"For two years... my life has been empty. I was a walking zombie who focused on work, juggling everything alone, and trying never to give up hope that you would walk back in the door one day. I don't even remember why I pushed you away as much as I did anymore because all I have felt in your absence is regret and agony at not seeing you. Living with the void you left behind and struggling to breathe without you. I know I am the last person in the world that deserves your love or forgiveness, but for me…. that's the only thing in this world that matters to me." He kicks his boot toe against the edge of the rug. Pulling my gaze to the immature habit of his youth.
"You want me to get on my knees and beg for a chance? I will…. You want me to quit OLO and relinquish all my shares? I will…. You want me to leave this life behind and follow you wherever you wanna go? I will, Sohla. Even if it's to your remote island to work in a café for the rest of my days and never come back here…. You want me to throw off every tie I have with this life to ensure you would never be hurt again? I fucking will. I'll do anything you ask or need to have another chance with you. It's all I have wanted since the night I stormed out and left you standing in the kitchen. I've lived this way without you, and it sucks… it's miserable and pointless and wouldn't hurt me to throw it all away as long as I got to be with you again." A tear rolls down his cheek, and he sniffs the next one away, scrunching up his nose and tensing his jaw. He looks thirteen years old again and lost like we fought, and teen Jyeon is sad that his Sohlly bunny won't talk to him. My heart can't take much more of this, and I move to the nearest armchair before my legs give out completely. Wilting and wishing I never answered the phone tonight at all.
"What are you saying?" It's a tiny whimper, overwhelmed at his confessions and sincerity in this as he shreds what's left of my willpower to death. He has no idea how much my soul wanted this from him so many times back then. Little Sohla who was besotted with her handsome best friend.
"You wanna know what my future plans were? What goals and dreams I had?" He snorts under his breath in a weird, sarcastic chuckle as though it's something ironic, and I blink away my constant stream of silent warm tears. "It was waiting for you. Everything paused the second you disappeared. It was not giving up… not moving on in any way, shape, or form from where you could find me or come home to me. My only goal was to stay true to you and never allow myself to believe you were gone or doing anything to jeopardize your coming back…. Sad, huh?... I stopped living as though I was the dead one." His eyes stay downcast, focused on his fingers as he picks at his nails, and I bite on my lip to quell the sob that's building in my throat.
"Jyeon…." It hurts even to say his name while he feels a million miles away. Closed off and bleeding.
"But it wasn't like that for you. You knew where we were; you chose never to look back and didn't care about a future without me. I've been deluding myself that I just had to find you and bring you home, and I could make up for everything. Stupidly hopeful that this was a second chance, I could earn your trust while you regained your memories. I could make you fall for me so that I had a fighting chance at holding onto you when you did remember."
And I guess I knew it, and that's why I was scared of it letting go further. Because it was working, and he has no idea how much I wanted to be pulled in by him and carry on the fantasy, so I didn't have to face reality. To finally have him be the one to cling to me in desperation.
"It's not that simple. Of course, I missed you, cried for you, and tormented myself over my decision almost daily. Greta kept me sane when I was at my worst…. It wasn't about not wanting a future with you; it's that I knew I never had one. That we were broken and over. I wasn't trying to hurt you; I didn't think I could. I was thinking only of my pain, needs, and what I had to do to survive. I can't make you understand unless you lived through it. None of this was some masterminded game of revenge…. it's just a messy screwed-up fallout because I never had any intentions or plans."
I catch his eye, and we lock gazes for a moment. Deep hurt on both sides and a sea of wounds between us inflicted by each other. I can't even think who was to blame anymore because none of it was that simple or clear cut back then. We both did wrong. It feels like a massive gulf between us, and I have no clue how to navigate it.
"And now? Do you want this to end so you can run away and not dissect what's here between us still? You wanted to hurt me so I would back off? Is that what this was… using old methods to keep me out? Thinking it would hurt me enough that I would push you out of my way and go?" Jyeon is calmer than he was, but he's still brewing the hurt from finding all this out.
I guess he's slowly churning it over. Sense and logic are moving back in now the initial shock is numbing out. Seeing my game plan and recognizing it as a systematic Sohla move.
"Maybe. I told you….. Whenever you get close….." I close my eyes and wipe my hands over my face, trying to hold back the floodgates, but it's pointless. Sitting across from him and tense all over. I feel like we are going in circles. "I'm scared of you. Scared of how much power you have over me and my heart. Scared of how easy it is for you to break me. I am terrified of finding myself back in the frame of mind where I can't bear to live without you."
"You think you don't hold the same power over me?" Jyeon slumps back against the couch, rests his head on the back ledge and stares at the ceiling. Exhaling heavily. Casually lounging as though he has nothing left. "You have no idea how ingrained in me you are. How scared I am of you walking away and wanting closure to this.... I'm terrified of you choosing to end this and let go finally. What will I have left? All I have survived on these two years is hope."
"It's this…. it's so easy for you to say it, but do you ever stop to think it's not easy for me to believe it? You never treated me like you loved me, not once in our life together, and now you're asking me to put blind faith in you and step back where I'll be completely immersed in you again." I get up and walk to him, so I tower over him, using my robe sleeve to dry my cheeks and sniff through the now never-ending stream I have zero control over. "I don't know what it is I would be getting. If it's how we were back then, I don't want it. I have nothing to reference except an empty marriage that pushed us to break. Endless years of you hurting me where I was endlessly sad."
