The Red Umbrella

The air was crisp that summer afternoon. The birds were chirping beautiful symphonies and the cool breeze made the loose leaves of the tree float freely in the air. The sky was bright and blue, I mean the weather forecast said it would be sunny all day long. It all changed, my view of that day; what was supposedly a great day quickly became dreadful.

“Idiot!” my eomma yelled through my bedroom door. My room was my only safe haven in this house with her. I ran there each time I heard her car pull up in the driveway, I ran and locked the door. But it wasn’t always like this; my relationship with my eomma. My appa was in the military, he was stationed in Saigon in the Vietnamese for the war. He wasn’t there for the duration of the whole war, he came the last year of the war -thankfully-. When it ended, he chose to use his money to travel east and winded up in South Korea. There he met my eomma; as if it were fate.

My eomma, however, was born in a rather poor family. Living in the outskirts of Daegu, farming day in and out. But even if that were the case, she was happy with her family. She loved picking the strawberries, she loved the animals she had to cater to. That was until she met my appa. Things changed, she changed. When you live in a box you are limited to the boundless world on the outside. My appa ripped it open and my eomma fell in love with the idea of freedom. The idea of wearing pants, of not having to limit her life to catering to her father and brothers, to put her needs first.

He was tall with beautiful dark skin while she had olive tan skin with beautiful sharp, almond eyes. Now looking back it was a match made in heaven, but then that was not the cause. Though her parents loved my eomma, they refused her to go see my appa. They didn’t want their Korean heritage to get ‘tainted’. That didn’t stop her, in fact, it fueled her to pack some clothes and meet my appa on a boat filled with war veterans.

They sailed away, leaving Daegu and Saigon in their past. They travelled around Asia, seeing things, meeting people, and eating all types of food. My eomma didn’t speak English by my appa was determined to learn Korean for her so he would be able to communicate with her- he learnt the basics but the language entirely-. Before they knew it they fell deeper in love, but that was a mistake. Their love was strong but it didn’t stop them from fighting, and yelling horrible things at each other; it didn’t stop but got worse when I was born. I mean of course, my parents broke up and left each other, they hardly knew each other when they first met each other. My eomma wanted to be independent and my appa wanted someone that would feed his ego.

I was rough when I was born. My appa didn’t have a job and had used up all the money he made in the war and my eomma couldn’t even speak the language. It was a mess, we hardly had a home, moving from shelter to shelter, home to home. We moved around Asia, specifically Japan. I often find myself looking back at their love story and seeing all the flaws, all the nos and all the ways things could have been better. I finally realized that my parents weren’t meant to be, but that doesn’t erase the fact my appa abandoned her and me on the ports of New Orleans. Leaving her to raise a child in a foreign country, with a language she could not speak and no way of making money. It’s scummy if you ask me, having to have to learn everything on your own while teaching someone else. I wanted to hate my appa when I heard he left my eomma for another woman and started a family; I wanted so badly to but my eomma simply said in her calm, soothing voice.

“Hajima, hajima…”

She grew and learned that love was foolish and that freedom comes with a price and she traded her family for a beautiful lie such as freedom. A lie that promised happiness, a lie that made her believe that the world was beautiful, a lie that left her on the ports of New Orleans. She had to fend for herself and me, on our way to Georgia my eomma was lied too countless times. She chose to trust, she chose to love and care for others that didn’t care for her existence. All that pent-up anger with no way to release, of course, she’d blow up at some point but not at me I always thought.

“I’m not an idiot!” I yelled back that summer afternoon, “It’s not my fault I look like appa!”

“Shut up!” she yelled back banging on my bedroom door, shaking my back pressed on it.

“No! I’m sick and tired of you! I hate you… I wish you weren’t my mom…” I yelled back with tears falling down my cheeks.

The silence that followed was the loudest, so quiet that it was loud. Slowly I hear her step back away from my door and I relax; the second mistake.

“Gaesaekki,” I heard her say under breath before slamming the door over and over again, “Asih, open the door!”

“No!” I yelled back. She shook the door so much it almost broke in half, I knew then I had to leave. I looked around my bedroom to see where I could hide or even escape. Just like that my safe haven was broken down, ripped open like what my appa did to my eomma. I looked at the clothes piled on the floor, the untucked bed, the stuffed animals scattered everywhere and I thought to myself “All this junk and no place to hide…”. I looked and looked with my eomma still banging on my door and right when she almost broke in I realized My window…I can escape from my window! And I did.

