Worth the Trouble ✓

25 | hate me

I DIDN'T THINK THERE COULD ever be a dinner more awkward than the one I shared with the Yamatos the day before Thanksgiving.

I was wrong. So, so wrong.

Today's dinner is the first time I've seen Suki's parents since the winter break. And it's skull-crushingly awkward because they now have no illusions of me sleeping with their teenage daughter.

It's also awkward because her parents have defaulted to speaking rapid Japanese, catching Suki in the crossfire. She refuses to exclude me from the conversation, so she answers in English, but that simply means I witness an odd unilateral dialogue.

Now that her parents know about the pregnancy, Suki has shed a lot of the impractical layers she wore to hide her bump. She wears a simple green sweater and baggy pants with a stretchy waistband. Her chopsticks dart elegantly between the dishes, while I clutch my knife and fork—her mother, Niko, again gave me a pair without asking—like a vanilla moron.

Niko notices that I've stopped pushing the fish around my plate, and flicks her shrewd eyes from it to Suki. She says something snappy, and then Suki sighs and turns to me.

"Have you finished eating?"

I nod. Niko spits out another authoritative sentence.

Suki translates, "Mom's going to clear away the dishes now."

I rise from my seat. "I'll help—"

Niko interrupts with a bark of Japanese, and Suki takes my hand.

She also rises from her chair, leading me out of the dining room. "Let's go upstairs."

"Okay."

Suki and I walk up to the second-floor landing.

As soon as we turn the corner, I toss a smirk over my shoulder. Her lips stay in that familiar tense line, but I still attempt anything that will lift them at the corners. "I don't know why you were worried. They clearly love me."

Suki shakes her head, forcing a chuckle. "They do, actually. They like you plenty. It's me they're annoyed at."

"Why?"

Her eyes flash with guilt, and she reaches for my sleeve. "Because. . . uh." She raises my hand to her forehead and facepalms with it. "I haven't broken up with you yet," she mumbles into my wrist.

That makes me pause on my way to her bedroom. I wrangle my hand free and trail it down her cheek, cupping satiny skin. "Don't worry. My Dad wanted me to dump you as well. But he's coming around."

"My parents aren't going to come around."

"I know it seems like that now, but just give them time. They're just scared and concerned for you. But I'm going to prove to them that they don't need to be," I reassure her. "I'll keep working, and if you like, I can even come over more often so they can get used to—"

"I'm leaving."

"Ha," I snort. "What?"

Suki steps away from me and flings open her bedroom door. I wander in and my blood turns to ice. Taped cardboard boxes in one corner, two wheeled suitcases in another, and blank walls.

"I'm leaving," she repeats.

"For how long?"

Silence.

I release a light-hearted laugh, but it sounds strangled. I sit down on her bed, gingerly, as if there's glass shards waiting to bite my ass, stunned. My windpipe is collapsing in on itself. Suki joins me, lowering herself just as carefully, pulling my hand over into her lap.