Instead of answering, he got up from the bed, lit a cigarette, and went to the window.

He opened the window slightly and took a long drag on the cigarette, exhaling a long trail of smoke.

In the moonlight, his bare back looked like a silhouette, and the white cigarette smoke he exhaled wafted out the window, then was pushed back in by the cold night air.

It was the first time I had seen his naked body.

Though it was dark, his upper body with its large frame and lean muscles was well-proportioned with his long legs.

We had dated for 5 years, but we had never made love, and aside from light pecks or kisses, we had never been physically intimate. But I had the courage to look at his naked back.

Instead of answering me, he stood by the window for a while, finishing a whole cigarette as if listening to the sound of the waves.

Since it was night, not even the cry of seagulls could be heard, but to my ears, it seemed I could hear the lapping of waves along with the distant squawking of birds.

“It’s good news, so why do you look so down without saying anything?”

“……”

Still, instead of answering, he took one last deep drag on the cigarette. Then he fully opened the window and exhaled forcefully, expelling every wisp of smoke from his lungs.

Through the open window, the strong chill of the winter sea entered the room, and the sound of the waves hit my ears even louder.

As if wanting to submerge the finished cigarette butt deep in the seawater, he threw it outside, then closed the window and turned to me.

In that moment, lacking the courage to look at his front, I closed my eyes and turned my body. He approached and embraced me again.

He gently kissed the nape of my neck.

Feeling his hot breath, I felt like I was once again wandering, searching for the distant horizon of the night sea.

Instead of answering, he began to make love to me again. I accepted his lips once more, seeking his answer, but until our lovemaking ended, he gave no reply at all.

I couldn’t sleep either, but he too spent the night with eyes wide open.

“The morning sun seems about to rise. Let’s go outside.”

I hurriedly put on my clothes and went out.

He followed behind me, lighting another cigarette.

Far off, as if the sun was about to rise, the sky where the sea and heavens met at the horizon began to change, as if girdled by a pale orange band.

The sky’s colors, once transformed, gradually expanded their orange territory. That redness was projected onto and reflected by the sea, thrown back to the sky as if in harmony, the orchestra of daybreak unfolding.

“When are you leaving for Boston?”

“Classes start in September, but the lab there wants me to come early to begin experiments, so I’ll probably leave in early March.”

“Then there’s only 2 weeks left?”

“……”

I didn’t understand the meaning of the first love we had shared overnight.

Once he started his doctorate, we would have to be apart for at least 4 years. Was this a parting gift before leaving? Or did he inwardly desire an even crueler farewell…?

“When did you decide to go to America?”

“A while ago.”

“But you never said a word to me?”

“……”

I had a friend from nursing school who had gone abroad to become a professor, so I roughly knew what procedures and time were needed.

To study abroad in graduate school, you needed English tests like the GRE, to submit your college diploma and grades, and since most programs started in the fall semester, at least a year of preparation was required.

Unfortunately, over the past year, I had been unable to detect any hint of study abroad plans from him. And he had never once told me he was going to America.

Then out of the blue, he suggested this overnight trip to Baengnyeong Island. There, he embraced and made love to me twice, which he had never done once in our 5 years together.

If not for his gloomy expression and the talk of studying abroad in America, I would have shed tears of joy. But oppressed the whole trip by the dark energy emanating from him, I had to suffer the unease of our first love’s throes.

I waited for any words besides the reason that he was leaving to study in America. But up until the very end of our trip, he said nothing more.

*****

Until early March when he left, it was difficult for me to even see his face. And I never heard any other reason from him.

And then,

.

.

.

He left.

.

.

.

For the first few days after he arrived in America, he called and texted. But gradually the frequency decreased. By around May when the spring sunshine grew hot, contact ceased entirely.

While others were intoxicated by the scent of cherry blossoms fluttering in the sky, my whole body and heart were exhausted by April’s cruel yellow dust.

He stopped answering my texts. Then at some point, I felt the painful realization that he wasn’t even reading the messages I sent. That’s when I noticed I had missed my period.

My cycle was always irregular, so I had passed over months without periods without much thought. But in May, when I hadn’t had my period for 3 months, on a hunch I went to the pharmacy, bought a pregnancy test kit, and brought it home.

