Chapter 25
Over the next four months, I attempt to pick up the pieces of my life.
After another day in the Bangkok hospital, I'm deemed healthy enough to travel, and I go home, back with my parents. We have two FBI escorts on our trip home—Agents Wilson and Bosovsky—who use the twenty-hour flight to ask me even more questions. Both of them seem frustrated because, according to their databases, Lisa Manoban simply doesn't exist.
"There are no other aliases you've heard her use?" Agent Bosovsky asks me for the third time, after their Interpol query comes back without any results.
"No," I say patiently. "I only knew her as Lisa. The terrorists called her Manoban."
Sorn's guess about the identities of the men who stole us from Lisa's clinic turned out to be correct. They were indeed part of a particularly dangerous Jihadist organization called Al-Quadar—that much the FBI had been able to find out.
"This just doesn't make sense," Agent Wilson says, his round cheeks quivering with frustration. "Anyone with that kind of clout should have been on our radar. If she was head of an illegal organization that manufactured and distributed cutting-edge weapons, how is it possible that not a single government agency is aware of her existence?"
I don't know what to tell him, so I just shrug in response. The private investigators my parents hired hadn't been able to find out anything about her either.
My parents and I had debated telling the FBI about Lisa's money, but ultimately decided against it. Revealing this information so late in the game would only get my parents in trouble and could potentially cause the FBI to think that I had been Lisa's accessory. After all, what kidnapper sends money to their victim's family?
By the time we get home, I am exhausted. I'm tired of my parents hovering over me all the time, and I'm sick of the FBI coming to me with a million questions that I can't answer. Most of all, I'm tired of being around so many people. After more than a year with minimal human contact, I feel overwhelmed by the airport crowds.
I find my old room in my parents' house virtually untouched. "We always hoped you'd be back," my mom explains, her face glowing with happiness. I smile and give her a hug before gently ushering her out of the room. More than anything, I need to be alone right now—because I don't know how long I can keep up my 'normal' facade.
That night, as I take a shower in my old childhood bathroom, I finally give in to my grief and cry.
Two weeks after my arrival home, I move out of my parents' house. They try to talk me out of it, but I convince them that I need this—that I have to be on my own and independent. The truth of the matter is, as much as I love my parents, I can't be around them twenty-four-seven. I'm no longer that carefree girl they remember, and I find it too draining to pretend to be her.
It's much easier to be myself in the tiny studio I rent nearby.
My parents try to give me what remains of Lisa's gift to them—half a million with small change—but I refuse. The way I see it, that money had been for my parents' mortgage and I want it used for that purpose. After numerous arguments, we reach an agreement: they pay off most of their mortgage and refinance the rest, and the remaining money goes into my college fund.
Although I technically don't need to work for a while, I get a waitressing job anyway. It gets me out of the house, but is not particularly demanding—which is exactly what I need right now. There are nights when I don't sleep and days when getting out of bed is torture. The emptiness inside me is crushing, the grief almost suffocating, and it takes every bit of my strength to function at a semi-normal level.
When I do sleep, I have nightmares. My mind replays Sorn's death and the warehouse explosion over and over again, until I wake up drenched in cold sweat. After those dreams, I lie awake, aching for Lisa, for the warmth and safety of her embrace. I feel lost without her, like a rudderless ship at sea. Her absence is a festering wound that refuses to heal.
I miss Sorn, too. I miss her no-nonsense attitude, her matter-of-fact approach to life. If she was here, she would be the first one to tell me that shit happens and that I should just deal with it. She would want me to move on.
And I try . . . but the senseless violence of her death eats at me. Lisa was right—I didn't know what real hatred was before. I didn't know what it was like to want to hurt someone, to crave their death. Now I do. If I could go back in time and kill the terrorist who murdered Sorn so brutally, I would do it in a heartbeat. It's not enough for me that she died in that explosion. I wish I had been the one to end her life.
My parents insist that I see a therapist. To pacify them, I go a few times. It doesn't help. I'm not ready to bare my heart and soul to a stranger, and our sessions end up being a waste of time and money. I'm not in the right frame of mind to receive therapy—my loss is too fresh, my emotions too raw.
I start painting again, but I can't do the same sunny landscapes as before. My art is darker now, more chaotic. I paint the explosion over and over again, trying to get it out of my mind, and every time it comes out a little different, a little more abstract. I paint Lisa's face, too. I do it from memory, and it bothers me that I can't quite capture the devastating perfection of her features. No matter how much I try, I can't seem to get it right.
All of my friends are away at college, so for the first couple of weeks, I only speak to them on the phone and via Skype. They don't quite know how to act around me, and I don't blame them. I try to keep our conversations light, focusing mostly on what's been happening in their lives since our graduation, but I know they feel strange talking about boyfriend troubles and exams to someone they see as a victim of a horrible crime. They look at me with pity and disturbing curiosity in their eyes, and I can't bring myself to talk to them about my experience on the island.
Still, when Chahee comes home from the University, we get together to hang out. After a few hugs, most of the initial awkwardness dissipates, and she's again the same girl who was my best friend all through middle school and beyond.
"I like your place," she says, walking around my studio and examining the paintings I have hanging on the walls. "That's some pretty cool art you've got there. Where did you get these from?"
