It started with a letter (JenLisa AU) COMPLETED

Chapter 13: This is My Family

Lisa got off the subway and self consciously fixed her bucket hat and sunglasses. Chaeyoung was right behind her but with her dark black jacket and short pants, long hair over her eyes and pale skin no one would think twice about Chaeyoung. She was just some random Goth kid.

But Chaeyoung was not Goth.

She made that very clear to Lisa when they first met.

"Why do we always take the subway?" Chaeyoung complained as they had gotten stuck in the tunnel for an extra fifteen minutes... or at least that was what they had deciphered from the voice on the intercom which sounded more like a monster than a voice.

"Because... it makes me feel normal," Lisa said hesitantly as she looked around at the people who sat in the subway, sighing. To them it was just another delay, something keeping them from work, or from school, or from family. Behind each of the different faces there was a story, a story that Lisa wanted to know.

W4W: When I walk down the street and I see a person I remember one thing: everyone has a story. Everyone has gone through something hard, something that has changed them in one way or another. I may not be able to see it on the outside but its there on the inside and they feel it and they're hurting from it so I have to remember I can't judge them. They're going through something just like me.

She looked at the man who sat across from her, his face focused on a text message or email he had received on his smart phone, what was his story? Or what about the woman who was gripping onto a pole, clutching the hand of a little child? What was hidden behind those calm masks? They probably rode the subway every day, not even stopping once to think about what they were doing. No one else probably gave them a second glance.

And yet they were human. They were living beings who deserved to be noticed, who deserved to have their stories be told. Before she had read those letters she wouldn't have given a second thought about those people on the subway, she probably would have thought that the kid was an annoying brat and the man was a workaholic. Now she saw people, she saw people living, having their own stories just like she did.

And for some weird reason, she cared now.

Her world was bigger than just a population of one: herself. Now it involved people around her.

When they finally got out from underneath Seoul, Lisa and Chaeyoung headed down the street towards the Manoban Family apartment. The first thing Lisa had done with her money from her music was buy a better apartment for her family.

A much better apartment.

Before Sally Manoban was working at a candy store at Grand Central Station just to squeeze by. When she had been married to Smelly Gabe as Lisa had dubbed her step-father, Sally's job was what kept them afloat. How Gabe had managed to keep his job as manager of an electronic store, would remain a mystery to Lisa.

Sally would work early mornings to late nights, coming home tired and yet she never once raised her voice when Lisa and Gabe got into an argument... which was often, she always had time for Tyson and his ramblings about his school, she always had time to be a mom.

And that was why Lisa believed that she deserved everything in the world. Everything.

One day, Smelly Gabe didn't come home from the bar. The next day the police officers showed up at their doorstep with the "tragic" news. There had been a brawl and Gabe didn't make it out. They had offered them their condolences.

That night, Lisa celebrated.

Things finally started looking up when Sally met Marco Jackson, an English teacher at Seoul High School. Lisa thought he was a good match for her mom.