April Loves Black Coffee: First Impressions (48 page)

I stop struggling in Sangwoo’s arms, letting the words seep into me.
Dead Girl. Misun.
I can feel Sangwoo’s emotions surging through his entire being for the love of his life. If seeing me hurts him so much–reminds him of her so much–why can’t he stay away from me?
Because he just can’t help himself. The pain she left him can only be relieved when Sangwoo finds a suitable replacement.
My conscience has her box of tissue out. My intuition is long gone. She doesn’t want to witness this.

He’s the perfect one for me. I love him so much! Nothing will ever separate us. I found love, May.
Her passionate voice and beautiful face surges through my mind. I am falling down a great precipice as the memories threaten to take over my entire being.

“May. Are you okay?” There is alarm in Sangwoo’s voice.

I nod as I feel the cool night air against my skin.

“I was going to call you,” I mutter. Before I can help it, the burning tears start to form. Damn it! I press my fingers on top of my eyelids to stop the burn.
But the tears continue to flow effortlessly.

“May.” Sangwoo wraps an arm around me. “Why are you crying?” Sangwoo asks softly.

“I-I–” I shake my head at a loss for words. I begin to sob. “I didn’t want her to die. I just wanted to forget her. After all these years, I wanted to let her go. I forced myself to believe that you wanted me for me, but all along you only wanted me because I reminded you of her. Why do you keep stringing me along, keeping me in the dark, and lying to the both of us?”

Sangwoo freezes. Slowly, he unhooks his arm around me.

Whether I am alcohol driven or not, I don’t care. Anguish and betrayal pound in my chest. I cannot control it anymore or I will lose the rest of my sanity. Ever since I met Choi Sangwoo, I have known this day would come. Denial can remove anyone from the truth, further than they can imagine. It is time that we should stop lying to one another.

“You want me to take you home?” Sangwoo offers. He wants to run. He wants to deny the impending truth.

“No! I have to tell you now.” I cling to his arms.  Tears are dampening my cheeks.

Sangwoo’s own eyes widen. “May, you don’t have to do this.”

I hold onto the sleeve of his shirt desperately. “I have to. Please, let me. I can’t keep pretending that I don’t know. I can’t keep having you lie to me. I’m tired of it. I deserve better than this. You don’t like me for me, and you know it. I remind you of her. Everything about me reminds you of her–my face, my physique, even my voice.”

Sangwoo’s jaw locks tight. His brown eyes become hooded and guarded. “May,” he starts again.

“You knew Lee Misun . . . didn’t you? Do you remember her the way I do?” I am desperate for him to understand this dark past of mine. “Lee Misun was my stepsister. She was Eunhye’s biological daughter.”

I tell Sangwoo my truth.

_________________________

MY EARLIEST MEMORIES REVOLVE AROUND
the death of my mother. The living room was adorned in brown and black furnishing. The sobs circulated the house like musical notes rising and falling in a rhythmic pattern.

I was only nine-years-old at the time, lonely and scared. I was unresponsive to the hugs and kisses of the adults coming in and out of my home. Occasionally, I looked up at the large picture frame propped in the middle of the room. My mother’s glamorous and smiling face beamed down at me. Even though I was young, I knew about death. I knew that when a person dies, they don’t come back.

“Daddy, are you going to live with me now?” I asked him through teary eyes. There was an uncomfortable feeling in my throat from crying too much.

My father shook his head as he stooped down to my level. “No, honey. You’re going to live with me.” He pulled me into his arms, held me tightly and started to cry all over again. It was the first and last time I would ever see him with so much
emotion. I was too young to understand the magnitude of the situation.

The first time I met his
other
family, his wife on legal papers and their daughter was when I officially moved in. I was standing in the middle of the large, lavishly decorated living room lit with fluorescent lighting and the smell of Jasmine tea.

Lee Eunhye, my father’s first and only wife, hunched over to look at me. Her kind eyes matched her soft caress on my burning cheeks. “She looks exactly like Misun.”

