59

I'm trembling inside at the turn of this conversation and annoyed that I keep giving him angles to have these heart to hearts. I walk myself into it every time, and he's being so god damn vocal and open, unlike him of the past who would never share his thoughts and feelings with me, that it always catches me off guard. Trapped between him and his words while being faced with a sea of memories back when I thought Jyeon would be my entire life.

"So, what happens to her now? If I'm here and I remember everything. If you get your way and I stay married to you against my will? Does your mistress still stay in the picture too? One cosy little happy family." I turn on him, thinking face to face, acting cold is the better option for this chat. Show him I'm not affected or that I care. That the bitch he hated before can still show face. To turn it back to something negative.

I'm startled to find him right behind me, staring at the back of my head, and he doesn't shift back when I end up almost nose butting him. A little unnerved by this invasive way he has of hemming me in.

"I honestly don't know. She's important to the R&D with Biochem. She's been my friend these past two years without asking for anything in return...… For you, though, I would do whatever you asked. Because I know she only makes this more complicated between us."

"There is no us….. Sounds like there never was from what things you've told me….. Did you at least love her?" I raise my brow, and as much as it kills me to lift my chin and look him in the eye for this, I know I need to. I need to kill whatever niggles and waivers I have in my heart for this man. Let him go once and for all. Remember the past, the pain, and the betrayal. Don't forgive, don't forget. Remind myself of the reason I took his car that night. Have him tell me he gave his heart to that woman, along with his body and affection, and decimate what's left of my love for him.

"At the time, I deluded myself into thinking it…. but... No. I didn't love her." Jyeon doesn't hesitate. His dark brown, almost black eyes intensely focused on mine. "All it took was seeing that you drove off peak point, and I knew. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. It's imprinted in my head. How the air was sucked out of me, and I couldn't breathe. The way your face flashed through my mind and the last things I said to you… I wanted to take it all back, undo every second. I wanted it to be wrong, that they were wrong, and it wasn't you." Jyeon reaches up with his left hand and gently traces the hair from my temple back to my hairline with his fingertip, and I flinch away from him. Scolded by his tenderness.

"Nothing makes you face your feelings, like losing the person you do love and realising you spent your entire adult life pushing her away. Denying the truth about why you could hate her so venomously."

I step out of his reach and wipe my hand across the burning traced path he left with his fingertips to remove the sensation. Screwing my face up as though I'm angered while battling my internal butterflies and chaos. Stomach tightening in response. Hating how he sucks the air from around me by being close.

"Don't," I mutter back at him, body bristling with the way it reacts to him.

"I'm sorry, Sohla. For turning my back on you when we were kids, you did nothing wrong. For keeping my distance and pushing you aside to try and convince our parents to let us free. For convincing myself I didn't care about you. I didn't know how else to rebel against what they wanted, and it made sense at the time and grew into something else. I left you to cope alone when I had always cushioned everything for you. You were my best friend, someone I fiercely protected and cared about... and I shut you out and treated you coldly and hurt you. If I hadn't, if I had let nature run its course, realised I always loved you… then things would have been completely different. I see that now. I spent two years thinking about it, about everything. About how I was when we married, when you were pregnant, and why you did everything you did. I have so many regrets. I know I was the one who destroyed everything, and you became the way you did because of me."

He's talking at my back, and I'm unable to stay still and listen. Pushing it out of my head and pacing away from the bookcase to escape him. He's rubbing my heart raw, opening wounds, picking off the scabs to reveal the unhealed and making them bleed still. Two years all unravelling like we're back in the kitchen that night, and he's still so etched in my brain and soul that this is agony.

I close my eyes and regulate my breathing to not show him the way I'm tearing up, and my face aches with how hard I'm trying to remain blank. I won't cave to him. His words won't fool me. He broke my heart more than once. I shouldn't allow him to rewind his way in to do even more damage to me.

"What do you want me to say, huh?" Emotions get the better of me, and I spin on him, bubbling from inside. Pain and temper are taking over. "I forgive you?.... I can't. Because…. Whatever happened, I don't remember. You keep bringing up things I have no recollection of, and I don't know the person you're talking about. For all I know, you could be fabricating a past. Trying to get me to believe that you're not the one who tried to get rid of me, for whatever reason. All of this feels convenient and like it's not about love but about control and something you need from me. Everything you said about our marriage, and now you're contradicting it all. Confusing me while that girl still lingers too. It's all bullshit." My hands are vibrating, my inner body pulsating, and my chest grows crazily tight. Clinging on to the lie of amnesia because it now feels like it's a shield that saves me from ever having any real headway with him about all of this. Denial is my only option.

Jyeon watches me with a tight expression before sliding his arm behind his back and fishing his wallet from his back pocket. Saying nothing, infuriatingly calm while I'm starting to unravel.

"Catch." He throws it my way, and I impulsively scramble in the air to grab the freefalling black leather square.

"Why are you giving me this?" I frown at him in puzzlement. Grasping it tightly.

"Open it. Look in the side left slot. Pull it out. Tell me after that if I'm fabricating all of this. That there wasn't a part of me that truly loved you. That held onto you despite what I thought I felt."

I blink at him and then the smooth expensive article before slowly flipping it open and sliding my fingers into the left side on autopilot. His wallet is fat with cards and cash, and there on the one side, which is so tight I have to struggle to get it out, is a folded up thick paper. I fumble with it and manage to free it from its tight prison. Not sure what this is.

It's aged, slightly yellowing, and thicker than regular paper, with some pencil words written on that are so faint I almost can't make them out. The edges are overworked and splitting in places like he's had this for a very long time and looks at it frequently.

"This?" I hold it up and wave it slightly, seeing him nod. His eyes trained on me, and his expression unreadable.

"Open it. I've carried that in every wallet I've owned since we were young. No matter how we were, I always kept that."

I put his wallet under my armpit, glancing from him to it but obeying him, so I can use both hands to unfold whatever this is. I'm curious and unsure what this is in relation to our conversation, but I'm intrigued enough to ask nothing else.