8

Looking towards the bathroom door, I see it sat open with no lights on, so I know he's not in there. I turn to the study where he sleeps. The door is closed tight, so I walk over and push it open, heart in my mouth, and nerves jangled even though this is his bedroom too, but such is the impulse to always have more from him than I get. The room is silent, pitch black, but he's definitely been here to change. I turn around and head for the walk-in closet along the other wall, finding it too in darkness and no signs of him at all.

His aftershave lingers in the air in here as he must have refreshed it, and it knocks me off guard for a moment, reminding me of his smell. His past closeness because he's never switched it out in all these years, and my throat closes up with a sudden surge of pain.

If his plans were business-related, he wouldn't have changed his entire suit to go out. He keeps spare shirts at the office with ties to suit all his outfits and would only come here to pick out casual clothing. He avoids coming home at all costs. He would never meet a client dressed that way either, and my head goes into overdrive at where he might be and what he might be doing.

He casually dresses once in a blue moon since becoming President of OLO. Jyeon is a workaholic who spends his entire life dealing with the company and dedicating his time there. His friends rarely see him, and when they do, it's never a weekday like this, so he's always in work mode. So much so he owns so little nonformal clothing.

I turn back into the walk-in wardrobe and head right to the back where the security screens are located. Typing in the passcode and selecting the garage camera to show where our cars are parked. My driver dropped me off at the front door today as I never took my own this morning, so I didn't see if Jyeon had taken his.

I press the control panel to have the camera scan the downstairs underground parking, and his spot for his Range rover is occupied with his navy four by four. That can only mean he switched out his car for the Bugatti Centodieci.

He only owns two vehicles and always drives himself. It's his pride and joy and his toy that rarely leaves the garage except on special occasions when Jyeon deems it fit.

My stomach flips over, and I try not to overthink the unusual actions of his behavior this evening. Coming home before eight to change, and taking that car on a Wednesday night, when I know he's up to his eyeballs in work this week. It's not like him.

"He's gone to let off steam because of what today is…." I say it out loud, choked up with this weird ache in my gut that tells me he's doing something I would hate and refusing to ponder or guess at it as it will only hurt me more. As much as I pretend I don't care and don't intervene in his life, I depend on the fact he's always working and rarely does anything else. It's my stable safe where I can keep tabs on him and know he's not doing anything to bring shame to our shambles of a marriage.

It's how I can continue living like this even if he never touches me or shows me a fraction of care or affection because he's not giving it to anyone else. There's been no scandals, rumors, or signs of him doing anything that would out us as a fake couple in the last four years, but this feels off tonight.

Sixth sense, a woman's intuition maybe, but my heart pounds through my chest, and my stomach aches as it twists inside of me. My legs go weak like they're made of putty, and my hands shake uncontrollably.

I know he wouldn't go to the grave with that car, I know that much, and he's not been there once since the first year, to my knowledge. He might have arranged to blow off steam with Bryant, but I hope not because that eternal bachelor only knows how to party himself into a stupor while surrounded by loose women who don't see a wedding ring as a reason to keep their hands to themselves. Jyeon usually only sees him for lunch dates or sports time, never evening meet-ups when Bryant is always on the hookup.

"Stop thinking and go to bed." I chastise myself loudly, wavering, and push it all back down. Taking slow deep breaths and reminding myself that from time to time, I feel this way. I get scared and momentarily think the worst, yet he's never yet done anything. He's too upright and solid to hurt his family name or OLO with something dirty.

Impulsively I pull out my cell and dial his number before I can stop myself; otherwise, I might go crazy and imagine the worst and rip my brain to shreds with the fear of the unknown. It rings three times, and he picks up. Something that, despite our years of strained interaction that he'll always do. He never ignores my rare calls. No matter how mad he is at me. Texts, calls, emails… Jyeon always replies to me within minutes.

"What is it, Sohla?" he sounds pissed off, his tone low and husky, and I can tell he's had a drink or two by the slight laziness of his speech. He has a low tolerance for alcohol because he rarely touches it, and it winds my nerves tighter, creating anxiety inside of me.

"Where are you?" I ask bluntly, knowing I have no right, but I don't care.

"I told you, I have plans. I'm out." There's noise around him as though he's sat somewhere busy, with lots of other people, and there's soft music playing, but it doesn't sound like a club or party. More like a restaurant or somewhere similar.

"You left your clothes on the bed, and your sports car is gone; I was worried that you might be having a hard time today." My mask slips, and the softer me shows face without meaning to. A slight gentler tone and the way I say it is alien to how I talk now. There's a noise like a breathy 'hah' of disbelief at my nerve for calling him this way and a small dry chuckle.

