“She’s lucky to be alive, and it’s a miracle given her state. A few days here, and she can get out, but I want to observe her first. She has hypothermia, and the symptoms overlap with a concussion, so I can’t tell how bad the knock on her skull is. Her head wound seems minor, but I’m not out ruling it. She has a warm saline drip and oxygen for now, but I think she’s out of the woods. It was a long night.” A man’s voice reaches me in my sleep state, aware I’m somewhere soft and warm, but I have no memory of how I got here. The last thing I remember is the girl who pulled me off the road.
“I thought she was a goner, doc. You didn’t see her when I pulled up.” My angel’s voice that I would recognize anywhere, bringing me around. I owe her my life. “I don’t know what the hell happened to her out there.”
“I don’t think she would have lasted any longer out there. She’s been in and out of consciousness but not much talking yet. If she gets worse, I’ll transfer her to the mainland, as we’re not equipped to deal with major issues here, but I’m crossing my fingers that she will be okay. You did good and found her in time, Greta.”
“Thank you. I’ll let you get back to it and go sit with her.”
I shift in my bed, aware of my own body, and although I’m still groggy and tired, I manage to open my eyes and stare at the white ceiling above me without excruciating head pain. Their words ring around my head, and I exhale heavily, trying to clear my throat, but it’s like I’m swallowing razor blades.
“You’re awake.” Her cheery voice pulls my eyes to her, standing in the doorway and beaming at me with the friendliest of smiles. In the new light of day, she’s much prettier than I remember. Around my height, about five foot five, slim but athletic, and has mousy brown chin-length hair in a soft bob that frames her face with feathery bangs. She has the bluest of eyes, like a tropical sea, and dimples when she smiles. She’s dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt that gives her a shapeless figure, yet there’s something adorable about her. She has a youthful energy.
“I brought fruit.” She waves a little basket around and then lays it on a table by the door before coming to my bedside. She seems more feminine now than last night, and looking at her, I have no idea how she carried my body weight to that truck. I’m beyond grateful to her. She doesn’t look like she could drag me, let alone carry me, and I find myself sizing her up and wondering what she eats.
I strain to sit up, spotting the tubes in my arms, and try not to flex them too much, struggling, and she moves fast to assist me.
“Here, let me. You’re still poorly, baby gurl” She levers me up and plumps and arranges my cushions behind me so they help me sit a little, and chin gestures to the water jug beside me.
“You need some?” She asks helpfully, and I nod, my mouth is so dry it feels like I’ve been licking chalkboards, and it might soothe my throat. I don’t know why that’s so bad unless it’s because of swallowing saltwater and throwing up a lot. I make to talk, but it’s painful, and all I can do is smile weakly when she helps me sip a few mouthfuls from a paper cup.
“So, mystery lady, doc says you should be just fine after some rest. He said that there’s nothing major, but you resemble a human pin cushion. What were you rolling around in? Smashed glass? Luckily none of them are too deep and won’t scar.” She smiles a sunny expression that lights up her whole face as she puts the cup back and crosses her hands on the rail of my bed.
“I crashed…” I force it out and cough immediately with the effort. Wanting to be polite as she’s my first guest and my savior, but I’m not too great yet.
“Where? There was not a single car in sight. Did you walk to that road? I never passed anything. Suppose you tell me where I can find out and get it towed. We need to make a police report.”
“No…… peak point.” I exhale with my words this time and slump back down, so tired from saying less than half a dozen. The thought of police makes my head hurt.
“Peak what? Is that a place? I’ve never heard of it. Is it on the map?” She cocks her brow at me, and I frown back, equally confused. Not sure if she’s joking because everyone knows what Peak point is. It’s a well-known tourist spot, and the city spends thousands to promote it monthly. We even did an ad commercial up there for OLO.
“Up the mountain.” I try again and get the same blank expression.
“We don’t have any mountains on this island.”
“Wait, what?” it’s my turn to be confused, and it takes a moment to process it. My brain is going into overdrive.
“An island?….. I came from the city…. I….” my head throbs painfully, and I lift my hand to press my temple, starting to piece together that I really did get cast out to sea, and I have no idea where I even ended up. “I drove off Peak point…..fell into Drythe river, and ended up here.”
“Holy shit, batman. Drythe river is like….. not even here. You must have come from the north current pushing warmer water to our south shores. By sea, that’s maybe fifteen or twenty miles or more. Are you telling me you washed up along the coast?”
“Yeah…” even saying it, it doesn’t seem real that’s actually what happened. The thought of it makes me shudder. I drifted that far on a goddamn tree.
“Wow… you really are a miracle. How do you get from crashing your car on a mountain to ending up washed up by the sea and walking miles to one of the connecting roads? You know, right that you were still five miles away from here? This town sits on the north shore. If you walked the other way, it would have been further, and all you would have found was the weather station and harbor for the commercial vehicle ferry, which are not manned at night.”
