“What’s going on with you two lately? It feels like the frosty atmosphere between you is more glacier than normal, and neither of you is speaking up about it.” Yoonha prods me on the back of the head as he passes behind me at the breakfast table. Being his usual annoying self. I tense up, but act flippant, not ready to share anything with him yet. If Yoonha knows, he will make everything worse, and I need to get a handle on what I’m going to do when I know for sure. I don’t even know what to do.
“Nothing. You know how it is when we get into the new financial year. So much more stress for a few weeks. It’ll pass.” I brush it off and focus on pushing oatmeal into my mouth despite my zero appetite and can barely swallow it. I’m in jogging clothes as it’s my day off, and my routine is an early morning workout, breakfast, and run. I’m trying to stay as normal as possible to keep up appearances.
“Hmmm. Plans today?” Yoonha slumps down beside me and pulls over the orange juice jug. He’s still in pj’s and probably going to do what he always does on a rare day off. Vegetate and stay indoors. Catch up on anime and play video games. Sometimes I forget he’s only a year younger than me as he seems about ten, and I wonder if he’s immature for his age or if I was forced to mature way more than twenty-six.
“A run; I might be a while as I haven’t done it for a few days.” I don’t want to admit that I have a meeting with the PI I hired two weeks ago, and I’m sick to my stomach looking over his findings. He told me he would take a couple of weeks to stake out Jyeon and Miss White, and today’s the day we arranged to meet at the park. I couldn’t face updates daily, so I’ve been biding my time and praying I’m wrong.
I buried my head in the sand and tried not to dig to get through daily. I tried to avoid Jyeon while all this was up in the air, and I think Jyeon has been avoiding me too. At work, he’s polite, amicable, and distant, and we dodge one another unless we have to interact. He’s not made significant changes to his schedule, and these past two weeks, I’ve started to feel guilty and backtrack that maybe I did blow it all out of proportion, and it was all in my head. I’ve not seen anything else to prove it either way. I keep yoyoing between suspicion and feeling stupid, and that woman has never shown face again.
“And Jyeon? He left already?” Yoonha picks up some oatmeal by scooping his finger into my bowl, taking a giant spoonful, and I slap his hand for being disgusting.
“He said he was going to the office today. I hope you washed your hands?” I chastise him and then push my entire bowl his way, as I can never eat food someone else has touched. He knows it too and grins at stealing my ready-made breakfast, which saves him from making his own.
“You’re such a child!” I lightly slap him on top of his head and get up to make myself another bowl. Tutting at his antics and get a cheeky grin and wink in response that makes me mock scowl at him.
“Morning. Why are you eating in here and not in the dining room? Where’s Rain? Why is she not preparing breakfast?” Mother glides in, already dressed and polished with complete make-up and outfit for the day. She is looking ready to take on the world. She smells like cognac, and I try to ignore it.
“It’s her birthday weekend; we always give her that time off.” I remind her and say nothing when Mother’s face pinches, and she frowns in irritation. To her, house staff are not humans, just mere tools to make our existence easier.
“Didn’t you hire me a stand-in then?” She pouts, hating that she should fend for herself for an entire two days despite having a housekeeper who can cook. I say nothing, knowing she wants to complain. This is what she does to fill up her day.
“I’m heading out. I’ll be back after my run.” I abandon my bowl of dry oatmeal, leaving it on the counter, knowing I should escape before it’s too late. Mother can be a needy child sometimes and expects me to give her constant attention when I’m not at work. I have no energy for her today. My brain is full of this meeting and Jyeon.
“One goes to work to avoid me, and one goes jogging. It makes me wonder why I put so much energy into raising you two. At least Yoonha will stay home and keep me company on his day off.” She sulks, and I dutifully walk over and kiss her on the cheek before turning and grabbing my water bottle. Not guilty about abandoning her, as she monopolizes my time as much as she can as it is.
“You know that’s not true. I’ll be back this afternoon and take you for dinner somewhere nice. Somewhere you can get dressed up for.” I pander to her, knowing that will appease her bad mood, and leave before I get roped into any more conversations and lose my courage.
After pulling on my trainers, I quickly exit and head out for a jog because I deliberately made the meeting point a couple of miles from home if Yoonie decided to follow me. I knew I couldn’t make an excuse if he wanted to come, so this was my plan. Sometimes he runs with me but has the athletic ability of a toddler and drops off after a mile to walk home alone. It also means I can run off the stress, anxiety, and nerves already coursing through me and face this with more courage than I possess this morning.
