You Can't Have It All

Chapter 20

            I watched Mr. Sean as he drifted off to sleep. He never let go of my hand until I saw the regular breathing of his chest. When I felt his grip loosening, I pulled my hand away and carried the basin of the now cold water and threw it down the sink. I went back to Mr. Sean’s room and sat against the headboard beside him, waiting for him to wake up or ask for something. Before I knew it, I dozed off.

            When I opened my eyes, I saw that the sky was already darker and that I was lying down on Mr. Sean’s bed, not sitting on it. I sat up quickly to notice that he wasn’t beside me. I jumped off the bed and searched the house for him, but I couldn’t find him. I started to panic. I looked outside, and his car was still out there so he can’t be out. I ran upstairs, as Mr. Sean came out of the bathroom. He stood still and looked at me, as I stared at him breathlessly.

            “Where’d you go?” he asked me.

            “I…err…” I stammered, as he held his head.

            “I’m still feeling a little dizzy,” he said, as I ran towards him and helped him to his room.

            “Do you want more Panadol?” I asked him as he shook his head weakly.

            “I just feel very cold,” he said.

            “Let me get you your sweater,” I said, as I ran to his wardrobe and looked for his sweater and then helped him get into it.

            “Can you please lie down beside me?” he said hoarsely as I looked at him. What?

            “Err…” I said.

            “I feel cold,” he said as I walked over to the other side and got onto the bed unsurely. As I lied down on the bed facing the other way from Mr. Sean, he turned and pulled me closer to him that I felt my breath knocked out of me. I was enveloped in his arms, and I could feel my heart beating wildly. Did he know what he’s doing or is this just the side-effects from the medicine?

            I don’t know how long I laid motionless beside him, until my eyes started to droop and I felt myself fall into a deep sleep. When I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, I got up from Mr. Sean’s side and walked back to my room. I felt my whole body trembling as I could still feel his lean arms around me. As I lay on my own bed, I was filled with thoughts of Mr. Sean and whether there would be any changes in our relationship.

            The next day, he got better but I decided to make hot chicken soup for him, courtesy of my recipe book. The smell of it wafted through our house that Mr. Sean came all the way downstairs with a weird look on his face.

            “Is that chicken soup?” he asked me as I nodded my head, “It smells so nice.”

            “Yeah it does,” I said, “It’s a recipe my mom thought me.”

            “Can I eat it now?” he asked me as I took a bowl and placed it in front of him.

            “Wow, it’s so tasty,” Mr. Sean said as he finished the last of his second bowl, “I must say I looked down on your cooking ability.”

            I smiled humbly as he took the bowl and put it in the dish-washer. I didn’t dare to ask him why he asked me to sleep beside him yesterday and he seemed to not have remembered either. I didn’t want to sound foolish asking him about that when he doesn’t even bother about it.

            A week after that day, I started my first Korean language and culture class. The classes were conducted by a trainer from our company and a specially hired trainer from the Korean Academy. The first day, there was the ice-breaking ceremony where we’d draw a cartoon picture of our face on a piece of paper and pass it back to the trainer. She then passed the papers back around to different people. I got the picture of a round face, wearing glasses with small eyes. I looked around the class and saw one guy who fit the picture. His name was Sam, and as he looked around I caught his attention and waved at him, showing him the picture I was holding. He held up his picture and gestured whether it was me and I shook my head.