Til Death Do Us Part

25

“Let her go, right now. Jyeon …NOW!” Mother commands him, and after a second of hesitation and reluctance, he slowly puts me on my own feet and loosens his hold lightly. I don’t wait for him to fully let go and burst out of his arms, turning on him and start bashing his chest with my fists. Only I have no more energy or strength, and they are feeble attempts through sodden choked tears, and I end up sliding down in a horrific heap, gulping, blubbering. Only seconds of an assault that didn’t move him an inch.

Jyeon takes it without reacting. Stood there and braces himself while I hit him, yet it doesn’t help me. I don’t feel any better, I don’t hate him less, and I’m still just as broken.

“Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on? What this mess is? What exactly has happened?” Mother’s cold and biting tone brings sense back into mayhem. Her no-nonsense fierce momma attitude comes out in full force, and I flinch and recoil into myself. Closing my eyes as the words fall out weakly against my better judgment.

“Jyeon’s having an affair.” It falls in the chaos around us and produces a heavy silence so intense I can hear the birds outside in the far distance. A moment of pause as they digest my words, Jyeon hangs his head and stays still.

“You bastard. You f*****g bastard.” Yoonah’s voice snaps me out of my trance, and I glance up just in time to see him full-throttle run at his brother and swing an enraged punch at his face.

“How could you? To Sohla of all people? Why, Jyeon? WHY?” Yoonah is incensed, and although Jyeon dodges and steps back, he aims another, and another, in a bid to knock him down. He was never any match for him though. Jyeon catches his wrist, controls him effortlessly before spinning him with one arm across Yoonah’s neck. Pulling his back against him and immobilizing him with a trained fighter skill.

“Stop it, and I’ll let you go. Stop it, Yoonie. Do you think this helps? Do you think I wanted to see her like this? I grew up with her; this is not what I want.”

“You never deserved her. You should never have married her when we all knew the love was one-sided. I hate that she loved you and followed you. I hate that you took any chance of me being happy, and for what…. so you could throw her away and hurt her like this? You’re scum. You’re not my brother, and I’ve resented you every single day for the ring on your finger that doesn’t mean a damn to you.” His venom soothes my soul, even if it doesn’t change anything. His fierce loyalty to me and instinct to lash out at those hurting me bring back some of my fire. Pulling myself out of my head because his words ring true.

“Let him go. Stop it. Stop it, you hear me….. RIGHT NOW!!” Mother is there in a flash, yanking them apart and slapping arms and hands to shake them out of it. Both obey even though this is far from over, and she pushes Jyeon towards the bedroom door. He reluctantly is shepherded, but his eyes keep coming to me, and I can’t read his expression at all.

“Leave. Go downstairs and wait for me there. I want to talk to you alone.” Mother pushes him again.

Yoonha stumbles away from her and comes to me on the floor. Sliding his arms around my shoulders while I’m curled up in the fetal position and patting me on the back like I’m a child. I hug my knees and silently cry, my endless waterfall I can no longer control, and feel pathetic and useless. A complete contrast to the girl they have known these past years.

It’s all broken, all of it. My entire life has been about keeping this family together. Being the rock, the glue, the support, the sacrifice for the bigger picture. And now I’m laid here in ruins because of love. And not because I didn’t know my marriage lacked it, but because they made my entire identity about gaining his love despite everything. This is the despair of failing, the meeting of my worthlessness if I can’t hold onto him.

“It’s going to be okay. Don’t be like this; he’s not worth it. You’re stronger than this.” Yoonah hugs me from behind, and I can’t lift my head or respond, numbing out as shock and pain become too much, and my mental ability to shield me from harm finally starts to initiate.

“I’m sorry, Sohla. I never meant to hurt you this way. I didn’t think it would because of how…… I’m sorry.” Jyeon’s broken tone comes at me through the veil of the blur, yet I have no response. A coldness growing inside of me, filling my veins like moving ice, and my heart shrivels up to a charred black ruin that ceases to beat. Faced with my own powerless ability. Knowing I had one job and it is going up in smoke before my eyes.

“Enough. We can get through this. It’s just a bump in the road. You still have sixty years or more of life together to get past this.” Mother’s in damage control mode. Reinforcing the exact commands I’ve heard since I was eleven. Not listening to the sins of her son but thinking about her reputation. Discarding our emotions and the scenario because it doesn’t fit her narrative. It was always like this, and that’s how we got to this point.

“Mom… stop. Please, all of it, just stop.” Jyeon turns to her, and I lift my chin, finally, to stare at him, seeing a stranger among us. Mother brings my head back to heel with the words that have been ingrained in me for a lifetime. My emotions dwindle to the same old companionable emptiness as it all dies out.

Don’t cry, Sohla. Pull yourself together, Sohla. Don’t cause waves or make an issue, Sohla.

“I want a divorce.”

Four little words.

That’s all I hear. Delivered in a quiet and emotionless manner as though stating a dull fact. Slicing the atmosphere like a sword through smoke. The end of everything, the true desires behind the mask, and it ravages me and kicks the ice queen back into touch. Being thrown away after everything I’ve done. My purpose is snuffed out, with just four little words that seem so nothing to him.

“Stop talking like that.”

“You bastard.”

