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—Jean… are you okay? —Sophie asked, trying to grab my arm.
Everything grew heavy, as if my body were made of lead. My vision burned, and I could barely distinguish the stairs in front of me. The edges of the railing blurred into a hazy sea, and a sharp ringing pierced my ears.
—So… —I weakly let out, as the strength in my frail knees gave way.
I felt my chest tightening with every passing second, as though someone were pulling a rope tighter and tighter around my lungs.
Then, a new voice rang out.—What's going on? Are you okay? Miss, breathe! Please, grab onto me! —the male voice reached me as if from a distant tunnel, deep and muffled with echo.
I wanted to answer, but all that escaped my throat was a faint groan. Cold sweat trickled down my back, and every step of the staircase seemed to multiply by a hundred. The pain in my chest spread to my left arm, and I understood, though I refused to accept it—my body was collecting its debt.
I simply couldn't grasp the blurry hand stretched toward me. I collapsed against the wall, sliding down like a rag doll. Before I knew it, the world around me began to spin; and ridiculous as it sounds, the pain of tumbling repeatedly down the long staircase didn't even register—my body was already too numb.
—Hold on, Jean! We already called the…! —I heard Sophie shout, before everything dissolved into darkness.
You know how people say things like, "Before you die, your life flashes before your eyes"? Well… it happened. My life replayed itself in fragments, like a shattered, disordered album…
I was around twenty-eight when my world broke apart. Until then, I had been a woman who could boast a certain dignity: long auburn hair down to my waist, a more-than-decent figure thanks to daily walks and my mom's delicious cooking. And not to brag, but I had a natural taste for elegant yet practical clothing.
How foolish I must be, to remember in this moment what my mother always said: "Sweetheart, in that stubborn gaze of yours you carry a gift, warm and golden." She liked to boast that I had beautiful honey-colored eyes.
But I always hated them. I would have given anything for my mother's green eyes—bright as a spring meadow. That gaze of hers was what held our home together, even after my "father" walked out with another woman, younger and supposedly "more beautiful." Of course, if we ignored the fact she was a home-wrecking stray and, at best, around my own age. Either way, he left, and the two of us drifted alone.
I must have been about twenty. Yet my mom, despite everything, became the pillar that held me up. With humiliating jobs and endless hours, she managed to push me through my studies. Of course, I did my part—working part-time while studying until I graduated with a degree in literature. I even had recommendations to teach at a prestigious private university downtown. I was her pride, and she, without a doubt, was mine.
But every beautiful story has an end. And this one came silently, undetectable, like a thief in the night. An illness crept in and, within months, pinned my poor mother to a bed. By the time we learned what it was, it was already too late.
I wasn't prepared to watch her fade like that. The lack of money and experience drowned us. Each day was a battle against hospitals that slammed doors in our faces, doctors who spoke in a language I couldn't understand, and bills that multiplied like vermin. I remember the stench of disinfectant mingled with the cheap coffee of waiting rooms, and the despair of feeling useless as the strongest woman I knew shrank beneath white sheets.
It ruined me.
At that time, my only joy and distraction was Mike, a chemistry professor who had started dating me. He was attentive, sweet. Always asking about my days, even laughing at my obsession with Russian novels and their tragic endings—ha, what a coincidence. I believed that perhaps, in the middle of all that disaster, life was offering me a reprieve.
But I was wrong. After my mother died, it didn't take three months before he was gone too. He got tired. He never said it outright, but I saw it in his eyes: it was unbearable for him to share space with a ghost. And so he left, abandoning me to an agonizing loneliness that swallowed my days like a black hole devouring every trace of light. I simply gave in.
I don't blame him. I wouldn't have wanted to carry a broken woman either.
That's when my mom left me her final gift. Hard to believe, but even in death, even in misery, she had found a way to save for my wedding. That's right, she had saved for a hypothetical wedding that would never happen. Mom was always there, in every way she could be.
Please, don't blame me for making the worst decision. It was my only way to dull the pain, even a little: I locked myself in my apartment. There was enough money to survive for a while. And I did survive… but in my own way.
I paid rent, basic bills, and most of all… food. My world shrank to the bed, the couch, and the glow of the TV screen playing endless Korean dramas.
Time lost all shape. There were no mornings or nights—just half-eaten bags of chips, half-empty soda bottles, and sweet bread wrappers piled on the coffee table.
At first, I was terrified of looking at myself in the mirror. But you know how easy it is to stop seeing yourself when you throw a damp towel over it? What you can't see doesn't exist. Clothes stopped fitting me, but nothing a quick order from "MeMu" and its plus-size section couldn't fix. My legs swelled, my cheeks puffed out, and my breathing grew heavier… but I told myself I was still fine.
I went from seventy kilos to over one-seventy in just two years. And still, I smiled at the bag of chips as if it were the only friend I had left.
I repeated the same phrase over and over, drilling it into my mind like a mantra:"Food will never abandon me. It will always be there for me."
************************************* (Jean Before)
************************************* (Jean After)