"I painted them," I tell her, pulling on my boots. We're going out to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. I'm dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a black top, and it feels just like old times.
"You did?" Chahee gives me an astonished look. "Since when do you paint?"
"It's a recent development," I say, grabbing my trench coat. It's already fall, and it's starting to get chilly. I had gotten used to the tropical climate of the island, and even sixty degrees feels cold to me.
"Well, shit, Jennie, this is really good stuff," she says, coming up to one of the explosion paintings to take a closer look. Those are the only ones I have up—my Lisa portraits are private. "I didn't know you had it in you."
"Thanks." I grin at her. "Ready to go?"
We have a great dinner. Chahee tells me about going to college and about Jason, her new boyfriend. I listen attentively, and we joke about boys and their inexplicable need to do keg stands.
"When are you applying to college?" she asks when we're mid-way through dessert. "You were going to go local at first. Are you still planning to do that?"
I nod. "Yes, I think I'm going to apply for the spring semester." Although I can now afford to go to any university, I have no desire to change my plans. The money sitting in my bank account doesn't seem quite real to me, and I'm strangely reluctant to spend it.
"That's awesome," Nayeon says, grinning. She seems a little hyper, like she's overly excited about something.
I soon learn what that something is.
"Hey, Jennie," a familiar voice says behind me, just as we're getting ready to pay our bill.
I jump up, startled. Turning, I stare at Hanbin—the boy I had been on the date with that fateful night when Lisa took me.
The boy Lisa had hurt to keep me in line.
He looks almost the same: shaggy dark-streaked hair, warm brown eyes, a great build. Only the expression on his face is different. It's drawn and tense, and the wariness in his gaze is like a kick to my stomach.
"Hanbin . . ." I feel like I'm confronting a ghost. "I didn't know you were in town. I thought you were away at Michigan—"
And then I realize the truth. Turning, I look accusingly at Chahee, who gives me a huge smile in response. "I hope you don't mind, Jennie," she says brightly. "I told Hanbin I was coming to see you this weekend, and he asked to join me. I wasn't sure how you'd feel about that, given everything—" her face reddens a bit, "—so I just mentioned that we'd be here tonight."
I blink, my palms beginning to sweat. Chahee doesn't know about the beating Hanbin received because of me. That little tidbit is something I disclosed only to the FBI. She's probably afraid that seeing Hanbin might bring back painful memories of my abduction, but she can't possibly guess at the nauseating swirl of guilt and anxiety I feel right now.
Hanbin knows I'm responsible for the assault, however. I can see it in the way he looks at me.
I force myself to smile. "Of course I don't mind," I lie smoothly. "Please, have a seat. Let's get some coffee." I motion toward the seat on the other side of our booth and sit down myself. "How have you been?"
He smiles back at me, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners in the way I found endearing once. He's still one of the cutest guys I've ever met, but I no longer feel any attraction to him. The crush I had on him before pales in comparison to my all-consuming Lisa obsession—to the dark and desperate craving that makes me toss and turn at night.
When I can't sleep, I often think about the things Lisa and I used to do together—the things she made me do . . . the things she trained me to want. In the dark of the night, I masturbate to forbidden fantasies. Fantasies of exquisite pain and forced pleasure, of violence and lust. I ache with the need to be taken and used, hurt and possessed. I long for Lisa—the person who awakened this side of me.
The woman who is now dead.
Pushing that excruciating thought aside, I focus on what Hanbin is telling me.
"—couldn't go into that park for months," he says, and I realize that he's talking about his experience after my abduction. "Every time I did, I thought about you and where you might be . . . The police said it was like you vanished off the face of the planet—"
I listen to him, shame and self-loathing coiling deep inside my chest. How can I feel this way about a person who did such a terrible thing and hurt so many people in the process? How sick am I to love someone capable of such evil? Lisa was not a tortured, misunderstood hero forced to do bad things by circumstances beyond his control. She was a monster, pure and simple.
A monster that I miss with every fiber of my being.
"I'm so sorry, Jennie," Hanbin says, distracting me from my self-flagellation. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you that night—"
"Wait . . . What?" I stare at him in disbelief. "Are you crazy? Do you know what you were up against? There's no way you could've done anything—"
"I should've still tried." Hanbin's voice is heavy with guilt. "I should've done something, anything . . ."
I reach out across the table, impulsively covering his hand with my own. "No," I say firmly. "You're in no way to blame for this." I can see Chahee out of the corner of my eye; she's twiddling with her phone and trying to pretend she's not here. I ignore her. I need to convince Hanbin that he didn't screw up, to help him move past this.
His skin is warm under my fingers, and I can feel the vibrating tension within him. "Hanbin," I say softly, holding his gaze, "nobody could've prevented this. Nobody. Lisa has—had—the kind of resources that would make a SWAT team jealous. If it's anybody's fault, it's mine. You got dragged into this because of me, and I am truly sorry." I'm apologizing for more than that night in the park, and he knows it.
"No, Jennie," he says quietly, his brown eyes filled with shadows. "You're right. It's her fault, not ours." And I realize that he's offering me absolution, too—that he also wants to free me from my guilt.
I smile and squeeze his hand, silently accepting his forgiveness.
I wish I could forgive myself so easily, but I can't.
Because even now, as I sit there holding Hanbin's hand, I can't stop loving Lisa.
No matter what she had done.