Authors: Katie M. Stout
My new home.
We stop just in front of the arch, and I step out of the cab. But once I’ve pulled in a breath of campus air, my stomach clenches. The cabbie lifts my suitcases out of the van, and I fumble with my wallet, examining each bill carefully before handing him the money.
The taxi pulls away, and I turn my back on the gorgeous coastal view to stare up at the white stone building directly across the plaza, its gigantic staircase leading up to what I assume are classrooms and offices.
I can’t help but wonder how different life would be if I’d done what my parents wanted—stayed at the same elite prep school for senior year. I would have kept all the same friends, gone to all the same parties, been hit on by every aspiring musician trying to get to my dad, and watched my ex-boyfriend date every other girl in school like the douche he is.
But instead of a stuffy prep school in Nashville, I’m here. Completely alone in a foreign country, searching the grounds for the administration offices and the school rep who said he would help me get settled in.
Magnesium. Aluminum. Silicon.
Moving here was my idea.
Phosphorous
.
Sulfur
.
I can do this.
Chlorine
.
I can do this.
Argon.
I can.
Do.
This.
“This is your room.” The school rep, Mr. Wang, stops outside a door in the long hallway on the third floor of the girl’s dorm. He takes my key and knocks, then unlocks the door.
We enter into a narrow, white-walled room with bunk beds that take up nearly all the floor space. Two desks are shoved against the opposite wall, and there’s just enough room to walk between them and the beds without having to turn sideways.
A girl sits at one of the desks, her shoulder-length black hair bobbing as she shoots up to her feet, a massive smile brightening her face.
“You are okay now?” Mr. Wang asks in his thickly accented English, inclining his head toward my roommate and dropping the room key into my palm.
“Yes, thank you.” I bow my head like I read is the custom and watch him leave, my pulse kicking into high gear when the door slams shut.
My roommate lets out a little squeal, throwing her arms around me. I back up, both my suitcases clattering to the white tile floor. She bounces up and down with me still in her arms until I push her back with forced laughter.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” She claps her hands in excitement. “And you’re
American
!”
Her dark eyes are half-hidden behind thick, white-framed plastic glasses with lenses so big they look like they should be on a grandma’s face, but I can still see them light up at the mention of the magic word, which I’ve already noticed makes you a celebrity around here. But this girl is different from the people I met in the administration building—her American accent is impeccable. She has a pale, narrow face, with eyes turned up at the edges and pink lipstick that every teen in the eighties would have coveted. And despite her ridiculous T-shirt, she’s pretty in a tiny, impish way.
“My name’s Sophie.” She shoots out her hand and keeps it there until I hesitantly shake it. “Well, actually it’s Sae Yi, but my English name is Sophie.”
“I’m Grace.”
“It’s so nice to meet you.” She’s still beaming at me. “They didn’t tell me you were American. Did they tell you anything about me?”
I reach down to pick up the handles of my suitcases, but she beats me to it. She hefts one onto the bottom bunk, which sports a bare mattress. I lift the other and place it beside the first.
“Umm … no,” I say, searching the room for a closet or dresser or something. I spot two miniwardrobes, stacked on top of each other. Talk about space conservation.
“Well, I’m Sophie, and I’m a senior. I’m from here.” She holds up a finger, as if to stop my train of thought. “‘Here’ being Korea, not Ganghwa. I live in Seoul, which is
way
better than this old place.” She wrinkles her nose, then brightens an instant later. “But I grew up in the States. That’s why my English is so good. And—and it’s just so good to meet you!” Her cheeks redden. “But I already said that.”
A chuckle falls from my lips unconsciously. This girl’s crazy, but at least she’s nice.
“It’s just that it will be nice to speak English again with someone,” she continues. “You wouldn’t believe how tiring it is only speaking Korean when you grew up with English.”
I unzip one of the bags and begin to unpack my clothes, shoes, and toiletries. My entire life inside two suitcases. It’s sort of pitiful, in a way, that I fit it all into two such small spaces. Of course, I didn’t need a suitcase for the emotional baggage I’ve dragged along with me from Nashville.