Jyeon lifts his head and squints at me, confusion sweeping over his expression, and then he sits up. Locking his focus on me, he seems to soften at what I'm saying.
"It wouldn't be like that. You're right, I never treated you like I loved you, and I never once treated you like my girlfriend or wife. This would be different. I'm different." Jyeon slides to the front of the couch and stands up, so he towers over me, all anger dissipating in him as he steps to me and automatically wipes my face with his sleeve. Gentle caring, attentive affection that makes me swallow hard and hiccup.
"Is that all this is? Fear of me pulling you back into what we've left behind... Thinking I would be the same husband I was back then? Sohla, this isn't anywhere near the same as it was. I was such a deluded idiot back then who didn't know what I had right in front of me, and I tried to keep distance between us even when we were sleeping together." He brushes my hair from my face and tucks it behind my ears, tending to my mess and drying me, tidying me up. He even tugs my robe around me to cover my exposed, cool skin.
"Do I seem like the same guy I was back then? That I would be that stupid?" he leans in and rests his forehead against mine, sliding his hands to mine and interlocking our fingers. Keeping our arms draped by my sides, I don't fight him off or pull away. I don't have any energy in me at all after all this. Tired and I slump against him slightly, shaking my head and reverting to a feeble girl.
"We both changed. We both took time to reflect on the past and experienced life without the other, and I hated every second of it. If that's what you truly want from here on in….to go back, cut me off, and end it all here, then tell me, without doubts. If that's what will make you happy, then be honest. All I want is for you to be happy, even if that means I lose you again…. I love you that much."
The words shrivel in my throat, and I cannot make myself say them even if my life depended on it. I stare at him with doe eyes, misty and blurred from the unshed tears, yet nothing formulates in my mouth. I can't physically make my heart and mouth lie that I want him to let me go.
Jyeon watches my expression and sees my struggle, picks up on my indecision, and pulls me towards him, enveloping me against him in a tight hug. My face nestling against his throat, and I sink into his hold, feeling the way his heart is pounding like a war drum through his chest. Hating how this always feels like home and so necessary to my sanity when he does it. Submerged in how he feels and smells and knowing I have zero fight in me as my body gets heavy and goes limp, knowing he'll hold me up.
"That hesitation is all I need. I'm not letting you walk out of my life without giving it everything I have first. You're mine, Sohla. I'm yours. Just have a little faith in me that I can turn us around and earn your trust. That I can make you happy in a way I never even tried before. That I'll work my ass off to erase everything from before." He tightens his hold to the point it almost becomes uncomfortable, yet I inhale slowly and find strength and comfort in having him around me. My arms are snaking up under his and around his waist of their own accord. It's useless to fight his pull on me, and I can't stop my soul from yearning for what he has to offer.
So much for deciding to end things tonight, have him hate me, and run home to leave this all behind.
I'm so useless. Never in control of my actions when it comes to Jyeon Park.
"You have one chance," I murmur it weakly, knowing I'm taking a leap off a cliff for the second time in my life. Voice sleepy and quiet, childlike in the deliverance because there's no fight left in me. I am submitting to the inevitable and resigning myself to the fact that I already knew this deep down.
It's why I wanted to run away so badly and hoped he would be the one to put the wall back up between us tonight. I'm already in hot water and beyond the point of return with my feelings for him, and I was never going to be able to fight them. Jyeon should have walked away from me, like him of old, but he chose to stay and fight for us despite my hurting him. I never expected that, yet I'm glad that he isn't easily giving up on us. That he's holding on as much as I used to.
"I only need one... I won't waste it…. I swear…. Come on, let's go sleep together and deal with this tomorrow. When we're both less emotional. I'm exhausted, and you seem beat. It's not like we have never shared a bed, and I don't want to leave you after this. I'm too traumatized and need you right next to me, or else I might have some kind of mental breakdown. It's been a long night. A long day."
"Jyeon, I don't think…." I pull my head back to protest about the sleeping arrangement, and I'm silenced with a swift locking of his lips to mine. He swoops so fast I have no way to counteract it, yet his soft, warm lips on mine melt away the last of my rejections. Pressed in tightly, so my nose is squished to his face. Like a magic touch, he quietens my mind, takes control of my body, and I surrender fully.
It's a lip to lip lingering peck, enough to hush the voices in my head and his fingers find their way to my neck and jawline as he holds us together. Cradling me gently and tugging me in, we fit together snugly. Soothing the wounds of tonight and pulling me deeper into this with him.
Finally, he pulls away a tiny hairbreadth and rubs his nose against mine. Locking his eyes on me and the edges of his mouth upturn subtly.
"Tomorrow is a new day. A new start….. I'm not holding back any longer, so be prepared. There are no secrets about our past between us anymore... My Sohla came home. Finally, we can stop focusing there and start focusing on now. I will show you exactly what kind of husband you can expect from here on in." He winks at me and slides his hand back into mine, tightly linking us, and doesn't wait before tugging me in the direction of my bedroom without further protest.