Page 48 of I'll Be the One

Dad starts cursing in Korean. “How dare they talk like that to my daughter?”

Seeing him get so mad at the judges makes me happy and sad at the same time. I’m glad that Dad has my back when it comesto strangers, but I wish he was the same way when it comes to Mom. Something clearly happened between him and Mom tonight, but what about the other times? I wonder if it’s selfish for me to wish that he’d get more involved with stuff happening between Mom and me, when he spends so little time at home in the first place.

Dad suddenly wraps his arms around me in another bear hug, and I realize my audition is done. TV Me is walking offstage.

“I’m so proud of you,” he says. “Your audition, what you said, everything was amazing. I’m sure your mom is proud of you too. Even though she can’t bring herself to admit that yet.”

“Is she really?” I ask. “Have you seen the way she looks at me? It’s like she desperately wants to switch me out for another, thinner daughter.”

Dad winces. “Yes, she is proud. Take now for instance. If she really wasn’t proud of you, would she be watching this premiere in her room right now? Her unwillingness to accept what you look like is... how do you kids say it... ‘nothing personal.’ I am not saying that her behavior is okay. I’ll try to talk some more with her about that.”

“Thanks, Appa,” I say, calling him the Korean word for Dad.

My phone starts vibrating from an incoming call.

I check my phone again and nearly drop it. Not only do I have another incoming FaceTime call from Rebecca and Clarissa, but I have a hundred notifications and counting on Twitter alone.

By the time I recover, the call drops, but my friends make up for it by texting me in our group chat.

SKYE. SKYE. OMG!

CALL US BACK!!!! AND CHECK TWITTER!

SKYE, YOU’RE GOING VIRAL AHHHH!

Chapter Twenty-One

MOM DOESN’T COME OUT OF MY PARENTS’ ROOMuntil almost midnight, long after Dad went to sleep. I almost wish she’d stayed in the room for the entire night, because she does not look happy. Or proud. Not in the slightest. Either Dad didn’t get the chance to talk to her, or it didn’t work.

“Haneul,” she says flatly as she approaches my bed. I’d just finished getting ready to go to sleep, but now I’m wide awake, my heart pounding in my ears.

“I saw you on TV,” Mom continues. “I really think you should drop out of the competition.”

Heat rises up inside of me, and I clench my fists. “Why, did you think I was really that bad?”

She takes a deep breath and holds the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

“Not exactly, no. You were good... unfortunately.”

She sits on the edge of my bed and taps her phone to show me a list of Google search results. Some of the results are inKorean but a good amount are from English K-pop fan sites. It takes me a moment to realize that they’re all aboutme. Right after my friends told me I was “going viral,” I turned off my phone, because tonight felt too much like a repeat of what happened when Henry posted my picture on Instagram. I brace myself now before reading the headlines.

Is She the Korean Adele?

LA Teen Shocks Many with Stellar Performance

Skye Shin: New Teen Sensation and Henry Cho’s Girlfriend?

The results go on and on. Most of them are positive, but I don’t miss the ones that aren’t. It’s only been a few hours since the episode aired, but there are already tons of people posting about me on social media and message board websites. And a lot of them are saying stuff about my weight, pig emojis included.

It’s the same hurtful things I saw on Henry’s Instagram comments, but worse, since some people are even saying that the judges only accepted me as some sort of sideshow entertainment, so the audience can get a laugh out of seeing me dance.

She’s just comedic relief, one comment says.To relieve the tension, you know?

It all hurts. So much.

Past feelings of shame burn bright again as I remember theboys and skinny girls who teased me in middle school. One day after eighth grade PE, I returned to my locker to find a folded note with a piggy drawn on it. The drawing itself was actually pretty cute. The pig had anime-style chibi eyes and was drawn in a pink gel pen. But the meaning behind it, and the fact that someone had stuck this drawing into my locker, made me sick.

I never found out who drew it, but I didn’t have to. I’d already seen the stares from the other girls as I changed out of my clothes.

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