There’s a long moment of silence as she thinks about that, yet it does sound like bullshit to me despite living through it. Five miles more before I would have found this place alone. I would never have made it. Apart from her and that truck, I didn’t see another car all day. I’m guessing this place has a low population with miles of road and no service stops, houses, or signs of life until you get here. Fate wasn’t ready to see me die.
“I guess you’re lucky I was coming home when I did. I had to pick up stock I had shipped in.”
I nod and reach for her fingers before gently patting her hand, grateful beyond words, and try for my warmest smile. Thinking about it is too exhausting, too emotional, and big right now, and I shake it out of my head.
“Thank you,” I murmur and get a soft smile in response.
I absorb the peacefulness of this white and sterile room and stare at her for a moment, trying to think through exactly what I do now. I’m safe, I need to rest for a few days, and I should reach out and contact my family. God knows how long it’s been. I feel it’s rude to ask her to do it for me, so I should at least wait until I can walk about and pick up the phone for myself and explain everything to Mother.
“Do you have a name? Or is it a secret?” She fluffs my pillow and straightens the sheets over me, carefully moving the saline tube out of the way with a gentle touch, and I watch her with a sense of calm.
“Soh…..” An instant hesitation is made obvious by how my expression flickers to wide-eyed realization, and I snap my mouth shut. It dies on my lips as the sudden thought crosses my mind that if the media got hold of the details of what’s happened, they wouldn’t leave me alone.
I catch the dip of her brow, and she ponders my face as I remain quiet and don’t say anything else. It’s habitual, something even my parents trained into me, that should I ever end up in a situation that could cause news articles, I shouldn’t say who I am until I know I’m safe. Know the drama it might cause.
“So, it’s a secret?” she lifts a brow, and I hesitate and try to speak again, but that profoundly ingrained logic of a wealthy family who avoids scandals at all costs silences me. I’m not sure anyone should know who I am while here. The story would cause mayhem, and our stock prices would plummet over the genuine question of… who tampered with the car? How could I explain driving off a cliff? The media would pick suicide or attempted murder… neither will do OLO any good. Both raise questions, and Jyeon’s affair would come to light behind it all. I can’t do that to myself, him, our mother, and Yoonah.
I haven’t even begun to process all of that yet, let alone figure out what to do now I’m okay. It’s not like this was a planned exit from my own life. I’m still suffering from a concussion and can’t seem to think straight as it is.
“Is this a case of memory loss, or are you deliberately hiding it?” She pokes fun at me, trying to read my expression, but I stay blank, even though it makes me feel shitty, given she literally saved my life. I’m in damage control mode, reverting to kind and thinking of OLO and Jyeon above everything. It’s what I was trained to do.
“I… Ummm…… I’m sorry. For now, please don’t ask.” I croak it out, and she narrows her eyes so they almost become slits in her face. I can read the real curiosity and suspicion, but she grins it out. Letting it go and figuring I must have my reason. She seems to be a pretty laid-back soul and doesn’t push.
“Either you’re on the run, and you’re a wanted felon, or your famous and scared I sell your story to the papz….. Could go either way.” She says it lightly, pointing at me with two fingers in a funny way, as though she’s joking, but there’s a look in her eye as she straightens up that tells me she thinks it’s one or the other. I mean, she’s not all that far away from the truth.
“I’m tired.” I need headspace to think things through because I know by now someone has to know I’m gone. “Do you mind if I…” I don’t get the words out when she suddenly bursts into animated mannerisms.
“Oh no, no… go right ahead. God, no. Don’t mind me. I’ll be your silent caregiver and sit over there and read a book. I don’t have anything to do today anyway, as the restaurant’s shut. Just you know, wave, and I’ll jump to it.” She waves her hands and then thumbs toward a chair in the corner to tell me where she’ll be.
There’s bubbly, infectious energy about this girl, and I like it. She reminds me of Yoonah when he was younger, only somehow with a mature ability about her and far less clingy. I wish I’d known someone like her growing up and had a friend that resembled her. Although if we’re the same age, it feels like I’m about ten years older in maturity. I nod, forcing a smile that isn’t meant, and close my eyes, hoping she will walk away to give me space.
I hear her footsteps move off and then the creak of a chair and the scuffs of a book being opened and flicked through. I sigh with relief and relax into my comfortable mattress.
I listen to the beeps and hums of the machines around me and lay as still as possible, happy not to hurt as much. Now that I’m fully awake and compos mentis, I have nothing to do but think. They’ve doped me on pain relief for my minor wounds and a significant headache, and I feel sleepy, but everything is churning up inside. I can’t calm my restless thoughts. I’ve been out cold for so much of the day that my brain jumps to activity.