I’ll never forget the pain in my knees when I fell on the bushes around our porch. I ran and ran as fast as my little legs could take me and before I knew it I was lost. Surrounded by long trees and bushes, far from any sort of urban life. I looked like the pictures of Daegu my eomma showed me countless times, only I looked scarier. I looked around to where I came from and half expected my eomma to appear and bring me home; but alas no one was there, just the lonely trees dancing in the summer breeze.

Defeated, I looked up and sighed. The sky looked gray as if it were covered with clouds. I blink and feel a cool drop of rainfall on my face, prickling down my face. Then another, and another and then it started pouring.

“...great,” I mumbled to myself and looked at the cemented pathway and kept walking shoeless and in the pouring rain. The forecast said it’s sunny all day, I guess even the forecaster can make mistakes.

I walked and walked for what felt like 5 minutes until I saw a bench. So I chose to sit on the bench and wait for my eomma to come to get me; if she even cared to find me. I waited and waited and waited. I watched the rain gather on the cement creating paddles, the snails slowly sliding on the slippery grass, I watched the lamppost on the right of the bench turn on even though it’s still light out. I waited and watched life go on, watched how the squirrels ran up trees to shelter from the rain, watched how even the worms cared for each other while my mother could care less about me.

“I hate it here,” I said, my eyes fill with tears, tears that fell in my mouth, tears that tasted like salt. I sat there in the rain and cried my eyes out with my face in my hands, while the sky cried on me.

“Are you okay?” I heard a voice, thinking it was my imagination, so I ignored it, “If you’re fine, say so.”

I jerked my head up to a boy standing in front of me. He looked my age, he had a red umbrella with a large red hoodie and matching red shoes. I looked at him long and hard before saying:

“It’s none of your business!”

Unfazed and he turned and left, he disappeared as fast as he appeared. I watched him walk into the now-formed fog and watch all the red disappear. Staring in the direction he left I pressed my legs to my chest and thought why turned him away and wished I had. Before I knew it tears started falling down on my knees and stung the scratches.

The rain felt cold on my now-soaked t-shirt and was now trickling down my elbow. My straightened hair was now curled and my toes felt sore. I felt the rain on my skin long enough for me to be used to its feel, that was until I couldn’t feel it anymore. Realizing I had my eyes closed I opened them to see the boy with the red umbrella holding up his hood to me.

“You look cold,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.

I looked up to him and reached out to his hoodie.

“Thank you,” I said timidly.

Without an extra word, he turned to leave with his free hand in his pocket.

“Wait!” I shout without any intention. Just like that, he jerked his head back in my direction and lifted his umbrella so I could see his face, “Can you stay with me?”

He looked at me for a long time, long enough to make the hairs on my skin stand. After 5 minutes he sat beside me. What now? I thought. I look back at his hoodie in my hands and realize that it was getting soaked and I wore it fast to preserve the last bit of warmth it held. It smelled nice and warm, and lost its scent I don’t realize the umbrella was protecting me.

I look at him then at the red doom on top of my head. I watched the rain slowly racing down the curve of the umbrella and I watched how it fell had on the now dark gray cement.

Staring at the ground, I felt his sharp gaze on the side of my neck. I looked at him and our eyes met again, he had deep brown eyes with long lashes.

“Are you okay, now?” he said breaking eye contact.

“Define ‘okay’,” I said looking ahead at the wet trees and bushes.

“The feeling of contentment or satisfaction with one’s situation whether it be emotional or…” he was saying until he cut himself off.

“I don’t know…Am I satisfied with my life now? I have a mother that is insane and my appa has left to start a new family,” I said gripping the hoodie sleeve.

“...okay,” is all he said, then he went silent. I looked back at him and opened my mouth to say something but quickly closed it.

I asked him to stay and now I have nothing to say I thought.

“Why did you check up on me?” I said, turning my head to look ahead.

“Just because,” he said, unconsciously breaking all chances of conversation happening.

I sat there in the awkward silence, with the rain pouring louder and louder.

“Do you want to talk about what happened or are you still uncomfortable talking about it? he said, staring ahead.

I hesitated for a second before speaking, I mean even though he stopped to check up on me he was still a stranger. How could I spill my guts to a stranger I’ll never see again…but also isn’t that better than talking to a friend.