“So you’re American, then?” I ask, though Sophie probably doesn’t need my prompting to keep up her soliloquy.
“Well, technically, I’m a Korean citizen, since I was born here. But my twin brother, Jason, and I lived with my dad in New York from the time we were babies. We visited Korea every summer, but we didn’t move here until we were fourteen to be with our mom in Seoul.”
“And now you’re here on the island?”
She scowls, the first negative emotion I’ve seen cross her face yet. “Unfortunately.”
I laugh. “Why come if you didn’t want to?”
She sighs, dropping down into her desk chair. “It’s a long story, but it involves my brother running away from home and dragging me along with him, even though I was top of my class last year and a total shoo-in for top this year. I had to leave all my friends and everything.”
With a grunt, I grab a pile of clothes and make to drop them in one of the wardrobes, but I realize once I’m standing in front of them that the doors are closed and my hands are currently occupied.
“Here, let me help!” Sophie opens the doors. “You’re on bottom. Just like the beds. I thought it’d be better if that matched. You know, easier to remember.”
I take in the excitement that’s practically oozing out of her, and a fresh wave of exhaustion washes over me. Jeez, I need some sleep.
Sophie frowns. “Oh, you look tired. How long have you been traveling?”
“Over twenty-four hours, including layovers.”
Her eyes bug. “Then you need to get into bed! I’ll be quiet so you can go to sleep.” She runs her fingers across her mouth like a zipper, and another laugh escapes my lips. I’m gonna like this girl.
I manage to unpack enough of my stuff to take a quick shower and brush my teeth and crawl into bed, after covering it with the school-provided sheets. True to her word, Sophie keeps silent at her desk, her knees pressed against her chest, poring over a magazine.
I pull out my phone for the first time since I landed in Korea and see three missed calls from Momma. I have no idea why she felt the need to call
again
after I told her I’d arrived. It’s not like we talked much when I was home, so why start now? Maybe opting for the international phone plan wasn’t such a good idea after all.
She left a voice mail:
“Hey, Grace. Are you at the school yet? Let me know. But don’t call if it’s too early here because you know I need my eight hours of sleep. Call soon. Bye.”
It’s nine o’clock and home is fourteen hours behind, so she’s most likely about to wake up and get ready for her yoga class. Later, she’ll probably be carting around my younger sister, Jane, and making plans for a lunch date with one of the wives of Dad’s partners. I’m just surprised she took the time to call before going to bed last night. There’s no message from Dad, though that’s not surprising. I can’t remember the last time he initiated a conversation with me.
I click over to the celebrity gossip site I frequent, reminding myself—as I do every time—that this is pointless. I scroll through the latest articles, but none of the headlines catch my attention. With a sigh, I toss my phone onto the bed and ignore the curious eyes of Sophie, who watches me like I’m some kind of museum exhibit.
After a few good punches to my pillow, I settle in deep beneath the blanket I insisted on bringing from home, the one my aunt quilted for my sixteenth birthday. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, and I wish I had thanked her properly before she died last year. But now it’s one of the few things that remind me of home. It still smells the same—like lilac fabric softener and my favorite perfume. I take in a deep breath and swallow the sob that catches in the back of my throat.
The heavy silence of the dorm room presses against my chest, and I blink back hot tears. What have I done? Why didn’t I listen to Momma and Dad, and just stay in Nashville? I kept telling myself as I packed up my things, as I boarded the airplane, that this was the right thing. If I wanted to keep any sort of relationship with my mother, we needed to be separated for a while. I still have no idea why I decided we needed an entire ocean between us or why I even chose Korea—it was just the first place that popped up on Google when I typed in “international boarding schools,” probably thanks to Jane’s search history, since I’m not the only one who considered getting out of Tennessee.
My fingers curl tighter around the quilt and press it against my face in hopes of muffling my sniffles. I’ve got to hold it together. I didn’t cry leaving the States. I didn’t even cry over the “incident,” as Dad liked to call Nathan’s downward spiral. So why am I barely holding it together now?
