Sight Unseen

Chapter 5

"Wait! Wait! Go back!" Luna yelled. "Go back!" Yeonjun switched the channel back to the previous one where an incredibly sexy and curvy raven-haired woman was cooking.

"Oh, my god! I love Nigella Lawson!" she gushed. "I used to watch her when I was little. Can you believe she's 62 years old? She freaking looks 30!" Luna praised.

"Wow, she's really beautiful," Yeonjun agreed.

"The thing I love about Nigella is that she talks so much about food as pleasure. She isn't ashamed of her wide hips. She leans into that voluptuousness that she has going on. She really makes a point of stressing that food should not make us feel guilty. It should make us feel pleasure," Luna explained.

"So, her relationship with food is a positive one," Yeonjun remarked. "I think that's really hard for me because ever since I was young, I've been taught that being attractive is more important than being happy with food," he added.

"Yeah, but it doesn't have to be one or the other. I mean, look at her! She is objectively sexy as hell, and she eats what she likes. She's not afraid to use cream, butter, duck fat. Her only criteria is that is has to look good and taste good. I can respect that," Luna commented.

"I mean, she is really attractive. And it looks like she wears whatever she wants to. She's not worried about covering her curviness," Yeonjun said. "Honestly, she kind of reminds me of you," he added.

"Aw, well, I'll take that as a compliment," Luna replied. "Ever since I was little, I've always thought that a woman should wear whatever makes her feel good. Even if she has a big ass, it doesn't mean she can't wear tight skirts, or having big boobs doesn't mean she shouldn't be able to wear spaghetti straps," she opined.

Yeonjun nodded. "I see what you mean, but it's kind of hard to go against the flow when your culture tells you that only certain bodies are right and all the others are wrong," he lamented.

"Yeah, but isn't that what life's about? You have to tune out the negativity. I figure that ignorant people shouldn't have the right to comment on what I do. Uninformed people don't get the right to weigh in on my decisions," she declared decisively.

"It must be nice to be you," Yeonjun said wistfully.

When the program went to commercial, it was an ad for 60 Minutes. "Leslie Conner had the perfect life. She was a top student, a cheerleader, and a model until that fateful night when she found herself in the clutches of a serial killer. Tune in tonight for the rest of the story," the announcer said.

Luna coughed slightly. She put her hand on her chest as she began to have trouble taking in a full breath. She let out a high-pitched wheeze. Yeonjun looked at her in concern. He saw that her clear hazel eyes were open wide in desperation.

"Hey, look at me," Yeonjun commanded. "Look at me. Breathe slowly," he instructed. "Don't panic. You can breathe. Just take it slowly," he said, placing his hand over hers as it remained on her chest. After what seemed like an eternity, Luna was finally able to take in a full breath.

"What the hell was that?" Yeonjun asked as Luna lay her head down on his chest in exhaustion. "Do you have asthma or what?" he questioned.

"No, it was a panic attack," Luna explained.

"But why? We were just sitting here watching the show and suddenly you couldn't breathe," Yeonjun summarized the events of the past 10 minutes.

"It was the commercial that triggered it," Luna explained.

"But why?" he asked.

"I don't really like to talk about it," Luna replied. "It really upsets me," she admitted.

Yeonjun was silent for a moment, thinking back on the exercise they had done the last time they had been together. He had been uncomfortable showing his body to her, but once he had done it, he had found himself feeling freer and more accepting of his own body. He wondered if Luna might find the same freedom by actually verbalizing her pain. So, he pressed forward. "Maybe talking about it would help you to process it so that it would stop manifesting in your body," he suggested.

"Maybe," Luna admitted, "but it's really hard to say it out loud."

"Can you try?" Yeonjun asked as he stroked her wavy hair.

Luna sat up and looked at Yeonjun. Perhaps he was right. Maybe it was time to face this thing head-on. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"It was my last year of college," she began. "I was rooming with my best friend, Carly. We were like super --- super tight, you know. We did everything together," Luna said. "So, one night --- it was like 11:00, and Carly realized she had left her calculator at the student union. She would have forgotten her head if it weren't attached to her. Anyway, I was gonna get up and go with her, but she told me she could do it by herself. She didn't want me to go outside in the cold with my wet hair --- because I had just taken a shower," she continued.

Yeonjun reached for her hand and held it tight. He could tell that she still had not come to peace with the story just by the slightly disjointed way in which she was telling it.

"So, I stayed behind and did some school work," she went on. "I ended up falling asleep at like 12:30. Carly wasn't back, but I didn't think much of it. I called her, but she didn't pick up. She was like that, though. She would meet someone and get to talking for hours and never look at her phone. I figured she had bumped into one of her friends and was talking a mile-a-minute like she did," Luna continued.

Just then, Yeonjun noticed that Luna was wearing a rubber band on her wrist. She began to snap it against her wrist rhythmically.

"What's the rubber band for?" Yeonjun asked as he watched her curiously.

"It's a tool for managing anxiety," Luna explained. "It's basically a physical distraction to keep me from manifesting my anxiety in other parts of my body." Yeonjun nodded understandingly.

"Go on," he urged. He had a bad feeling about this story just from the way Luna had set it up. Her friend had gone out; Luna hadn't gone with her, and her friend had been out for a long time. It all added up to something suspicious, he thought.

"So, I didn't wake up until like 8:00 in the morning," Luna resumed her story. "Carly still wasn't there. I made some calls and walked to the student union, but I couldn't find her. By this time, I was starting to get worried. I called my RA and reported that Carly had not come back to the dorm." Luna paused. "Like, my RA didn't take it that seriously. She said Carly had probably met up with someone and gone back to their place to sleep. She knew that Carly was a little flighty like that. She liked going out late and partying. So, no one was too concerned about where she was. Everyone figured she would turn up like she always did," Luna said.

Yeonjun rubbed Luna's hand gently. "But she didn't; did she?" he asked.

"No," Luna whispered. For quite some time, she just sat, staring off into space in silence. Finally, she looked up Yeonjun.

"They found her ---," Luna managed to squeak out before collapsing in tears with her head on Yeonjun's hand which was still holding hers. He realized that Luna would not be able to finish her story by herself. Some things were too terrible to speak aloud. He understood in that moment that she simply couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Her body," Yeonjun finished the story for her. Luna nodded as sobs racked her body. Yeonjun pulled her onto his lap and rocked her gently like a baby, all the while, stroking her silky hair and wiping her salty tears.