I stare out over the distant water, leaning on the railing of the highest viewpoint of the island, lost in thought. I came walking after Greta and I were done talking to clear my head, and I found myself climbing up to observe my world from above.
“Hey, you. I've been looking for you. You left your cell at the shack.” Jyeon’s voice filters through my mindless haze, and I break into a genuine smile, warmed by his appearance and instantly lighter by his presence, as though he brought the sun back into my shadows. “Sorry I took longer than I intended to. Yoonah was weirdly sociable and made me go for lunch to have brother time before returning. Given his aversion to my company for the last ten years, I figured I shouldn't refuse.”
Jyeon slides up behind me, turning me back to the railing in his arms so he can step up against my back and wind them around me. He lays his chin on my right shoulder, so his cheek meets mine, and we gaze out over the island and the distant sea view together in an amicable way. Snuggling up cozily, so he can enjoy the view too.
“I missed you,” I murmur, my emotions still tangled and frayed after dissecting everything with Greta and needing this more than he knows. I sink against him, held safe in his strong arms, and find solace in having him home again. I barely slept last night, tossing and turning and wondering what he was doing while back there.
“I missed you more. I couldn’t sleep last night, tossing and turning without my bed buddy keeping me warm. I wanted to up and come home but knew I would have to leave at dawn again.” He kisses me on the cheek and squeezes me before turning his attention back to the view. “What brings you up here anyway? I was shocked you weren't working this afternoon, given how much you like it. It’s not like you to wander off alone.”
“I needed some breathing space,” I reply honestly, knowing I shouldn’t hide anything from him. Greta is correct, and talking out issues with Jyeon should always be the starting point to tackling them. I used to do the opposite and look where it got me. We had zero communication regarding our thoughts and feelings, and we spent years not understanding one another.
“That sounds ominous. What’s up, baby? You not feeling good?” He inclines his head to me to eyeball my profile, and I shrug. Not sure I want to kill this calm ambiance with my stupidity but knowing if I don’t talk to him, I’ll let it grow bigger and become that silent mess who used to ignore her own heart.
“I think I have some kind of PTSD and don’t know how to navigate it.” I catch his wrists and tug his arms further up my body to nestle around my upper arms and pull them across me, so his embrace is tighter. Needing him anchored to me for fear he’ll misunderstand what I need to say. Longing for the security his touch gives me when my soul is unsure and wavering.
“I had noticed you being weirdly quiet and reflective the past few days. I didn’t know how to ask you, given how shit I am at talking things out with you, but I hoped you would come to me when you were ready. You can talk to me.”
“I’m worried you might misunderstand and get upset or that we fight.” My voice fades as real worry peeks through, and Jyeon tightens the cuddle of his own accord. As though trying to reassure me. Jyeon of old was pretty good at walking off whenever we hit conflict, and I think it would break me if he did that over this.
“You shouldn’t be. I’m not going anywhere. I swear I’ll listen and not jump to any conclusions or react, and if it’s something that upsets me, we’ll figure it out. I won’t act like an asshole, baby.”
I sigh, not knowing where to start or how to word it. Greta's words are ringing in my head and so many conflicting feelings. My stomach is churning up with nerves. I even stood here for the last half hour, considering the couples counseling she suggested. That’s how confused and scared I am.
“I feel like my past and present confided, and the bubble that I used to cope, and get through life, popped. I don’t know how else to explain it.” I tense, searching for a better explanation to pull apart my jumbled thoughts. “Time stopped for me two years ago. I didn’t face anything, not really, but instead chose to push it aside and ignore it without really working through many things. Tia was the only thing I came to heal over, but everything else was locked in a box and thrown in a dark space as though it no longer existed.” I don't know if I’m explaining it well or if he understands what I mean. It’s hard to verbalize this to him, given we didn't ever do this back then. My problems were mine to deal with alone, and his problems were his. It’s not easy to now see him as someone to confide in and show the deepest and ugliest parts of me to. I’m overly aware of wanting him to see only the best of me now.
