Til Death Do Us Part

41

“Sometimes, I struggle to like you; you know that.” Greta comes up behind me, and as furious as I am and caught up in my rage, her words hurt me, and tears fill my eyes instantly. She’s never one to mean it when she says things like this, but my lip trembles, and I bite it to stop it from showing. My feeble i***t feelings when it comes to my only real friend in this place.

“I don’t care. I never asked you to like me.” Greta has this magic ability to make me an emotional and vulnerable mess with the click of her fingers. I spit it out like a child sulking and keep my head turned away, so she doesn’t see how easily she brings this on nowadays.

“Whoever taught you that it was okay to be this way was wrong. Whoever told you that you weren’t allowed to make mistakes, or cry, because your hurt, or sad, or angry, or scared, or know you messed up…. they did wrong.”

“Don’t okay. I don’t need this today.” I slam my hands in the water, hating that she does this. She sees behavior in me she deems problematic, and she looks for the reasons and tries to talk it out. Constantly pushing me to open up, let things go, or face them head-on. Always critical of how I was raised and what mother molded me into.

“The kid was in the wrong. Why is no one yelling at her? Why am I the bad b***h, like always?”

“She’s five. She’s excited because it’s a party, and she got carried away and ran into places she shouldn't. Yeah, she did wrong, but that’s not how to deal with her, Anna. If you have to tell her off, do it with kindness, so her mom at least won’t m**m you. Kids don’t need anger to learn a lesson. She shouldn’t be scared of the wrath of the adults in her world.”

“So let her get burned or hurt, let me get covered in scolding stew and yet…. don’t yell at the kid. Got it. Understood.” I snark, avoiding her eye, and flinch when she puts her hand on my arm to soothe my ruffled feathers. A gentle squeeze to cool my temper. I hate that she has already learned how to handle me in such a short time.

“You want to learn to live with everyone here; you have to be a little more relaxed and forgiving. Hell, if it were my kid, I would yell at her. She’s not. She’s not yours either, and it’s not our place to embarrass her mom like that in front of everyone out there. Try to be more considerate of the bigger picture. We have to get along with everyone.”

I don’t answer, and after a few minutes of watching me wipe myself down with angry motions, she wanders off to serve the plates and replace the six I broke while giving me cooling down space. Tears start rolling down my cheeks, and I sniff them back and try to reel them in.

It’s hard. Being here, doing these things, missing home, and everyone there. Thinking about Jyeon until I feel like I’m going insane and I’m not dealing all that well with it. Yet, I can’t face going back either, and a part of me is becoming so dependent on the friendship and support that Greta gives me that I’ve never known that I can’t say I want to go back there at all anymore. As much as I miss all of them, and it feels like a knife in my chest most of the time, I can’t get my head around seeing them. It’s like I’m developing a weird phobia and the thought of trying to reach out to them starts a panic attack.

Greta and I bicker, we argue, and sometimes we yell at each other, but it feels more like home than back in the city ever did. I feel loved and seen for the first time since my parents died. I’ve cried more in the last two weeks here than my entire two decades and some of life, and yet she doesn’t use it like something I should be ashamed of. She doesn’t make me feel weak for harboring emotions and showing them.

I’m trying so hard to be this other person and fit in here, but I see all the glances my way, the side-eye looks. The whispering from the villagers who call me ‘Miss high and mighty’ behind my back. I feel like a freak show and an outsider, and it’s driving me crazy in a way it never used to when employees at OLO did the same thing. This feels different, worse, and I hate that I’m reduced to feeling like utter s**t over yelling at a clumsy kid who was one hundred percent in the f*****g wrong.

“I’m going upstairs to change.” I don’t wait for her to acknowledge it, but dump down the cloth I was using and yank my apron off before throwing it in the laundry we keep to one side. I head for the stairs that lead up from the privacy of the kitchen to our shared apartment and take a moment to calm down. I want time out and the solitude of up there while I thoroughly simmer.

I switch on the lights because we have limited windows in our loft conversion and turn on the radio for background noise even though it's daytime. I yank out the chest where we keep the clothes we share. It’s jeans, jeans, or jeans….and a choice of color of flannel shirt in fifteen shades. I don’t have much choice as everything she owns is tailored to living in a working village by the sea and spending too much time in cold and crappy weather.

“The long three-week search for missing heiress Sohla Kim came to an end today when her family announced that a body has been recovered. It’s been confirmed that the remains washed up on the Drythe river are said to be that of the ex-Vice President of OLO Enterprises. A huge name in the corporate world. A sad and tragic accident that has shaken the investment world and finally comes to an end.”

I spin and stare at the radio with an open-mouthed gawp, shocked by what I just heard, and lose all ounces of breath as I blur out the words the announcer is continuing to say and try to replay what I just heard. My brain is stammering, and my body is running cold as though I’ve just been delivered horrific news.

“A body? How can they have …… I’m not dead. How can they have remains? How can they call off a search when I’m standing right here?”