I nearly died.
Not once, but twice.
I went through a real ordeal that no longer feels like it happened. It’s a dream and hazy memories of something so far-fetched that I’d think they were lying if someone told me. I’m lucky to be alive against the odds, and it is a miracle I’m here. I can replay it a hundred times in my head, and I still don’t know how I managed to get through it. I can’t connect to it as reality anymore.
It feels like I’ve been given a second chance at life, and I shouldn’t waste it. A sign I should change something and undo the mess and unhappiness of my existence. It’s shaken me up, and even though I am in no fit state to do anything about it, I’m filled with enthusiasm and willpower to overhaul everything.
I regret so much, and I don’t know how to keep in these vast emotions that start warming up my body and aching against my ribs like a pressure that needs to be released. I don’t know what it is about surviving a near-death experience, but I’m overcome with a wave of emotion and relief and this deep appreciation for still being able to breathe. A euphoric need to live my life to the fullest from this second on and stop wasting time on what hurts.
My eyes brim with tears, and I swallow them as I think through the last month's events and watch like a bystander. All the memories in my head are as though they are happening to someone else. Ashamed of my behavior and the way I handled all of it. I can see the wrong choices and swallow hard at the things that dragged me further into hell—pained by the brimming of stuff to the surface and laying here wondering what would happen if I didn’t reach out and tell them where I was.
I told my parents I wished it would all stop and I could just disappear; this feels like they granted my wish.
This is a one-in-a-million chance.
Jyeon would be happier if I never came back. And even if it seems like he’s being cruel and intentionally hurting me, I know he wants us both to find our happiness.
If I had died that night, then it would all just stop. Just like I wanted. The divorce, the fights, the agony, the need to rip him down and take away the one thing he found for himself in the mess of our marriage. Mother couldn’t blame me anymore, and Yoonah would stop hiding behind me and stand on his own two feet. It would have been the perfect solution for all of us. I could have let it go and not dealt with anything anymore.
If I weren’t there anymore, OLO would become Jyeon’s sole responsibility, and maybe he would realize how much I did. How many hits I took for him, how many times I sacrificed myself for OLO and his mental state. Maybe he would stop hating me and remember only the good things about me and the times we shared that weren’t all bad. For that alone, I could consider never going back. Just to have him think of me fondly, even once.
He could move on, forget everything, and focus on going forward without this black cloud of vengeance hanging over us. I would never have to look at him and her together ever again, but all would be right in their world. Jyeon could maybe have the life I always hoped I could give him. I don’t hate him for what he’s done because I too am to blame for where we ended up. I’m not innocent in all of this.
They all would realize that I was the spine that kept our family firm, the glue that held us together, but that all I did was make it harder for any of them to function by themselves. That I worked my butt off and never got anything in return, but I chose to make it that way. I was only sneered at and treated like I was always the problem while solving all of theirs because I let them. I pulled inwards, closed off, and created an icy shield of competence … choosing it over warmth and affection. It was my way of loving them all. I never once explained anything to Jyeon and instead presented him with an emotionless and cold persona who could take all the weight of his life but never once offered him a hug.
They would stop blaming me and maybe miss me a little, but they would be forced to take control of their own bullshit. Their responsibilities. Instead of always laying everything at my feet. Masters of their own lives. For the first time in a decade.
I could be free….
Maybe not forever, but just a little while. I’m not that selfish to make them live thinking I’m dead. It would be like a break…. not long-term.
So I can breathe.
A time-out.
I wouldn’t let them suffer indefinitely. Maybe just a few days while I’m here, a week, or two, perhaps a month. How long would it take for them to make fundamental changes in how we all live? If I go back now, nothing will change, and I’ll pick up where I left off and have to face the war I no longer want to fight. I was already losing it. Jyeon was slipping out of my fingers long before this affair.
If I wait, Jyeon will leave with his woman, start a new life, assign my most stressful roles in OLO to others, and Mother will not have any choice but to accept it… while I take this time to try and make peace with it in my heart. So I can go back and learn how to live without him before figuring out my position in OLO with him still there. I should do that for him, me, for us both to stop hurting.
It’s a rare opportunity that I shouldn’t let pass by. No one knows who I am, and it seems I’m far enough away from where I came from that no one will have a clue to look at me. I’m well known in the city, but I’m no one here: animosity and a fresh start. I could handle a month. Figure out finances, stay somewhere, or get a job—a little time to properly stop and evaluate my life.
I can rest and take my time and recharge because I need it. Then I can figure out what to do and how to go back so it won’t be the same, and I don’t slot back into the same old and keep living that miserable existence. Maybe I will get my own apartment, cut my hours with work, and do less as a whole. Find my own life, make real friends, and somehow mend some bridges with Jyeon. To let them work it out on their own. I don’t think any of them have ever done it.