I scramble for the first element in the periodic table, but my sleep-deprived brain is at capacity. Out of sheer frustration, I put my earbuds in and flip on the sleep playlist on my iPod, letting the soft melodies wash away all thoughts. I spend the next hour holding back tears and the crippling loneliness that echoes inside my head, competing for dominance with the music reverberating through my ears, until I finally slip into blissful sleep and escape.
* * *
My sleep is cut short, however, when sunlight blazes through the blinds and right onto my face. I fumble for my phone and see that it’s only seven o’clock, but I’m completely awake. I lie in bed, tossing and turning, until I hear Sophie shift atop her mattress above me.
She climbs down from the top bunk, stands in the middle of the four-by-four-foot square floor space and stretches her arms above her head. Yawning, she waves at me.
“Did you sleep well?” she asks.
I murmur a yes, though my sore limbs and aching head protest.
Sophie and I throw on clothes, and once we’ve both deemed our hair and makeup good enough to be seen by the outside world, she says, “Do you want to go to breakfast with me? I told Jason I’d meet him at eight-thirty.”
“Sure.”
I stuff my feet into a pair of ankle boots and clap on a straw fedora I found at a consignment store in Nashville. After tossing my phone and Korean phrase book into my satchel, I follow her out the door.
Students pass us in the hall, and they all smile and bow their heads in greeting. Although most of the girls we see are Asian, I spot a few that look Filipino or maybe Pacific Islander and others with darker complexions and hijabs, maybe from India or somewhere in the Middle East.
When I researched the school, I was drawn to the fact that it boasted all classes taught in English and that it’s apparently more relaxed than most Korean schools, which can be intense in both academics and discipline. Because it’s targeted to foreign students who speak a myriad of native languages—mostly kids of foreign dignitaries, high-profile CEOs, or wealthy European expatriates—English serves as the common language for them all, a fact that still baffles me. I complained every day about the two years of Spanish I took—my sister, Jane, is the one with the ear for languages. But the people here have been taking English classes their entire lives. America is seriously behind the foreign language instruction curve.
But while English may be the common language, most students we pass stick with other kids who look like them and speak their own languages. A group of girls pass us, their black-haired heads bent close, giggling. One points at me, and heat climbs up my neck. But I force down the embarrassment; she probably wasn’t even talking about me.
Sophie leads me out of the dorm and onto the plaza I saw when I first arrived. More students occupy it than last night, some boys playing with a soccer ball, another group just sitting and laughing.
A greenery-lined path leads around the plaza, which is circled by a ring of classroom and administrative buildings that stare down at me with condescension, like they’re daring me to fail, like they know I can’t handle this. A sidewalk leads a little farther up the mountain to more buildings, which Sophie tells me are the boys’ dorms.
Despite the crowds of students milling around, the noise level across campus is hardly more than a hum. Coupled with the trees planted in front of and all around the buildings and the mountains towering over us, the quiet makes me feel more like I’m at one of those relaxed resorts than a school full of teenagers.
We climb the stairs up to a chrome building with red Korean characters, which Sophie tells me reads D
INING
H
ALL
. The cafeteria has its own building? How big is this place? I mean, I know it’s a school for rich kids, but still.
The dining hall is easily three times the size of my high school lunchroom, and anxiety pools in my stomach as I peer around the room—I’m in way over my head. Light filters in through the sloped glass ceiling, illuminating the myriad of long tables and benches filled with students, and providing a view of the mountains surrounding the grounds. I get in line behind Sophie, listening to the languages swirling around us. They buzz in my ears like white noise, none of them distinct from the others.
As we draw closer to the serving line, I sniff at a scent unlike anything I’ve smelled before. Sophie picks out some kind of soup with green leaves floating in it, but I steer clear of anything I don’t recognize and opt instead for an omelette that I think has vegetables in it, maybe some kind of meat, I can’t tell.
When we get to our table, I realize the only utensils available are silver chopsticks. Sophie fishes out the green bits from her soup with her chopsticks like a pro. How she’s going to get the broth out of that bowl is something I’d like to see.