I scurry on hands and knees to the radio and turn it up, crumbling down to lean my crossed arms on my legs to support my weight and listen intently. My heart racing and my palms clammy as I shake with adrenalin and convince myself I misheard it.

“Sohla Kim, married for almost five years to President Jyeon Park at OLO enterprises, is said to have suffered from mild depression, and this is being treated as suicide. Company employees shared that Miss Kim was a cold and closed-off person who never seemed to build bonds or friendships, and the marriage, although publicly stable seemed to have its issues.”

“What? Why would they say that? They know I’d never…….. why would they lie? Why are they saying these things? Why is Jyeon letting them?” My emotion breaks, and tears fill my eyes, finding it hard to breathe as I rack my brains and try to make sense of this. Arguing with the radio out loud because I’m such disbelief.

“His stupid f*****g car…. it’s not my fault it had no brakes. What f*****g body? I’m the f*****g body!!!! I never did this to myself. His car did.” I rant at it, clutching my hair by the temples and leaning down to try and catch my breath to cool my shuddering gasps. Shaking so violently that I don’t know how to calm myself down. They’re making me disappear for real, blaming me and making out it’s something it wasn’t.

“That’s you, huh?” Greta’s voice startles me from behind, and I fall over in fright as I turn and catch sight of her in the open doorway from the staircase. She’s carrying a fresh shirt she knows I like, and she drops it on the bed, her expression blank as though not at all surprised by what she just heard.

“So, you’re the Sohla Park that they keep talking about on the radio. I kind of figure you might be. It sort of added up.” She walks to me, kneels beside me, catches my hand, and pulls me to her. Nothing in her manner says she’s angry or disappointed in finding out this way. I forget for a moment that I’ve kept all this a secret from her when I’m this shellshocked.

“They said they found my body. How?” A silent tear rolls down my nose, and she impulsively wipes it away. Her gentle expression and focus on my eyes keeping me steady.

“Money can do a lot of things; maybe they wanted closure. Maybe it’s messing with their stocks or some s**t, so they’re wrapping it up. It’s been three weeks; they can’t have the public be negative about giving up so soon if they have an excuse.” She slides an arm around me and hugs me. Patting me on the back as I gulp in air and can’t seem to inflate my tight lungs.

“I know I shouldn’t be angry; this was my choice, but it’s only been three weeks, and they’re giving up. I know I should have reached out, but …….”

“I get it. Don’t explain.” She continues to rock and pat me, soothing me with a hug that starts helping me slow my breaths.

“It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t suicide. The car was tampered with …. there were no brakes, the steering….”

“Wait, what?” She sits up suddenly, hands to my upper arms, and stares me flat in the face with a look of shock.

“Are you saying someone deliberately tried to kill you?”

Her question is like a slap in the face that sobers me instantly, and something I have tried not to think about all this time is dangling there in front of me. I have deliberately fought it rising in my brain in any kind of way because I don’t want to face it head-on. Something I wouldn’t let my mind ponder on when I wasn’t mentally strong enough to dissect it.

“It wasn’t my car. It was Jyeon’s…. he left the keys on the….” As I say the words, the blood runs cold in my stomach, and I think back to the fact that it’s precisely what he did. He placed the keys right there that night, in full view and within reach of temptation. Not in his pocket, not on the rack where his range rover keys were hung, but right in front of me like a taunting symbol he knew I couldn't resist. He knew I would take them to hurt him by hurting his pride and joy after confronting me like that.

“No…no…. I’m being stupid.” I try and force it out of my skull, freezing up and running away from such illogical thoughts. Refusing to believe it of him. Shaking my head and using my fist to hit myself in the temple. Jyeon just wouldn’t.

“What, talk to me. Tell me.” Greta grabs my hands and pins them down, pulling me in close. I hesitate, mind scrambled, but it falls out of my mouth anyway.

“He knew I would do something petty…. he knows me like the back of his hand. He knows that I’m a knee-jerk, fiery, and stupidly immature person when hurt. If he messed with the car and left the keys….. did he know I would take it? Is that what he hoped? Is that why he put them right there in front of me and walked away?”

I can’t’ process it or get my head around it because it’s not who he is. Not Jyeon, not like that. Not the boy I knew and loved. He wouldn’t hurt me that way, no matter how bad things got between us, no matter how hard it was. I only survived these years because, under it all, I trusted him.

“What’s the motive?” Greta asks, her expression severe and her tone strained as though she’s thinking about this. And as much as my heart is saying no, the inner cold Sohla Park stands up inside of me and lays it out bare. Cutting through my bullshit, weak, ass self, the ice queen finds her voice.

“I threatened to destroy him and take OLO away. We were getting divorced, he was having an affair, and I could have ruined him over it. Him and his b***h. I own twenty-eight percent of OLO. I could have easily taken control.”

It falls out of my mouth even as the broken-hearted side of me battles to convince me otherwise. Young Sohla, enamored by the boy she always loved, whimpering in disbelief.

“Rich people kill for less, Anna. Do you know for sure your husband didn’t look for the quickest solution to get you out of his life where you wouldn’t cause a problem anymore?”