Mother and Yoonah are on two different sides of the fence, and I shrug Yoonie off, unable to bear human touch anymore, not even his. Lost in my own shattered thoughts. I slowly pull myself up to my feet and sense Jyeon turning to look my way. His posture is straight and stiff, his face strained, but he’s not in the same emotional despair as me despite serving me a death sentence with four little f*****g words. They raised me, molded me, and groomed me to exist just for him.

“If you divorce me, I’ll destroy you. I’ll take you from the seat at OLO and rip you down and cast you out. The board won’t side with an adulterer who threatens our biggest investment of the decade. I have a majority share; I have the proof of your infidelity, and I will take away everything you worked for and destroy her in the process too. I have the ability and the desire to see you ruined. I will rub you out and eject you and make sure you never set foot back in that building.” It’s a vicious threat from deep down in the ruins of my soul, and it’s delivered with perfect poisonous clarity. Meaning every single word and knowing I have the means to follow through. They created me, after all, a monster for their bidding, the company hunting dog, and now she’s turning to bite the hand of her master. Mother’s eyes widen in shock at the change and hatred in me.

Jyeon frowns, and his expression saddens. Staring at me like he doesn’t really know me at all anymore, and any chance of a middle ground dies between us.

“Really? This is the path you choose? To Threaten me? To take away our father’s legacy and ruin OLO in the process. That’s what you want to do? For my trying to find love and happiness in someone else and setting us both free for our own good? This is who you’ve become?” His ice match’s mine. Stubborn meeting steel, and I nod, not breaking the intense focus on his eyes and showing no hint of remorse.

“Jyeon, go downstairs. I won’t ask you again. Move. You’re only escalating the situation.” Mother’s bitter biting request and shoving motion against his shoulder shifts him. He lets out a breathy noise like he can’t believe what I just said and turns and moves out slowly. Glancing back at me and shaking his head. He seems shocked that I had this in me, and yet, aren’t I the b***h that left her baby to die all alone?

Yoonah is still behind me, breathing heavily, and I can tell without turning, his face will be tear sodden too. My sweet, emotional puppy. His brother didn’t just betray me, but Yoonah’s entire family dynamic just went up in smoke. He rocked his world too.

Mother calmly smooths down her tunic dress and walks towards me with poise and grace, and closes the gap between us so that I lift my eyes to meet hers. No longer crying, no longer the feeble broken mess as chills replace the pain. Awaiting her maternal touch, her words of wisdom, guidance on what I should do now. Her sympathy for a broken heart. The disappointment in her golden child’s behavior of casting me aside.

Without warning, she slaps me hard across the face and knocks me sideways, shocking me to the core as she’s never once in my life laid any kind of hand on me, and I stumble before crumbling on my legs and falling. Not expecting this at all. Yoonah gasps and dives at me, shielding me with his body. The pain shooting through my face is nothing compared to the complete disbelief and white blank pause of having her hurt me physically. I gasp and stare up at her with wide, shocked eyes, cradling my face, my heart constricting in pain.

“Mom?” Yoonah’s as shocked as I am, but she stands towering over me with sudden deadly intent. A looming cold figure that resembles me at my worst.

“You will never dare to step on my son or threaten him in that manner again, you hear me.”

I start to shake all over, clasping my burning cheek and blinking at her in stupefaction, reverting to a fifteen-year-old girl and my heart pounding through my rib cage.

“Mother…?” it’s a soft, desperate utterance, misty-eyed and wounded. Shook. I’m back to being a child who quakes in the shadow of a scolding; only this is so much worse.

“There will be no divorce. OLO will never be yours. Over my dead body. If your husband has strayed, then you fix it. You suck it up, you recognize your mistakes, and you eject that b***h from his life. Didn’t I teach you anything at all? There will be no share war, no scandal, and removing my son from his rightful place.” Her tone is fierce and calculative, and I wither back as she leans towards me, feeling genuine fear for her this way. Seeing a devil in place of the woman I have loved as a mother for the last eleven years, I can’t control the tears pouring down my cheeks. The inward inability to stand up to this face.

“If your marriage fails, it’s on your head, Sohla. I will not leave you alone if you destroy my son’s reputation or life. You better fix this. I don’t care what means you use to get that floozy out of the picture, but you better do it fast and bring your husband back to heel. Or you can get out of my house and leave the name Park where it belongs.”

Yoonah is gobsmacked and can only hold me from behind, bug-eyed and silent-lipped, staring at her like she has two heads. I’m rendered mute and nod. Obedience ingrained.

She stands up again and once more fixes her attire. As though she didn’t just destroy our bond of a lifetime with one simple act.

“I didn’t waste my life making you perfect, just for you to lose to some loose woman on a whim. She doesn’t hold a candle to you, no doubt, so why are you wallowing in self-pity? I’m ashamed that this is how you dealt with such a simple issue. You better get it done before this becomes a problem. And clean up this mess; it’s disgusting. Don’t come down until it’s done.”

She turns on her heel and walks out with all the skill and precision of a catwalk model and not a single ounce of shame at what she just said to me. What blame she just laid. What she just did.

My legs are too weak for me to get up, and I let out a strangled noise, a breathy cry as it hits me full force in the face; what just happened.

“Sohla.” Yoonah slides up behind me, his legs coming to either side of my trembling body, and he hugs me in tight. Crying quietly for my pain, I can only repeat it repeatedly inside my head. The words she laid heavily on me. The conditioning, the responsibility. Once again, placing my worth on the unattainable.

This is my fault, and I have to fix it by any means.