Chapter 31
ARE YOU SERIOUSLY HITTING ON MY MOM RIGHT NOW?
SEYOON
Garrett greets the five of us gathered around the bonfire pit later that morning. He’s dressed in a particularly ugly blazer this time. Is that—is that zebra-print? I can’t take this any longer. He needs to be jailed.
There’s a bounce to his steps as he prepares to launch into the spiel for today’s challenge. I can’t tell if he’s excited or nervous. Either way, not a good sign.
Can you believe we’re already over halfway through the season?
We started with twelve, and now, only five of you remain.
Oh, my heart could break thinking about it.
It hasn’t been easy getting here. You know, I think we could all benefit from a mid-season morale booster.
So, before I get to today’s challenge, I have a surprise for you all. Don’t say I never did anything for you.
A trumpet blares through camp. Not a real one; it’s just Garrett pressing a button on his sound remote. Who gave him that? All of us tense, waiting for whatever awful surprise he has in store for us to jump out… but nothing.
And then, from the camp’s entrance, somebody whistles.
A woman with brown skin and bright red lips stretched in a sly smile climbs up the hill and walks toward us, waving. She looks maybe in her early thirties, and given her nice sweater and slacks, she decidedly doesn’t seem like a producer or tech for the show, but who knows what—
“Didi!”
I startle at Siddharth’s voice. He jumps up and sprints full speed at the woman. She beams and opens her arms. Siddharth launches himself at her, choking her in a hug.
A few others crest the hill now. A big, burly man with a thick goatee practically runs into camp. Dean stiffens. “Oh my God,” he says. “Dad?”
No way. No way. Hope balloons in my chest. I’m already walking toward the hill. Two more people pass under the entrance arch, blocking my view—but then there she is.
It’s Umma.
I’ve sprinted over to her before I make the decision to run. Her arms encircle me. Wetness gathers at my lash line, and I can’t push back an overwhelming surge of emotions when I feel her gentle hands rub my back. I hug her tight and blink back tears on her shoulder.
I mean to say a million things, from shouting in excitement to yelling in confusion, but what comes out of my mouth is a meek, “?????.”1
“I missed you, too.” Umma kisses the top of my head, then pulls back and beams at me. All of my worries from this morning melt away.
Garrett makes a big speech off to the side about how kind he is to have orchestrated this, but it’s easy to tune him out.
All around us, happy families reunite, laughing and catching up.
Umma asks me to tell her everything. I hold her soft hands in mine and fill her in, from the challenges, to the terrible food, to the very real friends I’ve made.
“What about you?” I ask, pulling back and scanning her face to see if she’s succumbed to starvation or an illness or some other terrible thing that could have happened in the time I wasn’t with her. “How have you been?”
Something flits across Umma’s face that makes me anxious. “Actually, Seyoon—”
“Jungeun!”
We both turn to see Dean’s dad barreling toward us.
It’s clear where Dean got his height from when his dad stops in front of us, hulking over Umma with a big, toothy smile peeking through his beard.
He looks pretty similar to how he did on TV, but nothing like his son.
Where did Dean get his sad, orphan-mouse features from?
Without hesitation, his dad pulls Umma into a side hug. She laughs, a bit surprised, but hugs him back.
“Vince. I can’t believe it’s you.”
“I know it. Look at us, back here twenty years later, our kids following in our footsteps. Speaking of.” He turns to me and sticks his hand out, eyes crinkling with warmth. “You must be Seyoon. It’s good to meet a friend of Dean’s.”
Dean finally catches up, a hesitant smile flitting on his face as he watches us interact. “Yep. Seyoon’s become a good friend.” There’s a funny pitch to his voice.
That makes Umma perk up. She reaches for Dean and shakes his hand, too, smiling so warmly that he squints as if blinded. “Dean, then. It’s wonderful to meet you.”
Our mini family reunion catches Garrett’s attention, if him trying to slink away unnoticed is anything to go by. Vince steps over and plucks Garrett by the collar of his shirt.
“Don’t think you can run away without saying hello,” Vince says, patting him on the back hard enough that he stumbles forward.
Umma smiles pleasantly, but there’s a glint of something more in her eyes. “You weren’t trying to avoid us, were you?”
I prepare for a tense reunion. Dean does the same, watching closely. Umma can’t hold an ounce of resentment in her bones, obviously, but Garrett’s petty and dramatic to his core. Just look at his blazer.
Garrett feigns surprise, a noticeable sheen of sweat starting to cover his face.
“What? No! I didn’t even see you guys there.
Didn’t even notice you, that is. Notice that it was you,” he babbles, a hint of red on his cheekbones.
“Vince, you’re looking good. Jungeun, you’re more beautiful than ever.
Not that you weren’t beautiful back then, ’cause believe me, you were. I mean—how are you?”
My jaw falls. Garrett Sleazeball Moxley is melting into a flustered puddle of goo. Because of my mother.
“Are you seriously flirting with my mom?” I say, not hiding the disgust in my voice.
Garrett gives me a look like he would strangle me if Umma weren’t right there.
Vince leans back and laughs, holding his belly. “You haven’t changed at all, Garrett, even after all this time. Hey, what happened to keeping in touch? I sent you a few messages over the years. Too busy to make time for your old camp friends?”