With trembling heart, I closed my eyes, waiting for the pregnancy test results.

Suddenly, the image of his naked back in Baengnyeong Island came to mind.

And like the undulating waves, his moving body and his kiss tinged with white frost……

Filled with sudden unease, I couldn’t open my eyes.

The days I had lived doggedly from childhood to now unfolded like a panorama before my closed eyes.

*****

Just as his father had died in his 50s of cirrhosis as an alcoholic, my father too did not live long.

My father, a truck driver, had collided with the vehicle ahead on a winter icy road. The truck slid and plunged off a cliff. After a long battle, he ended his life at age 48, leaving behind only a mountain of debt.

The accident happened around when I started middle school.

Mom struggled as a building janitor, trying to pay off the debt and make ends meet. But the debt left by father was too much for mom’s meager income to even cover the interest.

I had nothing, but thanks to the tall height and superior looks I inherited from mom, she always emphasized that at least in appearance, I was inferior to no one.

Even to my eyes, despite being in her 40s, mom had looks that captivated those around her. For her age, she had a youthful face.

After father passed away, there were always many men tempting mom as she worked as a building janitor. Overwhelmed with debt, mom endured for 3 years. Then one day, she remarried a wealthy man.

But happiness was not a word that suited her.

To avoid burdening my remarried mom, I entered a high school dormitory. But suffering from alcohol and violence, mom would appear before me wearing sunglasses to cover her bruised eyes.

Mom’s second marriage didn’t even last a year.

I left the dorm again and got a small studio with mom. I worked part-time jobs while nurturing a small dream.

Every day I worked part-time at a convenience store, but it was a time when my heart was at peace. After graduating high school and getting certified as a nurse’s aide, I got a job at a hospital.

I wanted to go to university.

Being poor wasn’t all bad for me.

I had been poor and lost my father early. But it was also thanks to my poor and unfortunate parents that he and I shared the commonality of entering the prestigious S University through special admission.

While dating, we had confessed that our fathers’ influences were a big part of why we both became healthcare professionals.

He too had painful memories of being with his father in the emergency room and inpatient ward due to alcoholism and cirrhosis. And I had nurtured my dream of becoming a nurse while watching my father’s long battle with illness.

Perhaps scars from our painful pasts, able to empathize with each other more than anyone, were nailed in our hearts like stakes. Maybe that’s why we could start a love.

We met a few times as a nurse’s aide and a patient’s guardian. Time passed without a chance to confirm our mutual interest. But even up until our reunion at S University’s medical school library, I believed in fate.

Meeting a man with the exact same fate as me, falling in love, having a happy ending different from mom’s… My own hopeful destiny…

When I met him at the library, even when we held hands and shared light kisses like a couple pledging premarital chastity for 5 years, I believed in the fate I had dreamed of.

The start may be feeble but I thought I would face a happy ending splendid in its finish…

******

I put the pregnancy test kit next to the toothbrush holder in the bathroom. With both eyes closed, unable to open them, I waited for darkness to come.

It took great courage for me to look at the pregnancy test kit with my fearful heart.

With my eyes closed, I thought of that night on Baengnyeong Island and looked at the panorama of the life I had lived.

It seemed I had dreamed, but it was a past and present full of scars. Even with my eyes closed, the memories were as vivid as scenes from a movie.

Around the time the rancid smell of water from the bathroom tickled my uvula, I coughed loudly once and mustered the courage to open my eyes.

Lacking the immediate courage to look at the pregnancy results, I just stared holes into the innocent ceiling.

Reason was already pressuring me to acknowledge the pregnancy. But my emotions were desperately waving me off in rejection.

He had already become distant spatially too. And his heart was gradually growing distant as well.

He didn’t say it, but the first love we shared on Baengnyeong Island was gloomy and dark.

Even if I were pregnant, what would change?

He who wouldn’t even check my texts when I sent them.

He who wouldn’t answer even if I called.

Even if I were pregnant, I had no way to let him know.

Dark clouds pushed into my eyes, thicker than April’s heavy yellow dust. Tears began to fall from my eyes.

I wept loudly for a long time.

.

.

.

When my tear glands were exposed like a reservoir dried up by drought, I gathered my courage and looked at the pregnancy test kit.