Chapter 2
I GOT ROBBED AT A NATIONAL PARK AND I DIDN’T EVEN GET A LOUSY T-SHIRT
SEYOON
America’s favorite reality show is not only back… but better than ever!
What’s that sweet sound? Nostalgia? Better. It’s me, Garrett Moxley, your new host of Forest Feud—returning twenty years after the epic finale. But don’t think this is some lame reboot. No, we’re ramping things up. I’m talking high-stakes challenges and competition like never before.
So tune in next summer for the brand-new season of Forest Feud, where twelve brave teens will battle each other and the elements for a chance at one mill—
Jesus, not this guy again. How much advertising budget could one washed-up ex-star really have?
I reach over and click the radio off with more force than necessary. Umma, her hands stiff on the steering wheel, frowns at the highway.
“I was listening to that,” she complains mildly.
“I’ve had enough of Garrett’s nasally voice. I’ll be hearing it every day here pretty soon,” I complain, but I turn the radio back on, flipping to another station. A Christian jazz choir? Sure, fine, I’ll take anything that isn’t the Forest Feud commercial.
“Maybe I want to hear his voice. Have you thought about that?” Umma teases, sparing a glance away from the road to give me a shit-eating grin. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it. He sounds as handsome as he did when we were on the show together.”
I burst into laughter. “Umma! Gross!”
“What? I’m a single woman now.”
My laughter dies down. Right, she’s single now.
The rattling of her busted car engine that we can’t afford to get checked out makes it impossible to forget how the ink on the divorce papers is still wet.
And there’s also the fact that Umma—the most nervous driver in the state of Oregon—is driving me up to the set of Forest Feud herself.
When Appa was still in the picture, she never drove.
The only thing I could reliably count on him for was driving me to and from school while she worked.
Drives with him were always silent, though, no matter how many times I tried to start a conversation.
He thought my “chatter” was distracting.
But Umma doesn’t. Even though her knee’s bouncing with nerves, she’s still managed to crack jokes with me the whole ride.
At the thought, I look over at her and smile. “Fine, tell you what: When I win Garrett’s stupid show and that million dollars, I’ll give him your number.” And buy you a new car you feel safer driving.
“Oh God, Seyoon. Please don’t. He seems like such a…”
“Shithead?”
“?. Language.”1
“Didn’t he betray you when you guys were allies? Is that not the definition of a shithead?”
She huffs. “Fine, he was a bit of a shithead.”
I snort, and out of the corner of my eye I see her relax in her seat.
It’s barely dawn, so there’s no line before we reach the entrance of the mountain.
Excitement sparks in me once I spot the wooden Mount Rainier National Park sign.
I still can’t believe I’m going to compete in the very same game Umma did when she was my age.
We both freaked out when the network reached out to us with the offer.
It was a no-brainer to agree to. Not only for the prize money but for the opportunity to avenge Umma’s legacy.
Because if Garrett Moxley hadn’t cheated her over, she would have won.
We roll to a stop at the park ranger’s booth. There’s a woman in shades leaning against the open window, chewing on gum lazily. “Do you have a pass?”
“No, I’m just dropping off my daughter,” Umma says. “She’s going to be in the reality show they’re filming here.”
“You still need a day pass to enter. It’s thirty dollars.”
“Thirty dollars?” I blurt, leaning over Umma to gawk at the woman. “What’s up there? Gold?”
“????,”2 Umma hisses, shoving her hand over my mouth.
“This is highway robbery. The state of Washington is robbing us blind,” I say behind her palm.
The park ranger pops her gum. “This is a national park. So it’s the federal government that’s robbing you, not the state.”
I take that as my sign to shut up. Umma gives the park ranger an apologetic smile, then reaches back for her purse and angles her body, as if shielding it from view. She rifles around in it for a moment. Two.
Quietly, Umma turns back to the ranger and mumbles, “Do you take credit cards?”
We get our pass and are back on the steep road heading up to the main visitor center, where guardians were instructed to drop us off.
The air is heavy with the unspoken. I know Umma’s doing the math in her head to see if she can get back down to Portland without having to gas up again.
Thirty dollars is a lot these days. Guilt turns my stomach.
She’s sacrificed so much for me to get here. I won’t let it be for nothing.
I press my forehead against the window, watching the tall evergreens lined along the road blur into one thick, dense wall of umber brown and deep green, broken by slivers of sunlight that manage to peek around each trunk.
When the road is less treacherous, I ask in my most casual tone, “Does Appa know?”
Umma doesn’t answer right away, and I half hope she didn’t hear me.
“I texted him when you got accepted,” she eventually says.
That was about a month ago, right after my junior year of high school wrapped up. “He didn’t respond, did he?”
“… I’m sure he’s excited to see how well you do.”
I shake my head. Appa has been waiting sixteen years to see me do something well.