I put on my headphones, blare my music loudly, and put my all into my run. I need it to get my thoughts in order, and I feel sick as I do so. I keep thinking about how Jyeon’s been this past two weeks since our fight in his office, and it leaves me so confused. Neither of us has spoken directly to the other, and at home, he comes in late like always and goes before I wake up, like always. It made me realize how little of our lives we spend in one another’s company, that I can’t even keep tabs on him or notice a difference in his routine, let alone get close enough to figure out if he smells of another woman. Nothing seems amiss between us, and we have carried on as before.
I’ve asked myself why I’m doing this to myself a million times. Why do I need to know? The answer is unclear. We don’t have the kind of relationship that warrants me to go this far, yet I have to do this for my own sanity. I need to know. Even though he’s not mine, and we don’t have any intimacy, it still feels like a betrayal.
I’ve only been able to survive this long in this way because, deep down, a part of me held onto hope that one day his warmth would come back, and we would move past things. I clung to the maybe that he loves me deep down, and once the storms settled, he would figure it out. Perhaps he cared enough in his heart to never look to another woman for physical needs while I was still there.
It hit me so hard that day after seeing them and how deluded I had been and that I was living my life in a fantasy bubble. Holding on to ‘one day’ and figuring that if I stayed, worked hard, and did everything expected of me, he might realize he needed my presence after all. That he was dependent on me in the way I am on him.
I get so lost in my head that I reach the meeting place before noticing my surroundings. I am so used to running this route that I do it absentmindedly. It’s becoming a bad habit lately, walking through my life robotically and blankly and not knowing how I got there. I feel like I’ve been zooming out more lately, and it’s linked to how much stress I’m under.
I spot the navy SUV parked by the pink café across the road where we arranged to rendezvous, the one he told me about, and look around before making my way over there. I can see a middle-aged white-haired man sitting inside and pull out my cell to check the picture he sent me of how he looked. Confirming it’s him, I wander up to the passenger side and open the door to get in. Checking around once more in case I’m seen and satisfied no one here knows me.
“Mrs. Park, hello. I’m Devon; we spoke on the phone.” He has a polite yet rough accent, not typical for these parts, and I smile without it reaching my eyes. I found it under a private listing; his specialty is extramarital affairs. “It’s nice to meet you in the flesh.”
“It’s been two weeks since I sent you all the information. I just need to know the outcome or if you need more time.” I cut straight to the point, staring ahead instead of at him as my insides tighten and anxiety rises in my throat to strangle me. My body runs cold, but my palms get sweaty, and I swallow hard, then clear my throat in nervousness.
“Sure. Small talk won’t help, I guess. Here.” He slides a brown A4 envelope my way, and I take it with fumbling fingers and shaking hands. Turning it over and seeing nothing written, I hesitate to open it. My blood runs icier, and I close my eyes and take a heavy breath before opening one end.
“It’s as you suspected. Your husband and this woman have met a few times over the last couple of weeks. Usually late in the evening. It seems to be for romantic dates.”
His words are a slicing weapon as photographs fall onto my lap, and I sit staring at the haphazard pile, unable to pick them up as I’m frozen in posture. My eyes glued to the assault before me.
Pictures of Jyeon walking hand in hand, hugging, cuddling up, and smiling at this bitch. All manner of locations, making it very clear she’s not just a business acquaintance. I start trembling and finally pick them up one by one, blankly staring at each before carefully placing it back on my lap in a neat pile, yet I can barely breathe. My outward calmness doesn’t match my inner chaos, and tears prick my eyes as each one gets more challenging to keep still from my vibrating fingers.
I stop at a picture of them kissing in his car, and it hurts like a gunshot to my chest. Taken from a distance, but it’s unmistakeably him. His hands are in her hair as they passionately make out, and I close my eyes and lay it down to blot them out. Trying hard to keep a handle on my body and emotions, and this is so much harder than I thought it would be.
“I’m sorry. I know this must be very hard, but adultery will work in your favor.” His words are like lead to me, dropping heavily onto my brain and weighing me down.
“This is the additional information you wanted. Her movements, schedules, home address, etc. She has an apartment not far from here. I came from there before meeting you.”
I nod numbly, unable to take it in, forcing all my efforts into not breaking down in front of this stranger. My heart is broken into a million pieces, and I don’t know how to react when it’s so plainly in my face. I can’t deny it or make excuses, and my gut was right from god knows when. Deep down, I knew, and I hate that I knew.
“If you want to confront your husband, he’s there now.”
His added afterthought makes the breath hitch in my throat, and I turn and blink at him.
“What?” It’s a raspy, hoarse question borne of disbelief and desperation. Shocked and not sure I heard him clearly.