“Eunhye.” My father touched her shoulders. The recent events have caused him great strain and stress. “I’m all she has.” He took Eunhye’s hands into his palms and said, “We’re all she has.”

Eunhye stared at my father with an indescribable look. “Of course.” Right from the beginning, Eunhye was never a heartless or
a cold woman toward me. Eunhye kissed the top of my head and hugged me tightly. Eunhye spoke softly to my father. “You hid everything for all these years, and now you bring home a little girl.”

My father didn’t answer her. Instead, he pressed Eunhye’s palm onto his lips. It was a sign of remorse and apologies rolled up into one gesture.

Eunhye bit her lower lip as her eyes welled up. “What should I do Hyun?”

“Please.” My father was anguished.

Eunhye had her eyes pinned to me. “Maybelline, you’re my daughter now.” Eunhye tightened her embrace around me.

Now that I’m older, I know the reason behind the strained meeting. My father was pleading with his wife to take me in–to adopt me as her own. At the time, I hated Eunhye. Most of all, I hated my father. I hated everything that had to do with his home. All of a sudden, I was now living with him. For nine years, I lived with my biological mother in a little apartment that my father paid for. At a young age, I didn’t realize that my biological mother was my father’s mistress. She was his best-kept secret for nine years until she died. The little family with my mother was all I had ever known. I always thought that fathers didn’t live with mothers and daughters. But after my biological mother’s death, I understood I was the
other
woman’s child–the half-sister of Lee Misun.

I first met Misun two days after my mother’s funeral. Eunhye took the necessary steps to introduce me to my cold half-sister. Misun recently returned from boarding school and was seven years older than me. 

“Misun, why don’t you say hi to Maybelline?” Eunhye introduced us. Misun stared at me with dark eyes and pursed lips. We could have passed as twins. At the time, dressed in her school uniform, Misun was already a tall and mature seventeen-year-old. Misun’s hair was always dark, long and layered. The halo formed around her face accentuated its oval shape, light brown eyes, and heart-shaped lips. She was beautiful beyond measure.

“Who is she?” Misun addressed our father.

“Your sister.” My father narrowed his eyes at her. “May will be living with us from now on.”

Misun stared at me for the longest time. Instead of a warm and welcoming smile, she turned on her heels and stalked upstairs. 

I looked at my father hoping for an explanation, but the fallen look on his face told me I was not going to get one. I assumed that Misun’s cold and isolating behavior would result in her ignoring me entirely. However, I got a good dose of reality when Misun approached me that night. I was climbing into bed when she turned up in the bedroom we shared.

“So, you’re the whore’s daughter.”

I turned and made eye contact with my half-sister. Misun watched me with an intense facial expression. She had cold, arctic eyes for such a beautiful girl.

“What did you say?” I asked. At the age of nine, I wasn’t sure what the word whore even meant. But when its intonation was coupled with Misun’s disgusted facial expression, I just knew it was a bad word.

“Your mother is a whore,” Misun repeated with disdain. “You know–a woman who opens her legs for men. A home-wrecker. A mistress.”

I could only stare at Misun in shock. How could someone be so cruel and hateful towards me? I wanted to fire something back, but I was too young and overpowered by her.

“You girls aren’t asleep yet?” On cue, my father showed up at the bedroom door.

“Yes.” Misun flashed a forced smile at him. “Good night daddy.”

Taking my chance to escape her, I crawled into my bed and pulled the covers over my head. I held my breath when I heard the bedroom door close and Misun’s footsteps. I was always a quiet and mousy child. I was no match for my older half-sister who had a fiery personality and behavior.

“Get up!” She yanked the covers off me.

“Wha–?” I sat up in bed and stared at her. “Leave me alone!”

Without warning, Misun threw my pillows onto the floor. “You’re sleeping on the ground.”

“There are two beds. You get your own bed, I get mine.” I pointed out.