“Coming home, us being like this – it opened the box. And now you’re facing a lot of things that feel like they happened only yesterday? A lot of scars and wounds that I never got the chance to fix. I get it….I guess it’s kinda like that for me in some ways too.” Jyeon responds, seemingly catching onto what I am trying to say, and I nod. I guess that’s precisely what this is now the novelty and the drama of being found has calmed down. I finally have to look at things that hurt. Evaluate everything and relive it.
“Your affair was two years ago, but the fallout is only hitting me now because I opened my heart back up to you, and I’m scared……. I feel like I don’t know if I trust you, and I don’t feel secure in your love for me. I worry about our future and if we can overcome everything.”
My words catch in my throat as a slight wind picks up and whips my hair around my face. Biting my eyes and highlighting the dampness I never knew was there. Being emotional has become so second nature that I’m oblivious to my tears nowadays.
“Tell me what you need me to do to change that? I’ll do anything, whatever it takes.” Jyeon’s voice matches the intensity of my tone and the low intimacy. Keeping close, soothing me with his nearness and responses that give me the courage to keep going and communicate even if it’s hard. I can feel his love when he’s like this, making me more confused about my messy heart.
“I don’t know. I guess I can’t ever get my head around the change. Why you love me now when you didn’t then? I know we keep going back to this, but I need to understand what happened, why you’re so sure now and yet spent years pushing me away. Why she got between us after four years of nothing with other women? My head's a mess, and these things are plaguing me. I might stop turning it over in my brain if I have answers.”
Jyeon pauses for a moment to probably think before jumping in with reactions and answers. I know he’s choosing his words wisely to stop upsetting me further and knows he can’t avoid it. His arms slide down to hug me more casually, yet he keeps me nestled in and held tight.
“I always loved you. I didn’t know that’s what it was…… I went from being a carefree kid to carrying a man's burdens and being forced into marriage to my best friend before I even hit puberty; I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I let my anger and resentment taint my feelings about everything, not just you. …. OLO, Yoonah, my mother. I was so caught up in myself, and when things got messier and messier between us, I blamed you instead of accepting my faults in things… It was easier to have someone I could push this towards rather than break down and accept I was struggling and suffocated. It wasn’t clear-cut. It was a jumble of emotions that were too hard to pull apart, and in there, I thought it was childhood affection and respect for your capabilities that made me have weaknesses towards you. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but I didn’t think it was love. I was grieving for a lot of stuff and bottling shit up, pushing you away like it would somehow fix my head mess… Claire was a stupid mistake that, even at the time, made me feel like an asshole of epic proportions, but I couldn’t understand my guilt over it. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight or understand why I was always conflicted.”
Jyeon holds me against him, and I can feel how his heart rate has accelerated to match mine. Hating that he’s having to admit to this and talk it out, but knowing we need to. His words linger by my ear in the husky voice I always adored, taking the bite out of the content. I am still finding places inside of me to pinch and poke as I digest them.
“I figured if I did something extreme, like getting away from you, starting with someone else, then all the confusion and constant torture would stop. I told myself that all it was, was a burden on top of me because of ingrained responsibility and nothing more. I ignored every tiny little pointer that I was a mess because I was in love with you and couldn’t see it or admit it to myself because I couldn’t possibly love the woman you had become. The symbol of control and failure, or the heartless VP who didn’t even love our baby… I was an idiot who didn’t want to forgive you or understand you over Tia because if I did, I would have to admit blame on my part and my failings that caused it too.” Jyeon exhales deeply, resting heavily on my shoulder, and presses his cheek tight to my face, needing as much from me as he’s giving. Bearing all and giving me insight that I never thought about.