“He arrived early this morning, and they were still there when I left a few moments ago.”
My teeth and even my lips chatter and tremble in response. My whole body violently shakes as I’m blinded by the moisture of my eyes welling up, and I crunch the envelope in my fist and yank the car door open. Instinct is taking over as I hear him clearly inside my head telling me he would be at the office today—right to my face.
“The address?” I grit through clenched teeth, barely staying upright as he picks up a secondary envelope and holds it out to me. I tear it open, dropping all the pictures from my lap as I slide out, and he hurries to collect them and puts them back into their original envelope.
I look down, scan the address on the first piece of paper, and know where it is from here. I know my surroundings like the back of my hand as we grew up near here. It's literally one street away. One road from where we used to run together in the good old days of early marriage, near where I am almost daily. The anger bubbles up from the fiery pits of hell within me, and I throw everything back into his car.
“Keep it all, and I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ll need it all.” My voice sounds alien to me. Some internal purpose takes over, and thought, and logic ceases to exist. Shaking, raspy, like I’m a possessed crazy woman, I haul my ass away from his car and move with deadly intent.
The emotions and feelings I subdued and pushed down since I was fifteen to dedicate my life to helping Jyeon rise come at me like a fireball of chaos. It was never part of the plan to confront them. I just wanted to know to figure out what to do next. Yet now it’s right here, so close, and I know what he’s been doing as fact. I can’t control it anymore.
I gave up so much for him. I gave up my entire heart and soul for him. I sacrificed my sanity and my baby, hopes, and dreams. Everything for the Park family and him. How could he do this to me and make me a pathetic laughing stock? I’m so worthless to him that he doesn’t care about wounding me this deeply.
I break into a run, get into her street in super-fast time like a woman possessed, and start searching out the door numbers of every apartment and complex. Finally, I find a sign pointing downwards into an alley to a lower-floor villa with a shaded front door, and I stop in my tracks as I spy Jyeon’s sports car parked in the street further ahead. It’s the last push of momentum I need.
My soul is dying a horrible, gruesome death as I’m blinded by tears that have been bound inside since my teens. I pace forward, skip down the few ground-level steps, and bang on the door like a maniac. Hurting my fist and wrist with the effort I put into it.
It’s a solid wooden door with no window, no spy hole, and only a low-slot letterbox for mail. Whoever is in there has to answer to see who it is, and my heart skips a beat as I hear footsteps coming behind it. I vibrate, cold with fear, breathless, yet I can’t back down and run away from this.
There’s a moment of a lock being flicked within, rattling noises, and then it's yanked open widely, and I’m faced with a smiling and pleasant Claire White. Dressed in a bathrobe and bare feet, it’s not hard to guess why.
She freezes at seeing me, and her expression completely drops. Her jaw opens in a gawping motion as she gasps loudly in horror. My eyes are pulled past her as Jyeon walks into the long corridor, wearing only his jeans and nothing else. An expanse of tanned, toned torso and muscle on show. He stops and looks up expectantly, smiling as though they were expecting someone else, maybe a takeout delivery. His eyes meet mine, and he, too, loses that happy expression as shock registers, and his skin loses all color.
We stand for a second as we take one another in, then I choke on my saliva. My body sagging, and I have to grab the door frame to stop myself from collapsing. A horrible gasping noise as I struggle to speak and breathe simultaneously, and a sob escapes me. Seeing them this way, knowing he’s been sleeping with her all this time. It’s unbearable.
“How could you?” My heart twists in my chest as the girl moves out of the way, and Jyeon walks toward me at speed. It’s forced out as the tears start to fall, and I hate myself for breaking down and crying in front of this man after all these years.
He doesn’t know what to say, and I’m grabbed by a sudden sense of urgency that springs out of nowhere. A fury finding feet as the inner me tries to jump up and protect me from this awful gruesome reality. I turn and haul Claire towards me by grabbing a chunk of her towel robe before slapping her hard across the face so that it stings my palm and sends her flying sideways. Only I’m holding her by the collar, and I’m yanked with her and fall on top of her as I burst into tears, fuelled by pain, and start to hit her in sheer reaction.
It turns into an immediate bitch fight. Wrestling, hair pulling, scratching, and slapping, she turns on me too and gives as good as she gets. I unleash all my fury and years of repressed emotions. My hatred for Jyeon is poured out onto the wrong person, but she was the closest, and I aim to wound them both. I don’t even know why or where this came from, as it’s not who I have ever been.
“Sohla, stop it. Sohla!!! Please.” Jyeon hauls me up from behind, his arms around me as he catches me by the wrists and tries to cage my crazy. He holds me tight, battling for control, and pulls me back away from her as I kick out my legs to keep trying to maim her.