None of my state medals or district trophies for track, volleyball, and swim are impressive enough to him, apparently.
“Yeah, he’ll see,” I say. “See what an idiot he was for leaving when I bring back a million big ones.”
Eventually, we pass the sign for the visitor center and pull into the parking lot like the producers instructed us to.
I’m out of the car before she’s turned off the ignition, any bitterness on my tongue gone at the first inhale of crisp, woodsy air.
The needles of the spruce trees surrounding the lot are so dense, they scatter the sunshine in a million flickering, dancing spots around me as the foliage shifts in the warm breeze.
Despite how early it is, there’s still a few dedicated hikers nearby unloading gear and picnic baskets, as several trailheads start here.
I’ll be hiking one myself to camp, so this is where Umma and I have to say goodbye.
Umma comes to my side as I pull my duffel bag from the car. She wraps me in a hug and rocks us side to side. She feels small for the first time, with the way she’s holding me like she’s afraid to let go. I hear her sniffle.
“? ???”3 I ask with a chuckle. “I’m about to win the biggest game show of all time. You should be excited.”
“Because I’ll miss you.”
My smile falls. An image suddenly pops in my head of her all alone in our new dingy apartment.
She grew up in Busan with a big family and married Appa when she was young; she’s never been alone before.
Not like the jackass was great company, but he was something.
Then when he left this year, we always had each other. She always had me.
But not anymore.
I hug her back, squishing my cheek against the top of her head and swallowing past the lump in my throat.
“Umma will be okay. Don’t worry,” she says. She has a sixth sense for what goes on in my mind. Or maybe my poker face is terrible.
“You’ll be better than okay when I come back with the cash prize,” I promise.
Because when I come back, it’ll be with enough money for her to pay off the debt Appa racked up in her name and for her to quit her back-breaking, minimum-wage jobs.
She can finally live the comfortable, easy life she deserves.
Umma pulls back. There’s a furrow in her brow like I said something wrong. She fixes my bangs with pursed lips. “Have fun while you’re here, okay? Try to make friends.”
The implication makes my throat feel weird and tight, so I chuckle to loosen it. “Of course I’ll make friends. How could I not? I’m so lovable. Besides, I have friends.”
“I know you have your teammates, but none of them are like Amelia. It would be nice for you to meet someone you can be that close to again.”
Oh, I see where this is going, and I am not interested. A big fat no thank you. Talking about my ex-best friend when I’m about to embark on the coolest adventure of my life is the last thing I want to do. “Let’s just focus on what really matters, which is me winning. Any last-minute advice?” I ask.
Umma looks me straight in the eye. “Winning isn’t everything, Seyoon.”
I can’t help it. I laugh.
She wouldn’t be saying that if Garrett Moxley hadn’t screwed over her and the other guy in their alliance at the last second. Seriously, like, twenty yards away from the finish line. Because if he hadn’t, she would’ve won. Without a doubt.
I know people don’t think of her as a winner.
Umma’s a tiny, gentle-spoken Korean woman with an affinity for smiling and making small talk with clerks at the grocery store.
They’d never believe she almost won the most cutthroat season of Forest Feud.
She hardly got any airtime on the show despite being in the finale, and the scenes they did include never fully portrayed how awesome she was.
But people don’t know Jungeun Shin like I do.
They don’t know that she’s so brave, she immigrated to a different continent when she was just a child.
They have no clue how tough she is, taking care of a kid and a deadbeat husband on her own.
Even if I told them all that, they still wouldn’t realize the full extent of Umma’s strength. Not like I know.
Umma’s always been a winner; I get it from her, and I’ll do it for her.
I give her another long, tight hug, say my final goodbyes, and watch until she’s back in her car and driving safely (and slowly) down the mountain.
My chest pangs when she’s fully out of sight.
But then I slap myself out of it, plaster on a smile, grab my bag, and march past the trailhead post the producers told us to find, the one that says Camp Clearwater–0. 5 Miles.
I have no complaints about having to trek to set.
I love nature. The sweet smell of grass, the way the sun warms the top of my head, the birds chirping and the ambiguous rumbling in the distance—all of it.
Good stuff. Great stuff. Besides, half a mile is nothing.
Our warm-ups in track are longer than this.
If I don’t win, we won’t be able to afford the extracurricular fees for track this year, the small voice of anxiety says in the back of my head. Or volleyball. Or swim. Or—
Snap out of it, Seyoon. What am I wasting my time worrying about that for?
“Of course I’m going to win,” I tell myself.
Then I stop, my brain catching up to my senses. In particular, to the ambiguous rumbling that seems to be growing less distant by the second. Ambiguous rumbling isn’t usually a good sign.
It’s the last thought I have before a giant, hideous, neon-orange suitcase comes bouncing down the path and barrels into me.
Footnotes
1. Hey.
2. You’re too loud.
3. Why are you crying?