“My eomma is…a lot. That’s all,” I said, “I mean I know she loves me but sometimes I just…I don’t know. I just feel like I made her life miserable.”

I tightened the grip on the sleeve of the hoodie.

“I mean I wasn’t the reason why her life got hard, all her choices led up to me coming to existence, so why do I have to suffer when I had no choice in me being born?” I said turning my head to look at him and to my surprise, he was already looking at me.

“And now you feel guilty for being alive?” he said, still staring at my eyes; never wavering.

“Well, sort of. I mean I just want to exist without feeling like I’m selfish. I want to be a kid and make mistakes without having to think of every way my every action could affect my eomma.”

“You want to live, is that it?” he said moving closer to me. I nodded and moved away from him; just a nudge.

“I mean is that too much? I just want to be able to talk to her without her blowing up! I hardly see her because she works all day and I…I just…I hate her,” I said looking down at his and my hands’ inches away from touching. He had slender fingers and scars on his wrists. Before I had a good look at those scars, he shoves his hand in the pockets of sweatpants that are now soaked in rain.

“Hey! Get in the umbrella or you’ll be soaked!” I nagged and grabbed his arm to pull him under the red umbrella but he gently slipped his arm out of my grip.

“You seem uncomfortable with me being your personal bubble,” he said looking down at my feet, “Wait…you don’t have shoes? In this weather?”

I completely forgot about my bare feet that are now numb from the cold. I look back down at how my once brown skin now turned yellow and feel the cold.

“Hold this,” the boy said, giving me the umbrella and when I did he stood up and bent down to untie his shoes.

“What are you doing?” I exclaimed, trying hard to see what he was doing because his back was on me.

“Giving you my shoes,” he said, casually. Like he does this on a daily. I mean we talked for only 30 minutes but were still strangers who happened to cross each other’s paths.

“But then you’ll be cold,” I said, weirdly feeling sad.

He got up and turned to me with his hand out and a shoe in the other.

“I’m not going to wear your shoes. I mean I can’t, you’ll be cold and I’ll feel guilt-” I was saying but he interrupted me.

“Just give your foot,” he said, wiggling his fingers waiting for my foot. Reluctant, let my feet slowly unfold and feel the ache on my knees get louder. Gently he grabbed and placed my foot in his shoes, awkwardly I tried to protest and tell him I can do it myself but he ignored me and continued aways. His shoes were large on my small feet, I mean I was told I had large feet for my age but now I beg to differ.

After having to put his shoes on me, he, looking up to me, said:

“It’s okay for you to ask for help and it’s okay to receive help.”

Looking down at him, I could feel tears forming in my eyes but I quickly wiped them and thanked him. Again I saw those scars on his wrists, but before I could get a good look he quickly got up and sat back down to the bench. His gray crew sweater was now also soaked, a dark gray turning to a light gray going down. I slide down the bench to cover him with the red umbrella and when I do he looks at me with his dark brown eyes.

Without thinking, I said, “You have nice eyes.”

He smiled and looked away while I looked away with embarrassment. How could a simple interaction with this boy change my mood completely? Then we went silent once again, but this time the silence was soothing. Instead of feeling heavy to my chest, I felt light like the leaves flying the winds of the rain. The sound of the rain, the crickets, and the birds hid in the tree sang beautiful melodies. Timidly I looked back at the boy and realized I didn’t even tell him my name.

I remember I tried to say sometimes but he jumped up and turned to me.

“Let me show you sometime, that will guarantee to make you feel better,” he said, holding out his hand to me. I grabbed it and he yanked it out, “Not your hand, my umbrella.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling flustered. I gave him back his umbrella. When I got up, he squatted down and slipped off his socks which were damp from the water on the cement. Concerned I reach out to stop him but instead of stopping he grabs my hand and pulls me in the opposite direction of my house.

I looked back to the bench slowly vanishing in the fog and felt this eerie feeling go down my spine. I shook off the feeling and look ahead to his back which kinda towered over me. I wonder where we’re going. Then I realized that we were holding hands.

“Ahhh!” I yell out by accident and yank my hand out of his. He jumps and looks back kind of confused but mainly surprised, “Sorry, I…my hands are really sweaty.”

He looks at me with disbelief and grabs my hand again but for some reason, I don’t fight it this time.