I’ve always been there.
I don’t think there has ever been a real moment in my life where I wasn’t connected in some way to all of them, even when doing my studies and going to finishing school. There was always contact and pressure and visits home. This could be a much-needed complete blackout. Nothing of them holding me down, and I could figure out who I am and what I want. I don’t think I have ever tried to do that before. All my dreams as a child, where did they go?
I can figure out if I ever loved Jyeon or was conditioned to think for him, act for him, and sacrifice for him. I could make decisions for myself with no other input or reasoning. Nothing to interfere with. No one else to worry about or care for. Just me. And what I need for once.
My eyes flicker open again, and I glance across at the girl with her face stuck in the book, squinting to watch her dark brows over the edge and wonder if she would help me. She has something about her that makes me think she wouldn’t turn me down. She seems like someone I could trust. I owe her and could make it worthwhile once I got back home, so maybe she would do it.
“For a little while, would it be okay if I said I didn’t remember who I was?” I probe softly, unsure what I’m asking her, but I know I’m broke, lost in a strange place, and she’s already been my hero once. Everything I had was in that car, and if I tried to access my bank accounts or anything, it would flag up, and they will come looking. I won’t stay hidden for long if I do that.
“Huh?” She glances up, lowering her book, which seems to be a business study manual on accounting.
“Do you need my permission, or are you telling me you don’t know who you are?” She squints at me and seems to think through the question.
“I don’t know who I am.” I lie, and even to my ears, it sounds unconvincing. I curse myself for not being able to act in front of this girl when I feel this shitty about doing it. It seems her being my savior has given me a massive case of guilt. It’s a new feeling for me when it comes to a complete stranger.
She stands up and walks to me, strays to my side, stares at me long and hard with a pensive expression, and chews on her bottom lip. Absurdly cute for a girl in her mid-twenties.
“I see…… I guess someone with no name and no memory… who might or might not be famous or on the run, might need someplace to lay her head down when she gets out of here. And a friend she might come to trust.” She lifts a brow at me, a face like an open book and no hint of deception. The tears well back up in me unexpectedly with her response. I swallow hard. I'm grateful again, even though it’s clear she knows I’m not suffering from amnesia. I nod, unable to speak at all. I am blown away by the endlessness of this girl’s kindness.
“My name’s Greta…. Greta Tarry.” She holds out her hand formally, and when I make no move to take it, she picks up my wrist and thrusts her hand in mine. Shaking it once and then keeps it held tight, her thumb coming to stoke over mine gently. “I don’t know what happened to you or why, and I won’t ask unless you wanna tell me, but I have a feeling I should give you a break. I could use a girl to wait tables and wash dishes for room and board. I don’t pay well, and sometimes it’s slow and empty, but I have a room, and life here can be lonely when you’re a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who has no family. I could use the company.”
I tremble slightly as I’m overwhelmed by her words, and real tears warmly roll down my cheeks. I feel like of all the people in the world I have ever met, maybe this one might be good for me. I am sensing that I should trust her and lean on her for a little while, seeing as the opportunity is here.
She knows nothing about me and expects nothing from me, yet she’s reaching out and offering me a lifeline without knowing what I could give her in return. I didn’t know people could be like this. That there were humans in this world who were so selfless. That I could have someone to lean on again after being the one who supported everyone on my own.
“No name, get some rest. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll talk to the doc, and ….. don’t worry about it, okay? Sometimes we just need a little mental break to get things in order. Greta here; she’s been that girl. I’ve been through some tough times, and we call it " paying it forward.” She pats herself on the chest and smiles at me in a wise street kid kind of way that breaks me down further. She has old eyes, deep in the depths of their blue color. Like she’s lived through something and seen a lot, I feel connected despite her childish, tomboy persona.
“You have this overwhelming sad story aura, and I’m a nosy bitch that would like to know it eventually. I can’t help myself. This town is small and a good place to figure things out. We’re off-season, so we don’t get much traffic in terms of tourists, but it’s a simple life by the sea. No one asks questions, and I think everyone could do with some time out here while finding their feet.”
I sniff as tears overtake me, and I nod. It sounds like it’s exactly what I need, and despite the whopping weight of guilt inside of me for letting my family think I’m gone, I don’t have the ability to go back there either. Not yet. I want to be selfish for once in my life and do something that maybe no one would understand, but it’s for my sanity.
I tell myself this will only be for a little while, and then I’ll do it. I'll call them; I'll go home. I'll start over, and I’ll fix everything. In my own way, without pressure from my mother or my responsibilities, but in a way that’s best for all of us. Especially Jyeon.
It’s not forever. It’s not to hurt them. It’s for me. If I forget who I am and where I came from for a little while, then maybe I can go back as someone else when I’m ready.