I bite my lip to curb the trembling of my lips as tears roll down my cheeks. Pain is slicing me because I understand what he’s saying, and looking back, I can see it too. The yoyo of his behaviors when I could never understand his feelings about me. One minute he was cold and harsh, and I truly felt like he hated me, then the next, he was chasing after me and seemed to want to undo the pain he caused. He often left me with whiplash that added to my inability to let my guard down around him. And that wall of defensive ice would push him away again—a vicious cycle between us.
“Why her? Why Claire White of all the women you must have met over the years? What was so special that made her the one you used to inflict a wound on me?” I never understood why he picked someone like her unless, deep down, without even knowing it was because he wanted the similarities in me to be something I was hurt by.
“Stupidity… I saw you in her…. Even if I didn't admit it at the time. I guess I yearned for the love she had to offer as she seemed like the closest thing to getting it from you. And she went out of her way to pursue me while my wife didn’t care if I showed face any day of the week. She gave me an ego boost, and I thought I might find answers and happiness by throwing away our fractured mess and letting your stand-in love me instead.”
It's the first time he’s verbalized it like that, and it takes me back a little. Evaluating how he probably thought I didn't care about him back then, my behavior was cold and emotionless. He wanted what I wanted. To have the love and affection from his spouse, he didn’t know how to get or fix and had built only resentment. So he picked someone to replace me; she couldn’t, and it didn’t fix what he wanted.
“When did it start? How often did you see her…… I feel like these are all questions I need answering even if I don’t know why.” Maybe because I want to know how long he lied, hid it, and deceived me. How often did he deny it when it was happening under my nose? How badly he destroyed my trust in him.
Jyeon exhales heavily, uneasy about admitting to any of this now, and I can sense his tension and awkwardness over this painful topic. He knows it’s digging a hole for him, yet I can feel his desire to be completely honest with me.
“Less than a month. It stemmed from there after you met her for the first time because she relentlessly pursued me. I guess she saw through the sham of our marriage, and I was stuck in a rut and looking for something different from what had become our everyday bullshit. Maybe I wanted you to find out and react. Have some real responses from you… I don’t know. I didn’t see her that often, maybe twice a week at most, as it was mainly calls and texts, and the morning you came to her apartment…. was the last time we….. The accident was the end of anything.” he trails off, not wanting to say the words, admitting to the end of their sexual relationship after my dramatic fit at her door. I don’t want to know how many times they did that. I already knew he had slept with her, but it bites all the more to have him admit it—a specific kind of brutal agony.
“I was already hating what I was doing. The buzz of something new didn’t last long. Doubts and remorse plagued me, but I kept telling myself it was because of the family and how ashamed mom would be. I couldn’t face that I kept picturing how you would react and how much I was making sure we could never fix anything between us by doing it.” Jyeon’s tone is raw and heavy, much like mine, and I can tell this is hard for him too. Admitting mistakes, hurting me with confessions, and feeling his regret in every word.
“You didn’t seem like I mattered more than she did that night in the kitchen—that day in the bedroom. I truly believed you loved her and that I could disappear and you would never regret it. You would never miss me.” I remind him of how cold he was, how he asked for a divorce and told me he wanted me out of his life for good.
“They say there’s a fine line between hate and love, right?… I reacted like a prized asshole because I was consumed by guilt and this choking anxiety that I was ruining everything between us. Being confronted by you made me feel like shit. I knew I would lose you, and it was screwing me up because I didn’t understand why that made me afraid. Making it final, and yet it didn’t feel good at all. It confused me, and I was mad at you for always pulling me back when I least expected it. Seeing you break had me following you home and caving like always… I felt like a puppet and the good obedient Park boy who put his family above his happiness, and it riled me that I was that pathetic and couldn’t think for myself.”
It somehow soothes me to know that even back then, at that moment, I had a pull on him, even if it didn’t seem like it. That his regret and confusion existed when we were at our worst.
“So then what…. how did you find out about the accident? What did you think? What changed in your mind?” I turn slightly to him to gaze up at his handsome profile, seeing the faraway look in his eyes as he recalls the past. I am holding in my tears and feelings because I genuinely want to know every detail.