?MY BILLIONAIRE TWINS ?|| JIKOOK

29.

Now it's my turn to go silent
for a few minutes, I have the answer to his question but I don't know if he's ready to
hear it.

I don't know if I'm ready to
share it.

Fuck it.

He wants to know and I have
no real reason to keep it
from him.

"When I was younger sixteen, seventeen, eighteen my friend Tae and I would go sailing
every summer." I grimace as
the memories start rolling in.

"Sometimes we'd have our parents with us but it wasn't
that uncommon for us to go
out on the water by
ourselves, just the two of us."

I take a deep breath and look over at him, He squeezes my hand but doesn't interrupt.

"We weren't really reckless or careless, We both knew our
way around a boat and there
had been plenty of times we'd rode out rough and choppy waters together but one day
I guess we got a little cocky
and decided to go a little
farther than usual."

I focus on the road for a
minute, gripping the wheel as tightly as I can with one hand
as my mind is flooded with the sights and sounds of that day.

Even now, so many years
later, I can remember it all
so vividly.

I take a ragged breath and continue, doing my best to
keep my voice from trembling.

"Neither of us realized we
were sailing into a storm
until it was too late."

"One minute, the clouds were
far away on the horizon and
the next minute they were on
top of us."

"Things got crazy and we were doing our best to keep control
of the boat but there was too much happening at once."

"I remember rigging snapping and the boat started listing
hard, We were taking on water and I told him to go below
deck and grab our life vests."

I move my hand away from
his for a moment to swipe
at my eyes.

Fuck, why did I think telling
this story would be a good
idea?

"You don't have to tell me any thing else if you don't want
to." he says, quietly.

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"No." I shake my head.

"I need to get through this
and then maybe you'll understand why I do the
things I do." I blink back the tears that are still welling up
and take another breath.

I can do this.

I will tell this story.

"The moment the boat started
to capsize, it was like time slowed down."

"Tae was trying to get through the small door that led down below deck and the force of
the wave sent him crashing against the door frame."

"I heard him cry out and then
I was under water with the
boat overturned on top of me."

"My lungs were burning and I had already swallowed so
much water but I kicked and struggled and just started swimming for my life until I
got out from under there
and reached the surface."

"Oh my God." Jimin says,
wiping his own eyes as I
scrub a hand down my face.

"I can't even imagine..."

"I couldn't see Tae any
where." I continue, just
needing to get to the end
of this awful memory.

"I held onto the overturned
hull of the boat as the waves crashed down onto my head."

"I shouted his name until my voice was gone and I tried to
see under the water, under the boat, thinking maybe he had somehow been trapped there—maybe in an air pocket."

I shake my head. "He wasn't there."

"I held onto that boat for
sixteen hours until a fishing
boat found me, dehydrated
and disoriented."

"My parents and Tae's family launched a huge search to try and find him, hoping beyond hope that he had found some floating debris like I had and would somehow be okay."

I choke back a sob as the last words tumble out of my mouth.

"They never found him."

"Guk, I'm so sorry." Jimin reaches over to rub my arm
and I can see through my
blurry vision that tears are streaming down his face, too.

"I can't imagine the kind of
hell that must have been
for you."

"No." I shake my head.

"You can't, Nobody can."

"I should have been more
alert to where we were."

"I should have turned back instead of pushing out farther
to sea."

"I should have been able to
save him when he needed me."

"But I didn't do any of those things."

I pull over onto the side of the road and turn off the car engine.

I'm full-on crying now and
can't see to drive.

"I'm sorry." I say, swiping at
the tears that won't seem to
stop falling.

"I just need a minute to
get myself together."

"That's okay." He says, softly.

"Take as long as you need."

For several minutes, neither
one of us says another word.

We are both sniffling as we
dry our eyes in the darkness.

Finally, he breaks the silence.

"I know it probably won't
matter but I'm going to say it anyway." he says, taking my hand again.

"None of the things that happened that day were your fault, You were young—you
were both just kids."

"Nothing you could've done would have prevented that
freak storm."

He brings my hand to his soft
lips and brushes them across
my knuckles.

"You have to forgive yourself
at some point."

There's a part of my brain
that knows he's right.

I've heard it all before, from therapists and counselors and
my own logic.

But none of that has erased
my guilt over the years.

I don't think anything ever will.

"Well, now you know the
story." I say, purposely turning the subject away from forgiving myself.

"And to really answer your original question, every time
I take a risk, every time I do something that I know is dangerous, I feel like I'm
staring into the face of death
and daring it to take me, too."

He doesn't reply and I don't
say anything else, either.

But then, there's not really anything else to say.