"Four years too late, baby. Sohla, hang up before I say something I might regret. I'm not in the mood tonight. I'm out; I'm staying out. I'll see you at work tomorrow. I'm fine, just like always." He has no warmth in his tone, and I'm guessing whoever he is with knows well what kind of relationship we have if he's talking normally and not trying to put on an act or be quiet about it. It has to be Bryant, or maybe Avery. I hope it's Avery because he'll take good care of him no matter how much he drinks.

There's a long pause as my eyes glaze over, and the urge to cry hits me hard. I miss him. Maybe because of what today is, but the aching longing inside of me to break down and beg him to come home overwhelms me, and suddenly I really want to be that little kid again who used to hide in his arms when she was scared of the world.

The Jyeon that cared, the Jyeon that was present in our first four months of marriage before we started fighting all the time. The Jyeon who held me at my parent's funeral and took care of me for days after when I couldn't get out of bed. I miss Jyeon, the eight-year-old who taught me how to ride a bike and gave me my first taste of candy floss when he took me to the children's circus when I was ten. He was my best friend.

"If you're not hanging up, then I am. Goodnight."

"Wait!" It's a desperate snap of words as I panic to keep him there, clinging to memories and feelings I always try to fight, and his loud sigh makes me bite on my lip and give myself a mental slap for being this way. He hates me acting like this.

"Can we not? Please. Just for once. I know what today is; I didn't forget. Do you think that I can so easily stop caring about her because she only lived a week? She was my daughter, my baby. Sohla, she was our kid…. I wanted her." His words slur more than before, and I realize he's much drunker than I thought he was. He's never this way. He never opens up and talks to anyone, let alone me, especially not about her. Not like this, never like this. He avoids drinking for this exact reason because he doesn't want to and can't face us ever bringing her up, and a tear fills one eye making my vision blurry, so I have to bite on my lip hard to stop myself from sobbing.

"We never even gave her a name. Sohla. How could we not name her? She was a real little person, even if it was only for a short while. She was your daughter; you were her mother. Why didn't you come when she needed you? She held on for you for six days…. I held on for you too. If you'd come… maybe...." Jyeon's voice breaks, soft breathiness that tells me he's crying, and the mental picture of him doing so rips my soul in two. Shame washing over me, guilt eating me raw, which numbs my heart painfully, and I try to blot it out. Shaking all over because I know I did wrong, and I can never turn back time to change it no matter what I say or do.

I laid in my hospital bed, recovering from blood loss, and used it as an excuse to never venture to her ward because I just couldn't accept what I let happen. I was selfish and afraid of seeing her when she was so tiny and helpless. Knowing I did that. Knowing she was dying. I hid from her because I couldn't take another loss after my parents, after Mr. Park.

I know he blames me for her letting go and leaving us, and I, too, blame me for not being there when she needed me most. Maybe if I did, she might have found the fight to hang on and survived. Perhaps we would have gotten through it differently and been something else right now. It's the one thing Yoonha has never understood, but I do.

Jyeon hates me for not just hurting her and causing an early birth with my negligence, but for abandoning her and leaving her to die without me. Her death is on my head, no matter which way I tell the story or what excuse I make, and I have to live with it for the rest of my life.

"I shouldn't have called you." My voice sobers up, empty and sour, and the cold and icy part of me that takes over when I mentally can't handle anything anymore pushes in to save me from harm. Cutting him off. Locking him out once more and hating myself that I've become so accustomed to doing this that it's like autopilot against my will.

It isn't just Jyeon that keeps me far away and unable to love; it's a two-way street where I can't allow him to love me either. I don't deserve his love after what I did. We both put an invisible barrier there, and neither ever tries to take it down. Lack of talking about important things and our willingness to play pretend and carry on every day without getting to the root of where we started to go wrong.

"And there she is, right back to bitch. You're right; you shouldn't have called. I forgot for a second that you're never going to be how you were again, and I delude myself for ever thinking you're still in there somewhere. I'm hanging up, Sohla. Go to bed." His voice returns to cold and icy, and all hints of emotion evaporate. His wall comes up as high as mine until we're separated by ten feet of solid steel on each side, and I sink onto the floor while cradling it close despite my behavior. My insides are aching and throbbing, and my body is weak, vibrating. While my face is blank, and my heart slowly turns to a block of ice.

"Enjoy your night." It's an emotionless farewell, and I red button his call before either says anything else. Sat in the dark of the closet and staring blankly at the wall in front of me. I don't move for a long time, losing count of the minutes with no will to do anything else but stop and wait.

And yet I don't think, feel, or do anything else except sit here. Turning off my brain and zoned out to allow a numbness to take over. I do it until the clock passes midnight, and the chimes stop ringing in the house below, fading out to a low hum of past echo until it's no longer the day I let my baby die.