I head out of the underground via our access road and turn left, out of the city, to hit the cliff roads to let this baby roar. We live on the outskirts and are fortunate enough to be a short drive from one of the most scenic and windy roads that head into a beautiful part of our country and eventually stop at the sea. The river which runs past our home starts as a tiny trickle and somehow manages to size up and merge seamlessly with the vast world out there, and it has always fascinated me. That something so small can start that way and yet become a formidable force to take on the vastness of nature.
The car feels heavy to steer, and I scrunch my face at its lack of sensitive response, wondering what the hell he’s been doing to this. It’s sluggish and not exactly what you expect from a multimillion-dollar car that happens to be a limited edition. I can’t remember thinking it felt this awful to drive when I tried it out before, and I check the gauges for any warning lights and see none. In fact, nothing is lit up at all, not even the dials. He must have a fuse out, and he’s neglected it to this point.
Idiot.
I guess seeing his mistress was prioritized over maintaining his pride and joy or his marriage.
I put my foot to the pedal and head for freedom, hoping it'll get better if I clear its engine with some good revs. The steering might just need a fluid top-up, not that I care, as I have no intention of letting this car live after tonight. I gave it, and I can take it away. Let him see how that feels.
I’m glad the roads are quiet as darkness falls, and I’ll have an uninterrupted route to do whatever my heart wants with this piece of trash. Race the shit out of it, leave it with a few dents and scratches or completely destroy it in inventive ways. He treats this like fragile glass and drives it like an OAP, so I’m going to do everything I know that would make him cry. Rough her up, show her what a good ride feels like, and then depending on how I’m feeling, I’ll see where she ends up. In the bottom of a canyon, if I get to that point, I’ll film it and send it his way.
I hit the radio to blare music, frowning as the rock station he favors bursts into life, and immediately press it to another frequency. Hating even the sound of anything that makes me think of Jyeon and twist in my seat until I land on a pop station playing a BTS song and leave it alone. It’s a happy, upbeat collab with a band I like, Coldplay, and somehow despite my dark mood, it helps me relax into my leather molded seat to focus on driving.
The air around me fills with lyrics like ‘You are my universe,’ and I snort at the irony of playing a song like this while sitting in the only thing it would apply to when it comes to Jyeon. If he had to choose between me or this piece of expensive scrap, he would take his car and watch me burn. I can’t deny that anymore, and I should stop telling myself otherwise. It’s time I faced the reality that my life sucks.
I tap my fingers on the wheel as my speed edges up, and I get to the start of the uphill climb to the peak point. One of the longest roads to a stunning tourist viewpoint on top of one of our mini-mountains. It’s a nature reserve that climbs high and overlooks the sea, and suddenly I have the urge to do that. To watch the ocean roar and bring me some inner peace to calm the chaos of my mind while my life is such a fucking mess. I always liked the ocean; it’s the one place I can stare at, and it stills my mind completely. I haven’t been here in so long though.
I press a button and roll down both car windows to let the air mess with my hair and cool my hot fury. Not caring if it’s cold. The temperature must be bordering on winter levels tonight. I don’t care if it makes me sick later; it feels good to breathe clean air as it rushes by and slaps my hair around the headrest in an untamed fashion.
My focus strays from the road as something slides in the black seat next to me, and I flick a glance its way. Seeing it for the first time, the leather jacket that bitch bought for him, my heart leaps up into my throat. A slicing stab at reminding me that no matter how good this feels, I’m not outrunning the pains in my heart. He takes it everywhere, a symbol of their love, nestled so preciously as his passenger, and it brings bile up from my stomach.
The inner hateful and petty me lurches out with one hand and grabs it, twisting my fingers and nails into the soft leather, so I leave marks. I yank it from the seat and stuff it right out the window as I swerve around a gentle curve, and the wind catches it. Like air filling a sail or a kite, it suddenly puffs up with eery life, and the arms fill and form a strange body as though it has a life of its own. Hovering by the car for a second as though to plead for mercy. I strain to turn and look as it’s caught, pulled up for a second by a gust of playful wind, and then yanked over the railing to drop to its death in the water below.