“Your hands are warm,” he mumbled, while still looking ahead. The back of his ears slowly turned red when he said that. Ahhhh that’s cute, I thought, looking down at the path.

We walk in silence for a bit, and I start to realize that our surroundings slowly changed. From big trees that touched the sky to a flat meadow. The bushes were replaced with large grass and the animals were replaced with a sea of boundless flowers. Red, yellow, violet…flowers with all the colours of the rainbow. Dancing in the rain, reaching up as high as it can possibly reach. We stood there at the top of the meadow, I was looking at how the wind blew the flower petals in the air.

I remember I ran without thinking of a thing; I ran in the rows of the flowers. I didn’t care about the rain dripping down on me, I didn’t care about the mud; I just didn’t care. The closer you looked you could see the raindrop fall on the muddy ground, onto the worms, snails, and little crawling critters. But one thing grabbed my attention, an injured robin hiding under large grass.

I squatted down and stared at it, I completely forgot about the boy I was with. When I looked up to see where he was, he stood there staring at me from afar; still at the top of the meadow. I looked back down at the robin and gently placed my hands near it. I watched the robin look up in horror, but I never moved an inch; I waited for the robin to trust me. I waited for a decent amount of time until the robin meekly jumped on one leg to fall into my hands. I scoffed a bit, softly, and turned to walk back where the boy was.

I walked looking down at the robin, looking deep into its big, doe eyes. When the rain started to paddle in my hand, I quickened my pace. Before I even made it to the top of the meadow, I felt a cold hand cup around mine. The coldness made me shiver -but then again I was soaked from the rain-. I looked up to see who’s hand cupped mine and was met with the boy’s eyes. But he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at the injured robin in my hands.

It was weird. I was looking at him and I noticed things that I hadn’t before. Even though we talked for almost an hour, I knew nothing about this boy.

“Um… So why were you in the forest?” I asked, quickly lowering my gaze.

Silence. Long pause after my question, and I thought maybe I made him uncomfortable. After building the courage to speak up, I looked up at him.

“Today was my last day on earth. I was supposed to die an hour ago,” he said, looking down, still, at the robin.

“Oh god! Sorry…are you sick? Wait, if you didn’t die isn’t that a good thing”

“Well, in my case it’s unfortunate,” he said, slipping his grip off my hand and into his pockets to pull out something. Once again I saw those scars on his wrists, and before thinking I grabbed; scarring both him and me.

“What happened?” I asked, slipping my hand back to support the other holding the robin.

“I’m tired,” he said in an emotionless tone -one that I just realized he’s had our whole conversion- and finally he looked back and smiled, “living is tiring.”

“ I mean, yeah there are bad days but there are also good days,” I said, but for some reason, this boy made my heartache. Not in the way when eomma yells at me, but in a way, I can’t completely explain.

He stared at me and I realized he had cold eyes. Without saying anything, he grabbed my wrist, gently, and led me back to where I found the robin. No, we passed that place and went deeper into the meadow and walked up to a cabin. An abandoned cabin.

I hesitated a bit and pulled out my wrist from his. He turned back at me said;

“Either you freeze to death outside by yourself or we stay here in the warm and patch up the bird,” he said with a handout.

I mean, yeah it’s smarter to go into the cabin but what if it’s haunted? I’m only 13, I haven’t travelled to Paris yet, I haven’t been to prom… and my eomma would be concerned.

Before I could decide, I was at the entrance with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and the boy placing the robin onto a pillow.

The inside of the cabin looked less scary than what I’d imagined, it looked almost ‘livable’ dare I say.

“Wooow,” I mumbled while walking to the boy, “How’d you find this place?”

He shrugged and I felt a bit betrayed. I have no clue why this boy is here, and I feel I took so much already. I just want to return the help he gave me, those flowers really lifted my mood.

“So…what exactly did you mean by your last day on earth? Are you an alien? No, you’re a ghost…that would make sense since your hands are col-”

“I was going to jump off the Pierson Bridge,” he said, sitting down on the old couch.

The bridge was infamous for accidents and deaths in our town, but most of all suicide. I remember at some point eomma drove up that bridge at night time with me and almost drove into the river. I thought it was an accident when I yelled to stop, but later I found out she did it intentionally. When I asked my science teacher why anyone would do that, she looked at me and said;

“Because of stress, but if they tried to take someone with them then they had no courage to face death alone.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked the boy. He looked my age, at my age we hardly lived for long to experience such hardships. We can’t feel stressed, why would we?

