I sink lower and let my head rest on the seatback. The long hours of traveling are beginning to catch up with me. I was so hyped on adrenaline when we landed in Seattle and again in Incheon that I didn’t think about the fact that I hadn’t slept even a minute on either of my flights. But now a dull ache pounds just behind my eyebrows, and sleep seductively whispers to lull me out of consciousness.
Sunlight glares off the cars in front of us. We drive farther away from the city, away from Incheon—and away from Seoul, South Korea’s capital, which sits only about an hour by train from the airport. Fast food restaurants and digital billboards are quickly replaced by a long bridge that shoots us across the narrow channel of water separating the island from the mainland.
As the van bumps down off the bridge and onto island soil, I watch buildings pop up around us. Not a city, really, but a town. It reminds me of a beach town I visited with my family back in middle school, one of those with hole-in-the-wall restaurants on every corner serving local fishermen’s latest catches, where the population doubles during tourist season and all the shops close at six in the evening. But instead of a diversity of people—white, black, Latino, Indian—I see only Asian. Dark hair. Dark eyes.
I finger my own blond curls, which flattened along the journey but still hang down to my elbows. Momma likes to call my hair my “crowning glory,” a gift from her side of the family. I’ve always loved it; it matches perfectly with what my sister, Jane, calls my “hipster look,” but I now realize it makes me stick out here like a goth at a country concert.
And trust me when I tell you, that’s pretty obvious. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts, both country and otherwise. When your dad is one of the biggest record producers in the country music business and your brother has topped the country charts five years in a row, you start to learn your way around the Mecca of the music lover.
I’m tempted to reach into my purse and pull out my iPod. I can think of at least ten songs that would fit this moment perfectly, my own background music to this new life I’ve started. But I resist the urge, wanting to make sure the cab driver has my full attention in case we need to communicate in broken English again.
It only takes us a few minutes to pass through the entirety of the town, and then the cab’s climbing up a hill into the mountains, which tower over the coastline. We drive up and up, until a thin layer of fog hovers over the road, and we emerge at the crest of the hill. To the right is an overlook of the town we just drove through, then the channel, and in the distance, Incheon, though I can’t see it. On the left side of the street, though, is a giant arch that stretches across the entrance to a plaza-like area, gold Korean characters glittering in the fading sunlight.
My new home.
We stop just in front of the arch, and I step out of the cab. But once I’ve pulled in a breath of campus air, my stomach clenches. The cabbie lifts my suitcases out of the van, and I fumble with my wallet, examining each bill carefully before handing him the money.
The taxi pulls away, and I turn my back on the gorgeous coastal view to stare up at the white stone building directly across the plaza, its gigantic staircase leading up to what I assume are classrooms and offices.
I can’t help but wonder how different life would be if I’d done what my parents wanted—stayed at the same elite prep school for senior year. I would have kept all the same friends, gone to all the same parties, been hit on by every aspiring musician trying to get to my dad, and watched my ex-boyfriend date every other girl in school like the douche he is.
But instead of a stuffy prep school in Nashville, I’m here. Completely alone in a foreign country, searching the grounds for the administration offices and the school rep who said he would help me get settled in.
Magnesium. Aluminum. Silicon.
Moving here was my idea.
Phosphorous. Sulfur.
I can do this.
Chlorine.
I can do this.
Argon.
I can.
Do.
This.
Chapter Two
“This is your room.” The school rep, Mr. Wang, stops outside a door in the long hallway on the third floor of the girl’s dorm. He takes my key and knocks, then unlocks the door.
We enter into a narrow, white-walled room with bunk beds that take up nearly all the floor space. Two desks are shoved against the opposite wall, and there’s just enough room to walk between them and the beds without having to turn sideways.
A girl sits at one of the desks, her shoulder-length black hair bobbing as she shoots up to her feet, a massive smile brightening her face.
“You are okay now?” Mr. Wang asks in his thickly accented English, inclining his head toward my roommate and dropping the room key into my palm.
“Yes, thank you.” I bow my head like I read is the custom and watch him leave, my pulse kicking into high gear when the door slams shut.
My roommate lets out a little squeal, throwing her arms around me. I back up, both my suitcases clattering to the white tile floor. She bounces up and down with me still in her arms until I push her back with forced laughter.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” She claps her hands in excitement. “And you’re American!”
Her dark eyes are half-hidden behind thick, white-framed plastic glasses with lenses so big they look like they should be on a grandma’s face, but I can still see them light up at the mention of the magic word, which I’ve already noticed makes you a celebrity around here. But this girl is different from the people I met in the administration building—her American accent is impeccable. She has a pale, narrow face, with eyes turned up at the edges and pink lipstick that every teen in the eighties would have coveted. And despite her ridiculous T-shirt, she’s pretty in a tiny, impish way.