“So long, asshole!” I yell after it, straining my head out the window. I sit back, smiling that as immature as that was, it felt damn good.
To throw them away, what they are. To ruin something he obviously likes. Not even sorry that what must have cost her hundreds, maybe even a thousand, is now going to be floating around down there and hopefully gets washed out to sea.
I turn the music up, ignore the fact I am edging up way past the speed limit, and throw caution to the wind as the incline gets steeper and the car flies. It’s freeing in a way, and despite the car making the odd grunt and cough and the steering feeling like I might need to work my upper body strength, it’s exhilarating to be in a speed machine as sleek as this and driving into the darkness like a thief in the night.
For a minute, I can forget my woes and worries. Forget all that is ruining my sanity of late. If only life could feel like this all the time, breaking free of the shackles and chains so I can finally take a deep inhale as it's all left behind. In control of my surroundings, my pressure on a pedal, only the road ahead of me, which is clear and leads wherever I want it to go, suddenly tears fill my eyes, and I choke.
“I’m not happy.” It comes out in a sharp confession all on its own, like an inner voice that can no longer be silenced. “I hate my life.” Instant burn to the back of my throat as emotion hits me hard, and I push my foot down harder to try and shake it out of my head. Swirling in my stomach, I blink hard to shift it away and scold myself for letting it escape so bluntly.
I swing around curve after curve, miles and miles, practically clinging on to make them as the car fights me to keep the wheels straight. It pulls my attention from my woes, and I focus on the car instead. I narrow my eyes and begin to have an inner tremor of doubt. That maybe this isn’t just how it usually is, and perhaps the steering has a fault.
It seems worse the faster I go and reach the mountain's summit to the plateau, where it levels for a brief time before heading downhill. I decide maybe I should go easier on this thing. Something doesn’t feel right, and as I turn the corner to the parking spot where cars usually sit in daylight, going way too fast, I make the turn to bypass it, yet nothing happens.
The car doesn’t turn, the steering locks, and try as I might to force it, it won’t budge. My stomach leaps into my throat, and I impulsively slam my foot to the brake to try and control the forward motion at too high a speed as I head into the clearing.
My heart stops, my lungs freeze, and my mind goes blank as my foot slides without resistance all the way to the floor like I’m pressing air, and my eyes widen in horror as it hits me.
There are no brakes.
I’m not slowing down. The railings are coming at me at a speed of noughts as panic grips me, and I yank with all my might to turn this infernal metal coffin, not knowing what else to do. I slam the break repeatedly, in a manic, impulsive effort, gripping the wheel so tight that my hands turn white.
Nothing.
A solid wheel, no brakes, and not enough time to do anything about it because I’m traveling at high speed.
I run out of options. I brace myself as I smash through metal barriers at the top of the viewpoint, metal ripping up and tearing the front of the car as the barrier goes with it. Rumpling the bonnet and smashing out the headlights, my illuminated view becomes a dark, terrifying blackness. The scenery before me goes out, like a Tv screen being switched off.
Letting go of the wheel, I scream out in terror and press my hands to the ceiling to hold myself taut as we crash through, and the car takes a nosedive with a stomach-lurching precision right off the top of the peak view cliff. A perfect view, a pitch-black night, a full moon, and the glistening sea laid out before me that ripples with reflections of my only light source now. So typical to have such perfection and beauty when fate decides it’s the end of the road for me.
It feels like my soul leaves my body and everything goes in slow motion. My butt lifting from my seat, only held in place by my seatbelt, hair, arms, purse, and cell beside me, all experience a loss of gravity. My stomach moves up into my throat, and I’m so caught in the loss of sense I can’t react, like astronauts in a moon expedition showing us the fun from inside their shuttle, suspended in time and space. With this heavy black object of regret, we plunge, together into the darkness of shadows and swooshing noises below. Trees are rustling in the wind, the night air so silent yet bustling with noise, and I am swallowed into it all. The radio crackles and breaks up through such an upbeat song, so I get quiet moments.
