Nobody Like You

Operation A-HOLE

Yeju

I caught my mother drinking alone last summer.

It was the middle of the night, and she was slumped on top of the dining table with a near-empty sake bottle in her hand. When she turned to face me, her eyes were red and swollen.

I had never seen Mom cry before, and the sight triggered my fight-or-flight response. As usual, I chose 'fight'. I was ready to fight whoever or whatever made her cry.

The culprit turned out to be my father. Apparently, Mom had found out that Dad was flying all the way to Los Angeles just to meet this woman he had been talking to on Instagram. A much younger, much cuter woman.

Disgust filled me. I had just come back home to New Jersey, but I was ready to fly back to California with Mom at that moment. I formulated a plan: we would go to that meeting place, we would catch Dad in the act, and we would demand an explanation. It would be satisfying, cathartic, and it would take Mom's mind off the constant speculation.

And so we did. We flew to Los Angeles and followed Dad into that fateful cafe. Everything went downhill once we saw who he was meeting up with—not one, but three women, who looked even younger than me.

Before I could even throw up at the fact that my father might be messing with multiple girls, Mom rushed forward and started yelling at him. What transpired was a blur of events. Things were thrown. A scuffle involving the cafe employees. Screams and crashes of items. My head ached like never before.

Worst of all, I heard Dad's explanation.

He was not cheating on my mother. He had cheated on her twenty years ago. While my mother had been raising eight-year-old me all by herself, my father had been fucking a schoolmate at National Taipei University.

And now he was looking to reconnect with his long-lost daughter. Chloe, or whatever they called her. She was sobbing like crazy, as though she was the most hurt by all of this.

Hell no. The one most hurt was Mom. Mom, finding out that true love doesn't exist. That the person she trusted had lied for years. That the father I had was a cheating bastard. It was Mom, crying on the plane home, drinking alone at night.

And it was all my father's fault. And Chloe's. And all the other girls who were with her.

They fucking destroyed my mother.

And right now, one of those girls is here. In the apartment I live in. Standing in front of me. Staring at me with those bright, round eyes again.

The world spins around me; I am not ready for my memories to hit me this hard right after I wake up.

"It's you," I manage to say, gripping the door handle to stop myself from collapsing. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Her mouth drops open. A faint blush paints over her cheeks. "Oh... hello, I'm- I'm Lia. Nice to meet you."

This time, my mouth drops. Her voice is like... Honeycrisp apple. Sweet, clear, and subtly melodious. A voice you would hear on a morning radio.

I give her a once-over. She is wearing a simple blouse with jeans. Her posture is as proper as a pageant contestant, while her high ponytail is as smooth as a shampoo commercial.

Is she a fucking model or what?

I clear my throat. "Well, okay, whatever, hi, Lia. What are you doing here?"

"Oh..." Lia tilts her head. "Did... Yuna not tell you?"

"Yuna? Tell me what?"

I look around and see the bags strewn around the floor. Realization dawns on me. Shit. She's the new apartment mate? Los Angeles has a population of almost four million people, and Yuna has to choose her out of everyone? One of the people who broke my mother?