Chapter Thirty-Three #2
It’s time for my game face. When I’m with the kids, I have to shove all the heaviness and fear aside and act joyful. It’s a fake it ’til you make it kind of thing and fake it I do.
I love the way the music and the kids’ laughter pull me out of my head. I wonder if I can convince Dan to come down to town with me one morning, once he’s in a moonboot of course, to watch them. He likes children, or he likes Jeanie anyway.
The morning starts off well. The kids are a riot, and within a few minutes I’m smiling more genuinely than I have in weeks.
Playing a bunch of their old favorites—I’ve been too preoccupied to keep up with new KPop releases and haven’t watched an Astro VLive since the day of the accident—I’m feeling in better spirits already.
We have two new little ones in my class, a pair of siblings, Byron and Ada, and they both love dancing. In only a few days, they’ve picked up the moves to most of the songs. They are, like all the kids, adorable. Both of them have curly brown hair and deep, soulful eyes.
We’re in the middle of the BTS song “Butter” when Byron breaks formation. He waddles over to me with a strange gait, looking worried. “Mr. Sejin?”
“What’s wrong, bud?” I get down to his level and push his curls off his forehead, taking in his shiny eyes and darkened cheeks. “Are you feeling bad?”
“Yes,” he says emphatically, and then, like a pitcher full of nothing good, he tips forward and pukes.
A lot.
On me .
In my hair .
On my clothes .
The scent is visceral, and I gag too, almost vomiting on myself, but managing to turn and puke a little on the floor behind me instead.
Byron bursts into tears, and I almost do the same.
Wetness gathers in my eyes as I try to keep from heaving again.
All the other kids scream and choruses of “ew” and “gross” rise all around—as well as dangerous gagging sounds.
Are we going to have a full-on puke-fest?
I don’t know. All I know is I’m coated in Byron’s yack right now.
I heave again.
Jeanie runs to the offices, calling for Evelyn and Heather.
I stand in a daze, my hand on Byron’s heaving shoulder, as they both rush out to discover the disgusting mess Byron and I have made.
While Evelyn grabs up Byron and hustles him over to the children’s bathroom, Heather motions me toward the adult washroom, which has only a sink and a single toilet.
She leaves me alone in there to deal with the mess on the floor. I gaze at myself in the mirror briefly. I’m disgusting. I take off my shirt and jeans, needing to get the vomit out of my hair first. Feeling like I might puke again, I start the hot water and squirt a ton of soap into my hand.
As I wash my hair out in the sink, I’m trembling all over. The hand soap smells like apple cinnamon. I pull out chunks of vomit and tears fill my eyes again. I wash it again and again, and when I try to rinse my hair out, it grows tangled with the rough soap.
When I’ve gotten my hair and clothes as clean as possible with the limited space in the sink, I dress myself in them again. Vomit-scent clings to me as I lean against the laminated counter and stare at myself in the mirror. I look so old and so fucking tired.
My hair is wet again , and I’m soaked all over from trying to wash the vomit out. I’ve still got a half hour here, and then I have to go right to Papa Bear. My head hurts. I feel like screaming.
I can’t do this. Not today.
The knock at the door is Heather, and she passes my backpack in along with a plastic bag and a sympathetic grimace. “I’m sorry,” she says simply.
“Thanks.”
“You got everything you need in that bag to make it home at least?” she asks.
I don’t tell her I’m not going home. I just say, “Yeah,” and close the door again.
I change my clothes, which means putting on my Papa Bear uniform early, and I pull my wet hair back in the ponytail.
I swear I can still smell puke in it, but it’s probably from my shirt, which I’ve put into the bag Heather gave me.
I wash my hands again and try to get a grip on my revulsion and upset.
When I come out, Heather’s there waiting, and she pats my back. “Too much food at lunch,” she explains. “Turns out he ate not only his sandwich, but also Ada’s, Griffin’s, and Lila’s. You okay?”
“What’s a little barf in the scheme of things, am I right?” I ask, though I still want to cry or somehow miraculously be transported back in time to my mother’s arms. But I smile and tell Heather everything’s okay.
Because that’s my third job apparently—telling myself and everyone else that everything’s okay. Even when I feel like it’s really fucking not.
Heather tells me to go on home. But even leaving early, I don’t have time to run back to Peggy Jo’s or over to Martin and Leenie’s for a shower before the start of my shift. So off I go to Papa Bear, trying not to cry, and hoping I don’t smell too gross.