“I wanted to end it,” he said as he got up to walk up to me. I was sitting across from him, on a larger couch and I also had the blanket.

“End what?”

“The voice, my feelings,” he wrapped himself in the blanket, “the voice telling me I’m not worth it.”

“But you are worth it,” I said quickly after he said that.

“How do you know that? You hardly know me.”

He was right, I mean who knows him better than his own inner voice. But I also know that not just anyone would stop to check up on me. I was half black and Korean, most people if they saw me sitting on the bench crying would avoid me. Then again, he was also a deep shade of light brown. Despite that, he even stayed with me and comforted me though I was a complete stranger; in my book, someone as kind as that is worth it.

“I know you’re kind, anyone who is kind is worth it,” I said, turning my head to look at him.

“I’m not kind,” he said looking at me. His once icy gaze burned into mine.

“People who claim they’re not kind are often those who are the kindest,” I said, moving closer to him.

“Well, I’m not. In fact, I’m probably the meanest person who’s ever walked the face of the earth,” he said, pulling his legs to his chest. Pressing his head onto his knee he said, “If I was nice I won’t get beaten up by Miguel, now would I?”

I was lost for words. Who is this Miguel and why would he hit someone else?

“Why did he hit you?” I said.

He said nothing and just turned his head to look out the window behind my head. I heard the rain falling harder than when we were outside. But I didn’t look back, I just stared at the boy in front of me and wondered; why? He seems so normal, if he’s in pain how did I not notice? I gently placed my fingers on my forehead to move the strands of hair out of his face. He looked back at me and smiled. And I felt my heart skip a beat and I quickly moved my hands back on my laps.

“He pissed me off, so I said some rather unkind words to him,” he said, still with a smile stuck on his face.

“Okay…so what prompted this fight,” I said, picking at my nail beds.

“My dad died in a drive-by, and I said something in the lines of ‘at least I have a dad that cares more about me than his job’”, he said and scoffed a bit at the end of the sentence.

“That was a mean thing to say,” I said and before I could have said anything else he said;

“He called my best friend a pig and told him to go back to the farm. I’ll admit my Deavon is a bit on the chubby side, but ‘pig’ was a bit extreme, considering he already had a shitty relationship with food,” he said, “I wonder how he’s been, I hope he’s okay.”

“I thought you said you were best friends…did you stop being friends?”

“Well, he seems uncomfortable whenever I’m around, almost as if he’s walking on eggshells…but he isn’t the only one,” and after that, his smile faded away completely.

“Wow, that must’ve hurt to lose your friend,” I said, looking up at him.

“Yeah, it did. But, hey, that’s just life,” he let out a shallow laugh after that last word. ‘Life’, something I want to experience but I can’t because I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. Now that I think about it, I’ve always walked on eggshells around eomma; not knowing what to say and how to say it. When I knew what to ask I ran to my room, when I saw my eomma wanted to talk or felt pressured I ran shamelessly to my room. I never got to ask her;

“Are you okay?” I asked the boy and watched his face change to a pained expression. Once again my heart ached, so to hide how I felt I pulled him in a hug. The sleeves of the hoodie were now damp but still cold, I hoped it didn’t bother him. He didn’t hug back so I figured maybe I made him uncomfortable. As a result, I backed off and got a glimpse of his crying face before he pushed me back into a hug. His arm warped me tightly, and so did I.

“It must have sucked not to be able to talk about how you felt,” I said, my face buried into the blanket draped on his shoulder.

“Yeah,” I heard a soft voice whisper into my ears.

“Do you wanna talk about it, or are you uncom-”, before I finished my sentence, he tightened his grip around my neck. We sat there for a bit of time, we stopped when I heard his steady voice near my ear.

“It stopped raining,” he said, letting his arms slide down onto the couch. I had no clue what time it was, it must have been hours since I left home. But, oddly enough a golden light hit the face of the boy. He almost gleamed, when he looked down at me I was speechless. The teardrops on his long lashes shined like glitter and his nose was a light red. He was so pretty to look at, and without thinking -notice this pattern of mine- I wiped the tears from his eyes.

We got up and what I saw was something I had never seen before.