Til Death Do Us Part

24

I burst into our bedroom, still in the same emotional mess I was running all the way here, and somehow managed to get in and up here without alerting Yoonie or mother to my presence. A fire coursing through my veins, yet my mind’s a blistering mess of utter chaos, and I can’t think or see straight. The pain is unbearable, and years' worth of bottled-up feelings are spewing out of me like someone turned on a tap. I’m a volcano that finally erupted.

I’m breathing in short raspy gulps, wiping my snot and tear-drenched face with the back of my hand, yet more keeps coming, and I hiccup up with every few gasps. I rake my fingers through my hair, which is tied up in a messy bunny, yanking it down with my erratic movements and adding to the despairing image of myself. Caked in dried blood and grime and emotional ruin. Rubbing my fingers over my face and down my throat as I try to reel my mind back from its shattered pieces. My entire world has come tumbling down. What I always thought was a solid fortress made of brick and mortar was just a pack of precariously balanced cards that only held up until Jyeon blew on them.

“I HATE YOU!!!” I scream into the stark emptiness of our room, despising everything I see about me. The lonely, bland, marital bedroom that’s so devoid of life and looks more like a show home pictorial for the rich and famous. A symbol of our fake life and our fake love. A demon inside of me rips loose, and I run for our shared wardrobe, yanking open the doors and heading right for his side. Possessed with a need to vent and take it out on his possessions in place of him.

In a frenzy of insanity, I start yanking out all the clothes I ever bought him, despising, loathing, every single memory, and feeling as they spew out with the array of colored fabric.

“I did everything for you. I lost myself for you. I buried my pain for you. I made you who you are, and this is what I get as a thank you.”

Tearing shirts, ripping off buttons, and throwing them with all my might out of the door and into our bedroom. My hands burn and ache as material cuts into me, yet I can’t stop the sequence of mass destruction. Forcing open drawers and emptying the contents across the marble floor so I can kick them around and stamp them to death. Spreading his belongings around me and picking out every single thing that his hands have ever touched so I can launch them at walls or into the bedroom.

“She could never have done those things. Never have held up your family or made OLO what it is now. She could never have taken the pressure or the pain and been your silent rock all these years.”

I open his watch case and throw them down, jumping all over them and kicking them aside, my ankles slicing with fragments of glass and broken metal I send into the air, but I feel nothing. His ties, his shoes, his jackets, his aftershave. All are pulled out, rumpled, broken, or torn and thrown out into the heap of amassing things that resembles a small mountain, and yet I can’t stop.

I can’t release this building-up pressure inside of me as it all tumbles out of everything held down for so long. The wall broke, the damn erupted, and now I can’t put anything back inside my perfectly maintained box.

“I stayed quiet. I never cried. I never refused to do anything for you. I submitted, obeyed, and did things to ensure you were happy. They made my entire life’s purpose about you.”

I storm out when I can’t find anything else to lay to ruin and head for his study needing more. Swiping the desk clean so his computer, desk organizers, and books fly in a crashing crescendo in every direction and make a harmonious noise. The breaking of things mirrors the breaking of me.

I repeat the same hysterical motion of emptying every drawer and cabinet I can. I’ve lost my marbles, and yet I don’t care. I’m lost inside a whirlwind of my own making, wreaking destruction in my path, and finding the energy that surpasses logic.

“Sohla, stop it.” Jyeon’s voice comes at me from the doorway, yet I blank his presence. He must have followed me, although now he’s wearing his clothes, and somehow it only makes me worse. Laughing like a crazy person through my wash of tears at seeing his shirt and jacket. That he took the time to go back into that house with her and retrieve his things after their dirty deed so that he could chase his wife.

“Get out, get out!!” I scream at him, stalking towards the doorway and shoving him out of my way with all the strength I possess, which actually moves him. I head into the main room, swerving my chaotic pile, and start swiping down every picture of us I can find on the walls and bookcases and throwing them against the opposing surfaces. Smashing debris and flying shards litter the floor, yet it’s not enough. I want to hurt him, m**m him, take out my anger on all evidence he was ever a part of my life, for being so stupid ever to hold on and give my heart to him.

I reach for the bridal picture of our wedding day over the mantel. A mocking image, put here by mother that I have always hated to look at, for all its fakery and emptiness. The picture-perfect smiling couple in love on the most important day of their lives.

 Stretching to pull it down, I scoot up on my tiptoes and reach out, but Jyeon catches my arms from behind, wrestling my wrists together and restrains me while my arms are over my head. He grabs my hands together with one of his and wraps his other around my waist before picking me up and pulling me away from the huge, framed print.

“Calm down, please calm down. Sohla, please stop.” He soothes words into my ear with a caring and soft tone that screams of bitter regret. Holding me tight as I struggle and battle and twist and wriggle, he only manages to gain more control and pulls my limbs down into an embrace. Crossing my arms over my chest and pulling me rigid while he uses his brute force to control me.

“Let me go, let me go. I hate you. I f*****g hate you.” The words tumble out through my sobs, manic and desperate, and I don’t give up fighting him, but it’s futile. He’s stronger and bigger than me, and my fire, although not burned out, is losing the will as the reality of how tired my limbs and body are comes through my red mist. Physically, I’m beyond exhausted.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Mother’s voice flies at us in a sharp shrill accusation from the bedroom door that stood open. The noise must have pulled her up from downstairs. Gawping at the mess around us and glares frostily right at me.

“Nothing, Mom. Please just leave us alone for a little while. I can handle this.” Jyeon pleads with her for space, but I buck and kick with my feet, lifting them while suspended in his hold and aiming for his knees. Hating his touch, his closeness. Hating him and loathe the fact he’s restraining me.

“How is this nothing? What the f**k?” Yoonha appears behind her, his voice calming me somewhat as shame pours over me at him seeing me like this. Yoonha has always leaned on me and depended on me to be his stable older sister, and now he’s seeing me in all my ugliness. I’m ashamed and momentarily cooled by his sudden appearance and turn my face away, so he doesn’t see how I look. I’m a mess.

“Leave. Don’t see her like this. Get out. We can figure this out without you two here, please. Give her time to calm down and clean herself up.” Jyeon turns us, so I am faced away from Yoonah, knowing me so well that he can guess at my sudden quietening, and my fight shrivels and dies. Having seen the confusion and fear on Yoonah’s face, the shock that I, of all people, would react this way and do these things. His icy, calm, and cool older sister keeps his world steady.

“What did you do to her? What have you done? She’s covered in cuts and blood. If you’ve hit her…….” Yoonah’s accusing tone slices me in the heart, his venom and hatred growing by the second, and I break down and start to sob once more. Jyeon’s tightening embrace almost suffocates me, and yet he won’t relent.

“It’s not like that. This is self-inflicted. I would never hit her or hurt her in that way.”

I can feel Jyeon’s body trembling too, with adrenalin, with God knows what. I hate him so much at this moment that his mere presence and touch alone are fuelling my inner fury, my nausea, and my inability to calm down.