"I heard you ran into each other today. I'm just curious what it is you said to Sohla. I figured we three could sit down and clarify who is what in this scenario. Remove possible misunderstandings. Lay it all out on the table." Jyeon moves to the business tone of President Park. The cold and commanding man who used to stand by my side and conduct all things OLO in seamless partnership. Familiar and safe.
"You went crying to Jyeon? What did you tell him? That I was mean and told you to go back to your island so he can get on with his life. I didn't say anything I haven't already said to you before, Jyeon. I don't understand why we need to clarify the truth when it's all I gave her."
I have no more words for this woman. She's bitter, snapping even at him, and I can tell she's mad at being summoned here. Her pride dented. I keep my eyes glued to my water and don't move. Poised, legs crossed, cushion in place, and focus on not reacting.
"Just because you say it and often doesn't make it true. For two years, you've been telling me what I feel as if you know more than I do. I don't want to fight with you, and we agreed that while under OLO's roof, you and I would have a business relationship that includes butting out of my fucking marriage." His sudden break in temper makes me freeze. My limbs tighten, and I hold my breath as static crackles in the air around us.
"What marriage? The one you didn't want? The one you destroyed by sleeping with me? I don't think she's here because she believes she's still your wife, Jyeon. When are you going to wake up and realize that all of this is because...."
"Stop telling me what I fucking feel or think. Stop dissecting my actions. Stop interfering. It's been two years of you trying to convince me that you and I were something more than it was. Trying to pull me back to you. I've tried to be patient and understanding because I know I'm the one who caused all of this. Enough is enough, and now Sohla is back… I'm drawing a fucking line. She is the woman I love; I've always loved… and will protect her until the day I die, whether she wants me or not. Forgives me or not. It's got nothing to do with you...….. You and I, we have nothing, and we never will again….. I told you when she went missing, and I've told you dozens of times since. We were a mistake, Claire! …. One that should never have happened. I was in a bad place, and I screwed up. I didn't want to do it like this, but you need to be put in your place, and Sohla needs to hear it coming from me because I can't trust you when you try and put poison in her head and twist facts." Jyeon's cold and precisely the manner I remember from all those years ago, only it's no longer aimed my way and entirely at her. Seething, holding nothing back, and delivering daggers with his words in the coldest of ways. He was always someone who could shoot bullets when he truly wanted to wound someone. Sending shivers through me at the surfacing of the persona who greeted me daily.
"Jyeon?..." Claire's voice wavers, tears following, I'm sure, and yet I cannot bring myself to look at her even once or muster sympathy. Here, with the two of them is like being caught back then, and I don't want to see them together in the same place while the topic is us. It aches inside my chest, my throat tight with a throbbing knot of unshed tears. MY body prickling all over with the intensity of anxiety from listening to this.
"I made a mistake in letting you work here all this time. Brushing over what I knew you were holding on for and ignoring it no matter how many times you said it. …. You talk about guilt… then that's what this is. My guilt isn't causing me confusion where Sohla is concerned… my guilt kept you around for these past two years because I felt sorry for you. Sorry about what I did. Responsible for the mess I created, the shitty outcome, and I let you stay, so I didn't feel so bad about one aspect in how it all turned out. Abandoning you after starting something that should never have been. There was no other reason."
His words suffocate me, so I can't imagine what they do to her. My eyes are brimming with tears, and my body hurts all over, so I shift awkwardly, clenching my fingers to stop my hands from trembling. Not because it's a weapon against me, but because the Sohla of then needed Jyeon to say these things, these healing words, and mean them long before I got into his stupid car. If he had only stopped the war between us and embraced me, then I might never have gone. We might have lived a happier two years and salvaged something.
"You don't mean it. You just need time…. to have closure now you know she's not dead, bec...."
"Stop it!" Jyeon exhales with his words, so they lack conviction, seemingly tired of this, and her and I finally allow myself to look up at him again. I guess he has had this conversation many times over the last two years. Exhausted and fed up with it.
His eyes are on me, so solidly as though he hasn't once looked away. Unwavering, locked in place as though he's gaining some kind of strength to keep him focused on what he's doing, and my face flushes with heat at making eye contact. He's been watching my every reaction to his words for hints of my hidden feelings, and there's a sense of peace in his eyes as though he saw what he needed to. I glance away, catching Claire's expression. She's focused on him, tears running down her face much like mine was a while ago, and she seems devastated by what he's saying. Her heartbreak is how I must have looked the day I knocked on her door.
"She hired a PA to follow us. Investigated you, threatened to destroy you, and disregarded your right to privacy despite living separate lives. Made your life a living hell for years. Caused you so much shit, disregarded your feelings and needs,…. hurt your baby… Killed your child!!! How can you….?" She reverts to the same desperate woman from earlier when I touched a nerve. Appearing before me like a hysterical banshee, spewing her nonsense, it wounds me to hear her say those words. I explode so spontaneously; it even shocks me. Hot lava erupting from me as though she had just stabbed the bear with a very painful tool and zapped it into action.