“You’re sleeping on the ground!” Misun narrowed her eyes at me. Her beautiful face contorted into harrowing features. With one more swipe, Misun successfully threw my blanket on the ground. I growled at her, refusing to let her bully me. “Give me back my pillow and blanket.”

“You’re sleeping on the ground!” Misun grabbed me roughly, tossed me on the ground, and threw the covers on me. She slapped a pillow against my head, strong enough for me to twist to the side. “You’re not wanted here and you’ll never be wanted here. What gives you the right to come into my house and take my things?” Misun leered in front of my face.

I sniffled, not wanting to her to see me cry. “Why are you doing this to me? What have I done? I hate you!”

Misun narrowed her eyes at me. She bit down on her bottom lip in disgust. “You’re not going to be living here long, so I don’t care if you like me or not.”

At age nine, after losing my biological mother and having my entire world turned upside down, I cried myself to sleep that night. I felt helpless, scared, and hopeless. I just couldn’t understand why Misun hated me. Although it was hard for me to adjust to it, I was desperate to make some sense. Days passed, weeks went by, and months accumulated. I cried myself to sleep every night because I missed my biological mother so much that it hurt. Nothing from that point on ever felt the same. Nothing felt worth it. Although my father took me in, he never
attempted to develop a relationship with me other than being my disciplinarian. Eunhye, on the other hand, opened her heart and treated me as though I was her own. But Eunhye became blind and deaf when it came to how Misun treated me. How could I compete with her biological daughter?

Misun came home one afternoon with a basket of two kittens. My father bought it as an early birthday present for her. Misun was over the moon about the precious kittens.

“Mother, look, aren’t they beautiful?” Misun showed Eunhye.

“Oh my god, aren’t they a sight?” Eunhye cooed at the small, white kittens. “They’re sisters?”

“Yes, but you see this one is darker and this one is lighter. They have the same mother, but different daddies.” Misun gave me a look.

“May, why don’t you come look at them?”
Eunhye motioned for me to join.

Before I could lean across the table Misun interrupted me. “Daddy, look!”

“Honey, we’re eating. Why don’t you put them in the living room?” My father put down his newspaper long enough to redirect Misun.

“We should get more animals. This house feels so empty with just the four of us,” Eunhye suggested.

“Come on kitties. Get down from the table.” Misun ushered the kittens down the table.

At the same, I was reaching for a spoon. Without warning, Misun pushed one of the kittens into my hand. It happened too quickly for me to register.

“Ow!” I jerked my hand back when I felt its tiny claws digging into my hand.

“Meow!” The kitten screeched as it landed on the floor with a thud.

“Are you okay May?!” Misun reached for my hand to examine the scratch.

I pushed her away from me. I hated how Misun pretended to care about me in front of our parents. I didn’t understand her reasons for being so fake.

“May,” My father warned. “Your sister is only trying to help.

“I hate her!” The nine-year-old in me vehemently remarked.

As soon as I said it, I appeared to be the defiant and dangerous daughter. Eunhye had a terrified look on her face while Misun’s lips pursed together. My father ordered me to finish my food in my room. I was not welcomed at the table with that type of behavior. I went to sleep hungry that night.

At the same time, Misun started the pattern of sneaking out of the house. Around one in the morning, she would tap on the bedroom window to wake me. My job was to open the window for her to climb through. One night, I overslept and left her outside for thirty minutes before I heard her knocking.

“You stupid kid! I reminded you so many times!” Misun grabbed a handful of my hair when she made it through the window.

“I didn’t hear you!” I whimpered.

“Do you have any idea how cold I am?! I could get sick and die!” Misun threw me onto the floor. I hit the carpet with a thud; the pain shot down my back. “Ow!” I rolled and knocked into the basket where the two kittens were resting.

They both screeched and jumped. I landed on one of them and heard the body of the small creature crush under me. “No!” I gasped in horror.