Jyeon flashes through my mind, his face paining me, even at a time like this. Yoonah, mother, my parents, and the massive weight of guilt and sorrow that I would do this to them. I didn’t even mean it.
Almost in a blink, the elongated period comes to a crashing halt as I’m blasted nose-first into inky water that comes cascading up the windscreen and sides of the car like an explosion. Igniting a scream from me as I’m smashed forward and head-butt the wheel with so much force, I blackout for a second and lose my sense of reality. It calms my panic and removes the fear as I’m knocked for six for mere seconds. I come around just as fast though, as icy cold fluid numbs my feet and legs and starts climbing like creepy fingers up my body. I’m disorientated and don’t know what it is at first, so shaken and detached from reality.
I drag in a gulp of air, flop back in my seat, my head hitting the padded cushion and rolling from side to side, and wince at the pain that rocks across my face and skull. Warm fluid trickling over my left brow. It’s an instant migraine and swirling vision.
I’m dazed but starting to take in what’s happening as reality hits home. That I’m sinking. The iciness cloying at my limbs is a rising water level. My blood turns cold because it’s freezing as the vehicle submerges and swallows me up. Rushing in at every orifice, the car is tussled about in the rapids of deep stormy water, so close to the sea opening that it’s no longer just the river tearing at my lifeboat.
I pull myself together, ripping back clarity like a slap in the face, urgency flooding me as I get to grips with how bad this is, and I start clawing to get out—at my belt, holding me captive to this damn seat, with hysteria-driven motions and losing the ability to be able to coordinate my fingers. I’m shaking so badly that I start fumbling and feeling around, taking shallow gasps as tears flood my eyes and blur my vision. I become more alert by the second, yet with it comes my unbridled fear of what’s happening and how bad this is. Genuine terror is taking over and slowing my ability to react.
“Jyeon, help me, please…. help me.” I sob aloud, making senseless requests to deaf ears, breaking a nail in my efforts, and grasping, scratching, and clawing at the metal components I can’t make work. Hysteria gripping my soul and making me erratic. Emotions overwhelm me as my immortality stares me in the face, and I fail to save myself. I can’t get the damn thing to unclip, and it’s literally anchoring me to this coffin.
“I don’t want to die alone. Not like this. Jyeon…. find me…. please. I don’t want to die.” My voice is barely a tearful whisper, drowned out by the chaos of the water rushing in and the groans and creaks of the car straining under its weight. The radio is still flickering music and dies out in a horrible dramatic last burst of lyrics about not being together—an awful way to leave me alone in this desperate darkness.
It’s at my waist in seconds, then my shoulders, a sensation like I’m being pulled down into ice that steals my breath. Speeding up with momentum as I sink further, I only manage one last gasp before I’m pulled down and under. Still fighting to get my belt off as this colossal weight around my hips yanks me into another world.
The air around me disappears as the cold dark liquid I can’t see through surrounds me, blurs my vision, and shocks my skin with its temperature. I hold my breath, submerged and aware of a free-falling sensation in my stomach. This car and I are being pulled down faster than I anticipated. I fight and scrabble with the mechanism to get loose. I close my eyes, feel my way, and almost let out all the air in my lungs with a relief squeal as it finally unclips, and the sensation of being let go frees me. Rising into the space with a head bump to the roof over me before sinking back down.
Instinctively, I reach up to the window beside me and use it as leverage to pull myself out of the seat, but I’m tugged down as I try. Something around my ankle is jamming me in and keeping me secured. I twist and fight. Wiggling my foot because it feels like my shoe is caught somehow, I tug, rotate, and kick out until it slides free, releasing me from my bondage and strapped stiletto. I haul myself out the window with great effort, my ass causing a temporary issue, and then pop, I’m out, as the car falls away into blackness. I can’t see anything around me.
