Eyes Full Of Stars || Park Sunghoon

35 ¦ Believe you?

Although the food smells wonderful, I am merely poking at it as I sit at the same table with Teresa, my mother, and Sunghoon and eat dinner. While Teresa and my mother just continue to live their lie, it is unbearable for me to even sit at the same table with them and watch them do it. It's hard for me to hide from them the anger and disappointment that has been building up inside me, and I'm sure it won't take much for all those emotions to burst out of me.

"Don't you like it?", Teresa asks when she notices that I have barely touched my food. With my lips pressed together, I clutch the fork in my hand a little tighter. How could they lie to my face all my life and not even begin to feel bad or ashamed about it?

"I'm not hungry," I reply in a shaky voice. "Is it the salmon? You didn't like salmon when you were a kid," Teresa reminds me, winking across the table at me. "Actually, it's because I've been lied to all my life by the very people I trusted with the most," it bursts out of me, as I can't hold it in any longer.

The smile on Teresa's lips fades, while I see pure panic in my mother's gaze, if you want to call it that. "What are you talking about?" asks Teresa, as if she doesn't quite know what I'm talking about. I am sitting directly across from her and yet she has the audacity to lie to my face.

Suddenly I feel Sunghoon's hand reaching for mine under the table and squeezing lightly, as if to symbolize not saying anything to me. But I am too angry to remain silent now and continue to watch myself being lied to.

"What I'm talking about?", I repeat Teresa's question and laugh in disbelief. At that, I shake off Sunghoon's hand and shoot up from my chair. "I'm talking about you being my birth mother and daring to keep lying to my face."

"You told her?", Teresa now asks Sunghoon, who is sitting next to me with his eyes lowered, massaging the bridge of his nose. "He didn't have to," I reply, ignoring the fact that the woman who has been pretending to be my mother for the past 20 years has burst into tears. "I heard your conversation last night."

Now Teresa rises from her chair as well. "Believe me-," Teresa puts in and goes to reach across the table for my face, but I take a step back. Shaking my head, I look into Teresa's green eyes, which I inherited from her. So does the brown hair she wears pinned up.

"Believe you?", I interrupt her, snorting contemptuously. "We can see where that's gotten us now." My voice trembles and my chest rises and falls erratically. Since I can't stand being in the same room with them any longer, I throw my fork on the table and storm out of the dining room.

I run up the stairs to my guest room, where I throw myself on the four-poster bed and pull my legs up against my body, crying. Inwardly, I hoped that all of this would turn out to be just a big misunderstanding. However, after this conversation with Teresa, I now have the unwanted certainty; I am not my mother's daughter, but Teresa.

Sunghoon knew and didn't tell me, but I don't blame him anymore. It was her responsibility to tell me the truth after I was raised to be honest all my life. Now it's out. Now it's real.

A soft knock sounds at my door and Teresa pokes her head into my room. "Go away," I whisper, averting my gaze from her. "At least let me explain, Lola," Teresa pleads with me. But I'm tired of hearing how complicated everything is, or that it's just for my protection. It doesn't make up for anything.

"What's there to explain?", I want to know and raise my eyes to glare disappointedly at Teresa. "You've been lying to my face all these years with no remorse." "We didn't mean to lie to you... It's just so damn-," Teresa continues. "Complicated?", I interrupt her. She nods and a snort escapes my lips.