I turn in his arms when I can no longer cause her damage and start aiming my fury at him instead. My limbs are aching and heavy from the sheer force. I want to hurt him for every pain and scar he has ever caused me. Using my fists on his chest and shoulders while every brick and mortar piece of my emotional barrier wall breaks down, I’m sobbing through my yells of 'How could you?'.
“I hate you. I hate you….. How could you? I hate you. I…. hate …. you….” It’s a blubbering chaotic, and hopeless wail of a woman crumbling into despair. Jyeon tries to hold onto me, pull me close, and hug me in, but I wriggle and squirm and fight until I break loose and shove him with force away from me. Falling out the door and tripping backward, I splay across the ground on my back and butt. My body scrapes along the concrete floor outside with my impact, and I cut up my palms, leg, and elbow and yelp in fright.
“Sohla.” Jyeon reaches for me; his expression is unreadable. It’s like he’s in a daze or shocked, yet there’s sadness in his eyes, and I crawl away to get out of his reach. Unable to bear him anymore. To have his touch, his face, his voice. He’s destroyed everything. He’s torn the last ounce of security from my world.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me.” I’m shaking and manage to pull myself to my feet as blood cascades down my arm and lower leg. Grazed up and bruised, I back away, unable to think clearly.
“Sohla, you’re hurt. Please just come with me. We’ll go somewhere and talk. Let me fix you up. Please, let’s go somewhere, the two of us.” His voice is trembling too, as though he doesn’t know how to navigate this, and he’s not the usually confident cold, and calm Jyeon. A pale shadow of a boy I once loved, but his words or tone no longer melt my heart.
“Fix me?” I blurt out through fat tears and laugh maniacally. “How can you do that? How can you fix this?” I trip again, clumsy in my uncoordinated movements, and fall over a step. Jyeon lurches forward instinctively for me, and I slap his hand away mid-air despite it hurting to come down on my already cut knee. I curl up and hug my leg for a moment to wince at the pain and catch sight of Claire picking herself up in her hallway and tying her robe tighter. Jyeon seems oblivious to her presence. Or the fact she, too, is on the floor with apparent wounds.
“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.” His tone is pleading, he even might sound regretful, but it’s just another stab to my heart, another wound to the never-ending list. This toxic thing between us that’s lasted decades.
I get up on shaking legs and pull myself together, grabbing onto the wall and rails to give myself purchase. The shock of it numbing me, and the pain in my body pulling my attention away from how unbearable this is. I stare at him while the tears stream down my face, dripping onto my now sodden t-shirt, and then at her. With a sarcastic smile, I shake my head.
“You finally found a way, huh? To punish me for Tia.” It falls out of my mouth thoughtlessly, my inner voice speaking out, and his head shoots up to look at me with a frown.
“Who’s Tia?” He asks impulsively, and I close my eyes at him, saying her name, hating how it sounds on his lips. A name I never told him, never uttered to a single soul. He never knew about it because I’ve never dared to say it out loud since the moment I let her leave my body. He said we didn’t name her, but he didn’t know.
“No one. Nothing. Forget it. I’m leaving.” It’s a garbled jumble of words, and I turn and start walking away on Bambi legs. Slow and unstable. Trying to reel myself back in and pull my head together, but his warm hand on my wrist stops me in my tracks as he catches me and hauls me back.
“Don’t go. Let me take you. I'll drive us somewhere. We need to talk. I can’t let you go alone like this.” He reaches out with his other hand and tries to wipe the tears from my cheek that are probably half the reason he’s in shock because I don’t cry, ever.
I react violently. Slapping his hand away, tugging myself free, and shove him hard in the abdomen, so he stumbles backward and has to grab the railing to save himself. I don’t wait for another invasive touch and just run. Heading in the direction I came from, I put my head down to put my all into it, needing to be away from him and her. Needing to be alone to process this and stop the mental breakdown I seem to be in the process of having. It’s so big I feel like I might die.
“Sohla, wait.”
His anxious voice follows me, and yet I don’t stop. I run harder and faster until I feel like my limbs might snap and my lungs are fit to burst. I don’t know where I find the strength or energy when every part of me is aching like a toothache, and I’m sapped of life.
“Sohla!!!” he sounds desperate, but it’s too late. I don’t want to see him anymore. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I curse the day I was born into this family and the day my mother told me he would be my future.
“Jyeon… Jyeon, come back. Jyeon!!” Claire’s voice follows from further back, and I blot it out. Blot them both out and run like my life depends on it.