Dean’s eyebrows raise, as if surprised by this information.
“Or,” Umma interrupts, “did the guilt of betraying us keep you from picking up the phone?”
Garrett shrinks into his blazer as if it could protect him from withering under her scrutiny. “Jungeun… Vince, I—”
Umma waves her hand. “It’s alright. That was years ago. I’m not angry.”
“Yeah. Water under the bridge,” Vince says.
There’s a wrinkle between his eyebrows, but then he looks at Dean, and it smooths out.
“Besides, you’re giving our kids the opportunity to finish what we started.
That’s what counts. Thanks for making sure Dean hasn’t fallen into a creek or frozen to death in the woods.
He’s not really the outdoorsy type. I was a little worried he’d—”
“Okay, yes, thanks, Dad,” Dean mutters, embarrassed.
A sharp look flits across Umma’s expression. She reaches out and holds one of Garrett’s hands. He looks down at her, his eyes wide. With her other arm, she wraps it around my shoulders and pulls me into her side.
“That’s right,” she says. “Thank you for giving our kids a fair chance.”
I’d pick up on what she means even if she weren’t squeezing Garrett’s hand so hard that his knuckles turn white. He didn’t give Umma or Dean’s dad a fair chance when he told them to go the wrong way in the final challenge.
Garrett looks briefly at me and Dean, his face creasing with remorse I didn’t think he was capable of feeling. He drops his head and squeezes Umma’s hand back.
Then Garrett steps away and awkwardly clears his throat.
“I better wrangle everyone up before Blake yells at me for slowing down the production schedule again. We’ll be heading down to set soon.
” Garrett turns to leave, thinks about something, then turns back around.
The tiniest smile ticks up on his face. It’s more genuine without his veneers spilling out.
“It really is good to see both of you again.”
Vince’s smile takes up his whole face. Umma, to my horror, blushes. “You too.”
He walks away then, stealing a megaphone from one of the crew members and yelling into it. “Wrap up the sentiments, campers—it’s time for the fourth challenge! Don’t worry, you don’t have to say goodbye to your families yet; they’re coming with us. Chop, chop!”
We all head down the path to the parking lot. It’s not until we’re settled in the back of the bus together that I bring up our conversation from earlier. “You were going to tell me something.”
Umma shifts in her seat. “First, don’t panic.”
“Well, now I might.”
Her lips flatten into a line. “I was let go from the grocery store last week,” Umma says. “I only have the hotel position now, and they’ve been giving me less and less hours these days.”
“What? Why would they let you go?”
“They were upset that I was taking time away from work for—” She cuts herself off.
“For what?”
“We don’t have to talk about it now. It’s not important.”
“Umma.”
Her pursed lips tremble. Eventually Umma gives in. “For all the meetings with the divorce attorneys and the court hearings. A… a date has been set to review custody over you, and I’ve been told it’s unlikely I’ll get full custody, not with my finances where they are.”
It feels like my entire core has been hollowed out. My lips mouth something, but there’s not enough air in my lungs to make the sound.
Umma pulls me back in for another hug, rubbing her hand over my shoulder blades relentlessly, almost as if soothing herself instead of me. “It’s okay. As long as I find another well-paying job before the hearing, it should be fine. It will be fine, ????”2
No. It’s not fine. It’s not.
They’re going to take me from Umma. They’re going to stick me with a man who’s never wanted me. They’re going to leave Umma all on her own.
“When’s the court hearing?” I pull back and ask.
“September twenty-fifth.”
That’s well after the season finale. If I win that cash prize, Umma will have everything she needs to prove to the judge that we’re financially stable on our own. But if I don’t…
She kisses my forehead and makes me look into her eyes, saying everything without uttering a single word.
Umma always has hope. It shines in her pupils.
It usually reflects back in mine, but right now, there’s a black hole in me sucking all the light away.
And the air. My breaths come shallow and quick.
As the bus starts rolling down the road, I can’t stop thinking about the possibility that in a few months, life for us may never be the same.
There might not be an us. If I don’t win the cash prize, the courts will order that I stay with Appa.
Umma will have to eat dinner alone most nights without anyone there to scoop an extra paddle of rice into her bowl because she doesn’t eat enough if I don’t make her.
She’ll watch her Korean variety shows all by herself because even though I don’t enjoy them, I always sit on the couch with her when she watches.
Who will keep the seat next to her warm?
And who will sing songs in the car to help ease her road anxiety?
My arms tingle in a way they never have before.
It’s like the blood in my veins is acid, popping and bubbling.
What if I lose? The thought makes me sick.
It’s a possibility I’ve always managed to fight off as doubt wriggling in the back of my head.
But I can’t pretend it’s not there. I let myself, for one moment, consider losing.
Picture myself boarding the bus and going home today. Or next week. Or at the finals.
No. No, I can’t let that happen. My leg shakes. The muddy river running next to the asphalt road outside the window is blurry through the panicked tears welling in my eyes.
I always wanted to win. But now I can’t lose. Or else I could lose Umma. Which means losing everything.
I won’t lose. I won’t lose. I won’t. I won’t.
I can’t.
Footnotes
1. I missed you.
2. Understand?