Page 104 of Signed, I'm Yours!
“Are you talking about Mrs. Wilch?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“She died the morning after you…left?”
They left?
“Why did you leave?”
Omma’s face sours.
“Oh, here we go again. Because, Seojun…all you ever cared about was ‘comfort.’ You’ve got such amazing powers and you only ever used it to get the bare minimum.”
The bare minimum? What? Why the hell do they think I got my apartment in Central Park? Who do they think I went into a life of crime for? To provide for them. To give them what they wanted. To be a good son.
“Yeah, bro, you’re such a goody-two-shoes. We thought you’d want to do more with your life. Be more. Make more. I mean look at us. We made a life for ourselves.”
“No thanks to you,” Omma says.
“I got you your cars, your house. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Yeah, a car. You can do so much more with your power.”
“And what did you do with yours?” I ask Min because I’m too frustrated to even look my omma in the face.
“I’ll have you know my super-yawn has gotten us out of a lot of pickles.”
“Huh?”
Min leans on Omma, and for the first time, I realize he’s not my brother. Min was sweet and kind and just a teenager. This guy right here is a dick. Have I been idolizing my memory of him? Of both of them?
“Omma here is a drug lord. We’reBreaking Badthis shit.”
I turn to Omma and wince.
“What?”
“What do you mean what, Seojun? Did you expect me to use my telepathic cooking to cook your meals every day? I can do so much more than make instant bibimbap, you know. So much more.”
Min interjects, and Omma laughs. I don’t even hear what they’re saying because it finally sinks in. The truth.
They left me. They didn’t disappear. They didn’t get abducted, tortured, or anything like that. They just got sick of me.
A memory nudges at me, and for the first time, I let it unravel. It’s Omma complaining her brand-new car is not very good and Min asking when we’re going to get a pool installed in the backyard. All in the same breath.
And then more memories come forward. One after the other. Of times when they were being demanding, ungrateful, downright bitchy. Because I was still learning my power and its limits and wanted everything I got for them, for us, to last.
“So, wait a minute.” I shake it all away and refocus. “If you left me a letter, supposedly, why the fuck did you change your names?”
Omma rolls her eyes.
“We didn’t do that for you. We did it because the FBI was getting close to busting us. You foolish boy.”
“Foolish?” I laugh. “Foolish? Everything I did, I did for you guys. And that’s the thanks I get?”
“It’s the least you could do for your family. At least, Min here has put many an FBI agent to sleep when we get caught. You’re just…such a disappointment.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jack steps forward and puts his hands up in a time-out. “You’re his mother. You can’t speak to him like that.”
