Epilogue
One and a half years later.
“Gavin, where are we going?” He told me to pack for nine days, where the weather would be similar to upstate New York: spring and early summer. Not a lot of direction but I hoped wherever it was we were going, I had enough to get by.
We dropped Swanson off at my old place. Emmy, Matt, and Sierra would dog-sit while we were off on our mystery trip. I didn’t move in with Gavin until the end of fall semester. In order to leave less of a burden on my roommates, I stayed until January, when I subleased my room.
Nick told me not to worry but I wasn’t going to leave them paying extra because it was more convenient for me to get laid. Emmy decided she was done with Residential Life, petitioned to move off campus, and took my spot for the start of spring semester.
Since the incident, I strengthened my extremities though I still had minor bouts of dizziness, particularly when I was tired.
We ended up making a plea deal with Shannon and her lawyer. She was required to go inpatient for depression, anxiety, and anger management. She couldn’t contact myself or Gavin again unless we initiated the interaction.
I wasn’t exactly stoked to reunite with her, seeing as she did try to off me outside the music building. But I knew she’d get better.
The place her folks sent her was considered one of the best. They did some cool integration of methods including daily meditation, an all-natural diet, art therapy, neurotherapy, and EMDR. I hoped for her she would be able to figure her shit out. And with the resources available at this swanky place, I had a good feeling she would.
I still had an automatic response to cover my head with my arms anytime I heard a sound from behind. But the reflex happened with less frequency as I continued my therapy sessions with Dr. Liz. I did end up getting angry. Super pissed, especially after how long it took me to recover from the concussion. But my anger subsided, too.
Like I mentioned before, more than anything, I pitied Shannon.
We found a spot in the airport’s long-term parking section and wheeled our suitcases to the entrance and ticket counter.
Gavin devised a way to surprise me of the destination by providing our passports to the airline rep with a note reading something along the lines of, I’m surprising my girlfriend for her college graduation and taking her to some place he wrote down, this is our final destination through this city and please can you not say the city out loud?
The airline attendant played along and squealed. She supplied the tickets and baggage claim tags to Gavin and wished us a wonderful trip. I thanked her.
Gavin worked hard to keep this a secret. We made it through security without an issue and headed to Gate Seven. NEW YORK scrolled in red letters. The destination told me we’d take a commuter to NYC since our airport was a tiny one in the middle of upstate New York. Flying out of NYC meant we could be headed anywhere in the world.
We landed at JFK and trekked our way to the international terminal. Due to some delays back at Newsom Airport, we only had thirty minutes to bust it over to our gate, arriving as they were finishing the boarding process. SEOUL/INCHEON scrolled across the gate entrance.
I stopped and stared.
“We’re going to Korea?”
Gavin shrugged and hid a grin. “Thought it might be nice for you to meet some of my extended family. See where you were born . . .”
Living with Gavin, meeting his family, and learning more about Korea brought on a driving curiosity I hadn’t known existed in me. Gavin’s pride in his cultural roots became contagious, and with him, it was safe for me to explore the part of me I stifled for most of my life.
We handed the gate attendant our tickets. “Komapsumnida,” she said.
Gavin verbalized something else in Korean before we trotted down the jet way to our plane.
Freaking Korea.
I remember we had talked about visiting, but I didn’t think I would be able to go for several more years. Money being one of the issues. Fear being the other.
Gavin made a “nice chunk of change,” as he put it, from the soundtrack, and had another director asking him to write the score for this rom-com coming out next year. They gave him an advance and would pay the remainder when he finished.
When we arrived at the airport in Incheon, signs of “Welcome home, Gavin ☺.” and “Welcome to Korea, Louise ☺” greeted us. Gavin’s aunt, uncle, and a couple of his cousins received us. I was told to call them Aunt Sunny and Uncle Won, to make it easier for my lack of Korean pronunciation.
Gavin impressed me with his proficiency in Korean, though he claimed he still lacked speaking abilities. Could have fooled me.
His cousins were teenagers, girls, and giggled a lot. But they were sweet. One said to call her Monica, the other Madison. They both had English and Korean names and the English ones were easier to pronounce.
We drove to an area called Bundang, near Gangnam district. Gavin whispered to me they did quite well in finance and this was the “upscale” part of the city.
When I entered their apartment complex, my mouth dropped. Modern architecture, granite designed murals, and rippling waterfalls welcomed us in the foyer. As well as a doorman, who was our second point of security after we made it past the first gate. The elevator climbed to the fortieth floor and my jaw dropped. It was huge. And the bathrooms. No shitting around, they had a floor made of little colored stones arranged into a circular flower design.
“My mom designed the floor in the bathroom.” Gavin noticed my opened mouth and how I was on my hands and knees, feeling the texture.
His cousins whispered something to him and he cackled. “My cousins think you’re weird and they’re wondering why you’re rubbing the floor.”
“For real, I’ve never seen a bathroom floor this nice before.” I wiped my palms against my pants. It was weird but who cared. I was in Korea in a gorgeous apartment with Gavin and his extended family.
Totally surreal, seeing all these people who resembled me. Yet out of place because my appearance said I belonged here, but my culture and language were entirely different. I wondered if I would always feel like I was grasping to find some way to ground my identity between two vastly different cultures. For now, I’d enjoy my time with Gavin, getting to know my birth country.
We relaxed in the evening, eating some kickass Korean food. First thing on my shopping list? A Korean cookbook. I intended on grilling his aunt on how to prepare and cook every dish. “Nonsense, you have Gavin to teach you. Our mother taught him everything she taught me and my sister,” she said.
How Gavin’s aunt landed in Korea? She met Uncle Won when he was on business in California. She followed him back to Korea.
The next day, Gavin took me on a hike. His cousins had a swim meet in the morning, and we would meet up in the afternoon.
“Where are we?”
“We’re headed to Bukhansan. The thing I love about Korea and hiking is there’s a Buddhist temple pretty much on every summit.”
“No kidding.”
“It’s beautiful and peaceful, and something I wish we had in the States.”
After almost three and a half hours of sweating and navigating up the mountain, we sat in awe on top, overlooking parts of Seoul. I smiled, appreciating the view and the impeccable weather devoid of the humidity found in later summer months. And this emotion erupted in me, where I thought, this is my home. This feels right. This is peace. Here with Gavin.
“Lou?”
“Mmm-hmm?”
He descended on one knee and reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a little blue box.
“Oh, my God.”
“I still love that term of endearment. But right now, in front of Buddha or God and all these hikers, I love you with all my heart and want to spend the rest of my days loving you. Will you be my partner in crime and marry me?”
“Um, yes and yes.” He stood up, planted a kiss on my lips, and lifted me in his arms, swinging me around. A bunch of applause erupted around us as the hikers wished us well in Konglish, as Gavin called it, a smothering of Korean and English. Who knew this many Koreans loved to hike?
Gavin faced me again after my feet found the ground. He embraced my head and cozied his forehead against mine. “You’ve made me the happiest person on earth.” Impossible, because the title already belonged to me.