I don’t know which way is up, and my lungs are burning, straining, with the effort of holding air that’s not enough to sustain me. I start to panic that I’m suffocating and the instinct to gasp in is something I have to fight with my entire willpower. Swishing my arms and legs around in a bid to swim to the surface, but in every direction is a formidable black wall of nothing. I can’t even see the car anymore. I don’t know what’s down, up, left, or right.
My gut pulls me one way, something like a sixth sense, that it’s to oxygen, and I kick with fury and extend my arms in a grasping motion as I fight as much as possible to find light and air. It’s a good guess, and as my face breaks the surface, I gasp with all my might to breathe it in before I’m plunged back under with the reactive force up my upward thrust—a moment of relief, followed by the reality that I’m far from safe.
I resurface with less gusto, clawing at the air, coughing, spitting up water, and trying to inhale. It’s exhausting, my whole body is thrown around like a wet rag, and I’m barely making it to open air to breathe before the river yanks me down again and rolls me over. I immediately realize I’m being tossed around before I’m tipped upside down by an undercurrent and have to fight all over again to find the direction of up.
I was always a strong swimmer, one of the few things Jyeon insisted I learn as a kid due to the number of pool parties and vacations our families had when we were young, but this is beyond hard. I kick and fight and try with all my might to get purchase somehow, and his voice filters through my head as though encouraging me to keep going.
“Sohlly Bolly, if you get caught in the water, take off as much of your clothes as you can. They’ll drag you down and twist you up. You have to be clever to survive.” Ten-year-old Jyeon being my wise instructor, that time we went to the kids’ camp and learned how to use canoes. He’s inside my head, telling me what to do.
I start fighting with my suit jacket impulsively, ripping it open and letting it be pulled off my body by the current. My blouse, too, as I bob up and manage another lungful of air. On autopilot and grasping for anything that might improve my chances, even the words of a ten-year-old in my memory. Under it, I have a satin camisole that I leave alone, but I wriggle at my wide-leg pants and somehow unbutton them and kick them off while fully submerged. It's calmer just below the surface, but not entirely, and I’m still being flipped around and twisted up.
I free myself, kicking off the one shoe I still have on my foot, and I’m left in underwear, and a long satin underdress that reaches my upper thighs. Suddenly unbound by my clothes, I manage to make a beeline, untethered, for the surface. My limbs are sluggish with the freezing temperature and the exertion of fighting this endless battle against the current. I’m desperately trying to hold on and break through for the umpteenth time, grappling to stay up here. It’s sapping my life force and taking so much out of me even to try.
I turn just in time to see a tree stump too late, floating in the water at eye level and coming at speed due to the rapids. I try to sink under, my arms up over my head as I plunge feet first to avoid it, but it sits below the surface like a giant submarine of rage, and I collide with it bodily. I’m spun as the impact knocks me for six, and somehow end up face-butting a protruding edge and almost taking out my eye in the process.
It must be a hard impact, as hard as hitting the steering wheel, because I see sparkling stars and lose sense for a second. I gasp in fluid in place of air and begin to choke, retching and spasming as my lungs reject it. My eyes spring open in panic, and I grab onto the branches and start trying to haul myself up.
It’s my assassin and also my savior, and I cling on, moving with it, using it to get up, breaking into the atmosphere, and coughing out the lungful of salty water that’s slowly churning me down. I don’t let go. My fingers are hurting and aching with numbness, and using this wood beast to save my own life. I climb and scrabble even when its turns and rolls in the water and submerges me all over again, but it keeps going and pulls me with it to pop back up the other side. It torments me by giving me life and then rolling me around to dunk me again. It does this twice more until I feel like I’m so dizzy I can’t see straight.
From behind, without warning, I’m smacked in the spine with an agonizing thwack, letting out a winded ‘oooft’ and crushed momentarily between two solid objects that knock the air out of me, and I lose my grip. Arms splay, and I let out a ‘eughhhhh’ noise into the chaos as I’m squashed again with two forces colliding. Water rushing, wood groaning, while I’m splashing and choking on my desperate attempts not to die.
It’s an entire tree. Laying down in the water after being ripped from the roots, its twiggy branches get caught up in my hair and rip some out. It hurts like hell, yet it somehow acts as a force to pull my head out of the water and keep me there. Like the decrepit fingers of an old witch, she wants me in her clutches.
