Lia

  My heart is a messy, tangled yarn.

  I’ve never felt this way before—so full of conflicting emotions, none of which I can pce a name to.

  What is this feeling? This is worse than when I was in my lowest times. I am not sad, or angry, or annoyed; I am all of those and none of those at the same time.

  My head sms against the couch as I let out a frustrated sigh. Why am I feeling this way?

  It must be because of the Thanksgiving holiday. I am used to feeling a certain way at home and another way with Yeju, and these feelings constantly cshed when Yeju was in the house. The yarns of my mind were tugged back and forth, and now they are in utter chaos.

  It made me so irritable too. Guilt crawls in me as I remember how many times I snapped at Yeju on the first night back home. I apologized the next morning—and the rest of the holiday was wonderful—but I know it solved nothing. The war inside my heart persisted and grew.

  Argh, maybe I shouldn’t have invited Yeju over. We weren’t ready.

  My chemistry textbook falls to the ground as I roll over on the couch. Oh well, nothing is going into my brain anyway.

  I grab my ptop and open my web browser. Back to my quest of reading up more about colibactin.

  The door opens. I twist around to see Yeju taking off her shoes.

  “Oh, you’re back early,” I remark.

  “Yep, I just went to the b for a quick wrap-up of things.” She drops her backpack; it thumps on the floor like a heavy sack of potatoes. “Now, all I need to do is to finish up my thesis. Gotta pump it out by the end of the year. The deadline is getting really close now.”

  “Congrats again, Yeju.”

  “Thanks, babe.” She jumps to the spot next to me and wraps her arm around my waist. “What are you working on?”

  “Oh! I’m trying to help you!” My smile widens as I turn my ptop to show her what I’ve been doing. “You told me you needed to include an extensive literature review in your thesis, so I’ve been finding a bunch of papers for you to include. I love reading them so I figured I can help you write a little while I’m at it, and then you can edit it after—“

  “Wait, wait, Lia.” Yeju’s body stiffens. Her strained voice is a spsh of cold water on my excitement. “You- You shouldn’t have… You can’t…”

  “Huh, why? I know I haven’t been helping as much with b work, but I enjoy reading and writing. I can help you with this!”

  “But you…” Yeju’s eyes dart away. “You can’t work with me anymore.”

  I stare at her, desperately hoping for her to take that statement back. It can’t be true… can it?

  But Yeju just has to pop my bubble. “I, uh, met with Victoria just now,” she continues, “and she’s going to give you a new project to work on. We can chat about that now if you’d like. I can help you find something—“

  A tear escapes my eyes and halts Yeju mid-sentence.

  “L - Lia?”

  “Are you pushing me away?” I croak.

  Yeju sits up. “No, of course not! It’s- It’s for the best! Don’t you want to keep doing experiments? I’m leaving the b soon.”

  “But I thought I’ll at least be able to help you one st time. I love this project, you know that.”

  “I do know that.” Yeju wipes the tear off my cheek with her thumb. “But Victoria and I chatted, and she wanted us to be on different projects—“

  “So she told you about changing my project and you just agreed with her?” Indignation rises within me. “You know, when she emailed me a few months ago about the other projects I could do, I stood by you and your project. Why can’t you do the same for me? I thought you liked working with me. I thought I was helpful!”

  “You are helpful and I do like working with you!” Yeju’s expression is frenzied and wild. “And it’s not that I didn’t stand up for you, I just… Well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about changing your project anyway—“

  “Wait, you’ve been wanting to kick me out?”

  “No, no, not at all! I just mean, well, you haven’t been in the b too much recently—and I know it’s kinda my fault since I haven’t been teaching you a lot of the new stuff I was doing—and I thought you might like it more if you work with someone who can let you do more experiments…”

  More tears stream down my face. “You thought I might like it more, but you never asked me if that’s what I feel! Because if you did, you’d know that I still rather keep helping you! That I am interested in helping with the literature review!”