I enter the café, and of course it’s hopping.
There are so many families stuffed inside, the place is about to burst at its seams. Spotting a bunch of climbers, I avoid them.
They’re always trying to talk with me now, asking about Dan, and pretending like they weren’t in the meadow watching with sick fascination that day.
But I remember.
I also remember that a good number of them have donated to the GoFundMe to benefit Dan’s recovery, so I really ought to be grateful. We’re going to need that money.
But I also think that a bunch of them donated to either assuage their guilt for wishing him to fall all season, or just to feel superior to the putz who risked it all and nearly lost it all. I don’t know. My thoughts aren’t kind like they should be when it comes to them.
I know the climbing community is made up of good people, but I feel…what? Ashamed? Embarrassed? It’s like I want them to pretend that we don’t all know what happened up there on that wall—that Dan tried and failed, that he did something foolish, and is paying the price.
That he’s a lucky son of a bitch.
That they’d never be so stupid and foolhardy.
Evading them and swerving past the families poised to ask me for refills or another plate of apple slices for their kids, I slip into the back room.
Sniffing at myself, I go over to the mirror near the lockers to check that I really got all the vomit off because I can still smell it.
Maybe it’s the odor stuck in my nose. Whatever the case, I’m losing it here.
I don’t have it in me to cope with this today.
I jerk my locker open, pull out the brush I keep in there, and tidy up my damp hair.
“Sejin.” Celli’s voice comes from the half-open door, along with a dull roar from the crowded café. “Pete’s looking for you.”
Of course he is. She vanishes and the door swings shut. If I smell like vomit, oh fucking well. Screw it. I take one last look at myself, toss the brush back in the locker, and slam it closed right as I bend over to tie a loose shoelace.
My hair catches in the locker door.
“Fuck!” I shout, coming up short as my hair pulls tight. My scalp smarts.
I jiggle the handle, but the door stays shut.
Hunched over, trying to keep from yanking my own hair out, I work the lock, but it won’t budge. It’s jammed up tight.
Carefully, I tug and tug, but my hair won’t come free.
I let rip with a string of curse words. My heart pounds. My stomach twists up again. I’m trapped, bent over into an awkward position and unable to even see where the problem is. I try not to start crying for real. The harder I try to free myself, the more stuck I become.
Taking a deep breath, I yell. “Help! Celli! I need help!”
I call out again and again.
I’ve given up when Celli finally comes see what’s keeping me. “What’s the delay?” She bangs into the room with an exasperated sigh.
“I’m stuck,” I creak out, tears dripping down my face like a baby.
“What?”
“I’m fucking stuck!”
I hear her walk over. “Holy crap, Sejin.” Her voice bubbles with barely repressed laughter. “You’re really tangled up. You look ridiculous.”
“I don’t feel ridiculous!” I feel enraged, sick, trapped, and helpless. “Fuck you, Celli.”
She comes around to the other side of me, and ensnared as I am, curved over and facing the floor, I can only see her shoes, a new pair of red Converse. She sounds a little more serious when she says, “Let me have a look.”
Wiggling the lock and tugging at the handle, she grunts with the effort. “Well, shit.”
“I know,” I moan.
“Here, let me—” She tugs hard at my hair. “Oh, God,” she whispers. “It’s really jammed.”
“I know.”
We stand there—or she stands, and I hunch—while she works at my hair and tries to get it loose. Shortly, she leaves and returns with some butter. She tries to grease the hair in the lock, but it still doesn’t release.
“It’s useless. I’m going to die bent over here at this rate.”
“I have an idea,” Celli says, eventually, though she sounds really sad about it. She steps away and when she comes back, she’s holding a big pair of kitchen scissors down where I can see them. They gleam in her grip.
“Sejin?” she asks, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Do you want me to cut you free? Or what should I do? I can go get Pete. Maybe he has some other kind of oil we can rub on it, or on the lock, or—”
“No,” I say, putting out my hand. My scalp burns from all the jerking. “Give them to me.” She does, and I tell her to go help Pete in the café. “I’ll do it myself. I just need a minute.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, sounding like she might cry.
“Yeah.”
Once I hear the door open and close again, blocking out the sea of voices and clanking of cups and dishware, I put one hand flat on the locker and push desperately. I try one last time to wrench my hair free, but the pain is too much. I work the lock again. It won’t let loose.
What choice do I have?
Look, Ma, here’s a problem I can actually solve.