I turn to try and push the two deadweights apart as my rib cage begins to get crushed for a third time with their rubbing together. I lift my legs to force the stump away and see more stability in the huge tree that looks more like a boat than an offensive weapon.
I don’t know how I do it. Limbs almost unusable, shaking so badly my teeth are chattering, and my fingers won't grip. I know my core temperature is probably dangerously low. My whole body is going into shock, and I’m freezing and fighting with the last dregs of energy I possess. My eyes are stinging, not just from the salty water, as I’m aware I’m being pushed out to sea, but the taste of blood in my mouth and the ache of my head tells me that I probably cracked my skull. I don’t know how I’m still fighting.
It’s one last effort to live. I scramble with the branches, being torn, poked, and prodded as I fight the leaves and twigs and try to climb up from the worst tree end. I haul myself along, using the sharp, breakable pieces I feel out with my hands as hold-ons, parts snapping off in my fingers and sticking into me until I meet more substantial girth. I somehow get up, pulling out of the water from the waist, over it, and slide my arms through the intricate weave work of its branches. One leg up, and over, taking strength I don’t have, yet I somehow find it, and I’m almost out of the water. Like Rose on that fucking door when she left Jack to die. I totally understand why she let him drown.
It's a stupid thought, and I let out an insane snort like a laugh, but not at my predicament, and I know I’m losing it. My sanity probably sunk with the car, and I’m running on pure adrenaline and will to live.
My survival instinct is strong, and I give it everything from deep down in my toes to boost myself one last inch. I get up, with a heave and a cry out of ‘arghhhh’ screamed into the deathly night air like a warrior swinging the sword for the last time and knowing it’s the death blow. Splayed across a pretty fat trunk, my arms intertwined in its bushy sprouts, my hair still caught and tangled worse where water is moving it and twisting it into the smaller twigs.
I gasp in labored heaves and try to calm my breaths, vibrating so violently I can’t control them nor feel my limbs anymore, and my eyes are getting heavy. So relieved that I found a way to keep my head above water and seventy percent of my body. Even while being bashed and moved by forces beyond my control, I seem to stay perched and still, and I become so heavy I lay flat on my stomach to allow myself to catch my breath and rest. I know I’m far from safe, but I need a breather. I need a few minutes before I try and get out of the water or look for something to help.
I’m just so spent.
I’m fading. I can feel it. Dizziness coming in at me, tiredness and cold pushing me to want to let go. My breath is no longer making steam clouds in front of me because it’s no longer warm, I know that’s not good, and I sniff and curl my fingers into sharp, leathery leaves. I shouldn’t allow myself to blackout.
“I won’t die like this. I won’t …….. I won’t die.” I mutter it to myself, a tiny voice that only I can hear, as a way to will myself to hold on. I have no idea where I’m floating, where I am anymore, or how far away the car is. Everything of me is back there, left behind, and no one knows where I am. I went in such a cocky and carefree manner, and now I regret it. A tear escapes my eye, and I laugh sadly at the reality of that. Every identifiable part of Sohla Park is sinking with Jyeon’s car… even his damn four-by-four keys.
I close my eyes and try to focus on staying calm, but the headache and nausea start to overtake me, and the coldness of my body makes me want to sleep. I long to be home warm and safe. I would give anything for that right now.
I try to visualize being in the lounge with my mom when I, Jyeon, and Yoonha were kids. Sitting on the couch curled up together, eating popcorn, sharing a duvet, and watching movies. It’s the warmest, coziest, and the most comforting thing I can rake up in my mind to distract me from this hell.
Companionable silence as we used each other as pillows. She used to love having us all there for sleepovers and lavishing us with her maternal love and boundless warm energy. Those were days when I was truly happy. I never knew what was coming or what would face me when Jyeon and I collided in another way. So long ago…. Yet right now, it feels like it was only yesterday, and I smile as darkness overtakes me and peace finally ascends.