  “I’m sorry, Lia, I didn’t think—“

  “You never think to ask me about anything, do you? Because there are a lot of things I’m not okay with that you never check on, Yeju. Like keeping our retionship so secretive!”

  “I- Wait, what? I did ask about that, and you said you were fine with it.”

  “And I hated every second of it.”

  “Lia, you should’ve told me—“

  “Well, I’m telling you now!” The words are spilling out of me like my tears. I can’t help it; the dam is broken. “And I’m gonna tell you all of it right now. I’m also upset by how you don’t want to discuss your post-graduation pns with me. Why aren’t you telling me more about it? Or am I not going to be a part of it? And I hate how you always side with Romeo over Thanksgiving, even though I wanted you to be on my side. That’s the whole point of me inviting you over to my pce! To finally have someone on my side! Oh, and why is Yuna able to come into the apartment whenever she likes? It’s been months since she moved out and she still has the keys?”

  Every one of my compints seems to sp Yeju in the face. She blinks at the onsught. “Uh, I- I gave Yuna a spare key, just in case she left some of her things here…”

  “It has been months, Yeju. Are you that okay with people coming in and out of the apartment—our apartment? Oh, like that random girl you kept bringing over the first few days I moved in. I never saw her again after that week.” Blood pounds in my ears as I raise my voice. “Is she a pything for you? Is everyone? Do you always treat retionships so flippantly? Do you even want to be in a retionship with me?”

  An uncomfortable silence falls between us. For the next minute, the only sounds in the room were my raspy breaths.

  When I blink my tears away, Yeju’s crestfallen face comes into view. My heart shatters. The messy, tangled yarn inside me has snapped, and its broken pieces have been pouring out of me.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry, Yeju,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean that st part. I…”

  I want to hug her and kiss her. I want to cry my eyes out and apologize again and again. I want to go back to the blissful days together, where my mind isn’t a mess like this.

  But a boulder is pressing down on me, and the words in my tongue disappear into the shadows of my heart.

  Yeju takes in a long breath and slides a hand down her face. “Alright, let’s… correct this, okay? No more secrets from now on. I can talk to Victoria again to sort this out. I can talk to Yuna about the keys thing. We can… We can talk and work on this, just…” A deep, long sigh. “I have a lot going on right now, but if you give me some time, I promise…”

  Time. I gnce at her. Her back is hunched, and the bags under her eyes seem bigger than usual.

  “Maybe… we can talk more after you finish writing your thesis,” I offer. “I think… I think I need some space anyway… to… to deal with my thoughts.”

  There is another long pause before Yeju croaks, “Yeah, okay.”

  As she stands up, a chill rushes into my body. She trudges into her room and closes the door. My eyes linger on her. It has been months since she has shut herself in like this. Come to think of it, I have never been inside her room before; we’ve always been sleeping in mine. It’s almost like she doesn’t want to let me into her room.

  Like she doesn’t want to let me into her heart.

  Then, I hear Yeju’s voice. She must be talking to her mother. I can tell by the way she speaks—more uninhibited and exasperated. I can’t hear what she is saying, but whenever she talks to her mother, a wave of jealousy washes over me. Why can’t my mother be more like hers?

  And why am I feeling all the worst emotions today?

  The door opens. Our eyes meet, and we stare at each other for a long moment.

  Yeju breaks the silence. “Hey, so… I’m going back home to write my thesis. I’ll be back after the New Year for my defense.”

  “Oh.” I lower my head. I don’t know what I was expecting to hear, but this wasn’t it. “O- Okay.”

  “I’m sorry, Lia.”

  “It’s okay. I’m… sorry too.”

  “We’ll talk properly after I come back, okay? After we both get some space. I promise you.”

  I cannot bring myself to speak anymore, so I nod.

  When she returns to her room to pack, I retreat to mine. Slumping onto my bed, I cry into the pillow until I fall asleep.