"Don't you dare talk about my child like that when you have no fucking idea what I went through! How much it broke me, or how many times I agonized over what I did. You think you know… were you there? You have no idea." I raise my voice to match hers, and I lean forward and slam my glass down, sloshing water over my hand and the surface and ram the cushion from my lap. "I took on OLO alone to let my husband grieve because it's what he needed, and I listened to my mother-in-law when she told me to keep pushing on and ignore the signs of my body. I put my job first because my husband needed time. I sacrificed everything in my life, even my baby, to make sure Jyeon was always the priority… so much so I lost myself, my daughter, and my soul in the process. Don't you dare sit there and pretend even to understand the complexity of who I was, what I did, or what I fucking felt. It turned my heart to dust and emptied me, so I was nothing but a shell living, a meaningless existence, and I became numb to protect my heart from the horrors of my own life. You have NO FUCKING IDEA!"
I lose it completely, tears washing out my vision into blurriness and straining towards her with venom. Rasping my words and clenching up my body to stop myself from physically lunging at her. Vibrating with the need so deep to hit that stupid bitch right in her dumb face. Working myself into hysteria and letting go.
I sob openly, shaking my head, gripping my fists in full hostile mode, when warm arms envelop me from behind and tug me against a solid mass of strength. Shocking me out of my rant as I realize Jyeon is no longer on the opposite side.
"Hey, hey… Shhhhhh. Sohla, baby. It's okay. Come here. Breathe. It's okay..... Shhhhh." Jyeon wraps me in a hug, somehow making me seem tiny, and pulls me forcibly to his chest. Turning my head with a palm over my entire left cheek so I'm forced to look away from that stupid wench. "It's okay… stop, calm down. You don't have to explain…I know, okay. I know everything. What she said… ignore it."
He encircles me, patting my back with one hand while his other snakes into my hair and keeps me close, rocking me slightly like he used to do as a child, and the dam of emotions breaks loose. His words fuzz my thoughts over, and I guess mother must have confessed her sins to him these past two years while caught in her prison of regret. Admitting how I lost Tia and taking partial blame. I can see how that would have softened his feelings over it once he knew the whole truth.
"How can you so readily forgive her? Want her? After everything. How things were between you! How can you look at her and not remember what an icy bitch she was?" Claire's broken voice whimpers my way, yet her fight is all gone. Destroyed at seeing him comfort me and not her, and yet…. wasn't that what he did back then that day too? He came after me when I ran away, breaking my heart over them. He reached for me when I fell out of her apartment. He left her far behind when I was a mess.
"Because I was a bastard too. I'm no angel in this. …. Claire, leave. Go…. this is done. There's nothing left for either of us to say anymore. We should have stopped having contact two years ago when I told you it was done. Get out. Go." He's back to calm and controlled and being support instead of an aggressor. Smoothing my hair, wiping my face, and soothing me with a gentle slight motion. He's commanding her, his words harsh, but his tone is even, and he honestly seems unaffected by her presence.
"You can't just cast me aside." Her breathy, desperate plea makes me close my eyes and sink against Jyeon, sliding my arms around his waist, and I bury my face to absorb his comfort. I hate her so much at this moment that I hope this kills her to see. It causes the same pain I experienced when I saw them together in the parking lot. The pain of seeing pictures of their dates. I want this to hurt her in the way they wounded me. Karma for messing with a man she should never have gone after.
"I cast you aside two years ago; you just wouldn't listen. I told you then that I wouldn't give up on her, and I'm telling you now… butt out. There's no room for you in my life. As long as Sohla breathes, I'll follow her to the ends of the earth, even if she doesn't want me. This was always between her and me. Something that started from the second we were brought into this world. It'll end the same way too. I'm tied to her for life, and I don't want to change that anymore." Jyeon leans down, resting his chin on my head, and slowly breathes out to relax his body. Calming me effortlessly with such a familiar way of soothing.
"What about my job? I come here every day. I see you every day. There are no grounds to fire me, and I will sue you if you try and dismiss me now. I will go public with everything ….. the reason I got the job here, the affair, why your wife disappeared….. I'll go to the press." She's hitting on hysterical and blabbering nonsense.
She's me from two years ago. Clutching at weapons in her desperation. Using whatever she can to force and threaten the outcome she wants, and even I know, Jyeon will never back down for something like that. I can't believe I ever stood in her shoes and behaved that manically to hold onto a man I never thought I had, and here we are, in a complete U-turn.
"Go ahead. I don't care. I always knew one day I would have to pay for my sins and if this is it …then so be it. Sue me. Expose me. I honestly don't give a fuck, but if you drag Sohla's name or anything about her into the public, I will decimate you and leave you no options for any kind of future. I told you I would protect her until the end…. don't test me. I'll snub you out."
Jyeon's stable voice becomes a growling and low vibration of intimidation that even makes my blood run cold, and I curl up into myself. My chest starts heaving with the nervous reaction of my body, and yet he feels the change in me and gently slides his hand through my hair, running his fingers over my scalp before tracing them down my spine with his fingertips. Signals to calm me down. Ground me and let me know he won't let anything happen.
I'm nine years old again, and my best friend is dealing with someone who upset me. This is crazy, and I know I'm losing the battle against him. Losing the fight not to love him and wavering.
"You'll regret it… when I walk away when I'm gone, you'll maybe realize what you wanted after all. Figure out where your heart lies." Claire's parting words are spat at him, and she stomps off, making a racket with expensive heels on the hard floor, yet he doesn't budge an inch.
"That already happened." He mumbles it under his breath and then leans down and kisses me on top of my head so that everything around me ceases to exist.