The Rockstar Who Loves Me

Song 7 ♫ Keep You Down

In a bid to escape Bryce as quick as possible, I joined Tae Yang in his car. As I strapped on my seatbelt, I saw the backseat of the Grand Cherokee was packed with shopping bags.

"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said you went shopping."

When he turned on the engine, the radio came to life blasting rock music. He turned it way down and said, "Yeah, I wanted to replace a few necessities after getting discharged."

"Discharged from where? The hospital or the army?" I asked.

"Army," was his response.

"I thought you were a musician?"

He nodded while driving us out of the mall's parking lot. "I am, but even musicians have to do their mandatory military service in South Korea."

That generated even more questions than I expected, and I spilled them out in a single breath. "Is that what you were doing in Korea? And wait, so you're not American? I thought you were, going by your accent."

"Thanks." He flashed me a high wattage grin. "It's probably because I've been living half of my life in this country. But no, I'm a South Korean citizen. Thus, I had to give almost two years of my life to the army."

"Huh." I leaned back on my seat, watching the city go by as we headed towards the restaurant. "Couldn't you have avoided that if you'd become an American citizen?"

Tae Yang shrugged. "Probably, but I didn't want to."

"Well, this has been a good lesson for me to remember that not every immigrant wants to forever turn their back on their home country."

"Do you?" he asked. As I thought about it long and hard, Tae Yang must have interpreted my silence as discomfort because he said, "I guess you don't have to answer that if it's insensitive."

"Nah, I already was totally out of line asking you about citizenship stuff. But since our friendship was turbo'ed by almost dying together, I figured what the heck." I sighed and rested my elbow on the door handle. "And to answer your question, I don't know... I guess. It's not like I have anything to return to in Venezuela."

"You're Venezuelan?" he asked, blinking at me as though it were the first time I appeared in front of him. "So is one of my best friends."

"Oh, look at that. Either the world is smaller than I thought or we're just everywhere now."

Definitely the latter. Mom and I had taken advantage of a tidal wave of exodus of people looking to escape the cancers infesting the country. But the real reason I left was because I could no longer deal with bad memories finding me in every corner.

No matter how much Tae Yang and I had bonded, it was too early for me to spill my failures at him.

"Do you miss it?" he asked me while we waited at a red light in East Colonial.

I hummed from my throat. "Hmm, sometimes and only certain things. I miss the beaches, for example. Florida beaches are just okay in comparison."

"Those are fighting words for anyone else but me, I don't enjoy the beach."

I gasped. "You monster."

Grinning, he said, "I get what you mean, though. There are a lot of things I miss about home, but I'm happier here."

Same. Chief reason being that no one knew I'd been in the Miss Venezuela. Not even Dawn, Quinta or stupid Bryce.

Speaking of, I said, "By the way, sorry about my asshole boss. I don't know what all that was about."