was always the one left behind.
I apologized and bowed.
The driver clicked at me and returned to his car.
And I walked once more.
The streets smeared together under the flickering city lights.
I could not feel my fingers.
When I got home and shut the door on the world, the silence enveloped me like a coffin.
I let fall my bag.
I didn't bother to change.
I simply slumped against the wall and sat on the hard floor, knees to chest.
Then it struck me.
That memory.
That one that I always sought to keep hidden.
The one that I tried to claim didn't influence me.
It was raining outside too.
I was younger.
We were going on a vacation-mom, dad, and my little brother.
I recall their laughter in the car, how my dad sang some old song.
I had slept for only a second.
Just one second.
And when I woke up-
Screams.
Twisted metal.
Shattering glass.
Upside-down sky.
And then-silence.
I had crawled out of the wreckage.
My leg broken.
My arms bruised and bleeding.
But I was alive.
Everyone else wasn't.
They found me the next morning, unconscious, holding my brother's ripped hoodie to my chest.
"She's the only one alive."
That sentence tormented me.
Why me?
Why just me?
Why was I the one cursed to wake up each morning to a world without them?
The current faded once more into the past.
I wept into my hands-no, bawled.
Because all of a sudden I wasn't twenty anymore.
I was twelve.
Alone in a hospital bed.
Awakening to the gentle face of a stranger who informed me my family hadn't survived.
I hate that memory.
But most of all, I hate the girl who lived on.
I hate me.
Why did I always survive?
Why do I still live when all I appear to do is cause pain to those that I come across?
Why did I have Jaehyun look at me in that manner?
Why did I even get involved with him knowing I was going to leave anyway?
I clenched my fist over my mouth, crying over my own tears.
Not loud.
Not melodramatic
"I'm still here," I whispered to no one.
To nothing.
To a ceiling that didn't care.
To a memory that refused to fade.
I was still here.
Even when everyone else was gone.
And I didn't know if that was a blessing-
or a punishment.