The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,84

then scurried away to talk to an eager local camera crew, adjusting her knee-length beige skirt as she left us.

My dad’s stern face softened, and his crinkly eyes brimmed with tears. I’d never seen him show any kind of emotion like this. Not even when he watched his favorite movie, Charlotte’s Web. “Jae-Woo-ya, you are good son. When I marry your mom, my mother and father—they tell me I am no longer part of family. They want me to marry someone else. Someone from family like theirs.” With a fist full of tissues, Mom dabbed her eyes and walked away from us.

Dad continued. “I come to U.S. for vacation and met your mom on airplane. She was in U.S. to study. She was so funny, I didn’t sleep on the whole trip home.” A single tear trickled down his cheek, but he was smiling. He quickly wiped it away.

“My family have lumber business in Seoul, many government contract all over Korea. My mother and father…they want me to marry someone from good family.” He sighed. “They introduce me to Sung Jung. She was very smart, Yonsei graduate. Nice girl. We had some dating, but she was not very fun. Not like your Umma.” He laughed. “I follow your mom back to U.S., and we marry at courthouse a few month later.” In the distance, my mom looked over her shoulder and grabbed free energy bars and sports drinks at the finish line and stuffed them into her purse. “My parents come to visit one time, when you were just baby, to tell me I will not have any family money. I was on my own.”

My heartstrings yanked so tight I barely breathed. How had they kept this from me so long? And how could my grandparents have done this to my dad? To my mom? To Lucy and me, their grandchildren?

“I give it all up.” He exhaled loudly. “So, we don’t have much. Everything we have is old, some is broken, but it is ours. Our family.”

My mom came back and handed me a chocolate-flavored protein bar. “Use contest money for college. It is yours. Dad and I don’t need. We be okay. Go enjoy your famous day.” She patted me on the back and pushed me forward.

The publicist swept me away for never-ending interviews and sound bites. For over an hour, I was bombarded with “How does it feel?” and “What did you do to prepare?” and “What are you going to do with all that money?” The fame and glory I’d wanted so badly was now my reality. With a glowing smile for the camera, I rattled off talking points I’d prepared for that very moment and promoted my soon-to-come product line of survivalist gear.

Even with so much attention on me, my mind drifted elsewhere. To what my parents had sacrificed for love. To what I thought I’d gained from this competition, but what I’d actually lost.

My fake smile dimmed with the realization that I might never see Kate again.

I broke away from the press and ran to the parking lot to find her. Stiff legged but determined, my heart thumped painfully with each pounding step. I’d left the doors to Mom’s car unlocked and was hoping Kate would be in the passenger seat, sound asleep, waiting for me to take her home.

But I found my car empty. I opened the driver door, and the car cabin gave off a stale, musty odor. It had been sealed shut for days.

With one bar of phone signal, I called her, but it went straight to voice mail, and she didn’t respond to my multiple texts. Luckily, as I reversed out of the parking lot and headed home, Zach picked up on the first ring.

He greeted me. “Your mom called.”

“I know, she’s angry.”

“You were on the news.”

“You saw I won, right? Did I look okay?”

“Yeah.”

Zach wasn’t a chitchatter, so I just got right to why I was calling. “You think you could help me with something? What do you know about cryptocurrency?”

He perked up. “You mean, you want to know how the cryptography secures and verifies transactions? Or how a blockchain works? Mining is