Til Death Do Us Part

13

I drove for thirty minutes to get here, to this tranquil place after leaving that woman's apartment, somewhere I don't come all too often, yet today I felt like I needed to. I stare at the graves of my parents, laid side by side, and yet no tears come like I expected they would while driving here. I have a million conflicting emotions and thoughts that brought me here, and now I am; I'm too ashamed to stand before them. I'm aching for them after the day I've had, feeling lost and like everything is spiraling out of control, and I don't have a grip on anything anymore.

I lay the bouquets I stopped to buy on the way here in front of them and bend to dust off the dark grey marble stones. Stopping to touch the faces in the pictures indented into the shiny surfaces hurts as much as it always did. I've never faced the grief and allowed myself to mourn them fully, but I don't know how to start.

Contrary to how I behaved in front of Claire White, I know things are disintegrating, and my war with Jyeon is about to get worse. This is only the beginning. The Park family is falling apart, and whatever choice is made tomorrow will change everything from here on in. How I feel about mother, Jyeon... this mess, I can't undo any of it. I talked big in front of that girl, but I had no real confidence in the outcome. She seems like the type to put him first, but Jyeon will never back down if I went to him with this.

"If you saw who I've become..... would you still be proud of me?" I lower my head and stare at my own feet, self-hatred flushing my face and warming my cheeks. My insides contract as pain in my heart winces.

"I've tried so hard. I did everything they asked of me. So why do I still feel so empty inside? Why does it feel like the uphill battle never ends, and it's getting steeper? I don't know how much longer I can climb."

I carefully lean down and change from standing to kneeling in front of them, hands beginning to tremble with a combination of the cold air and my lack of appropriate clothing, and my inner distress.

"If you were still here, would it be like this? Would I be like this? Mom.... would I have turned out this way if you were the gentle force in my life when I needed someone so badly? I feel like I've let you both down. I look in the mirror, and I don't remember me back then. I don't remember how it was to be truly loved as a daughter, as a child." A tear finally wells up in my eye and brazenly rolls down my cheek, opening the beginning of a floodgate.

"Jyeon just wants to be happy in his own way, and yet....... I can't let him do that. I can't let him leave me. Everything I hold onto is connected to him. Mother will make my life worthless; I'll have to live with the shame of divorce and failure.......OLO, how can we both work there after this? Tell me what to do. I don't know what to do." The shivers turn to violent shakes as my body temperature cools quickly and a cold breeze moves in that seems to cut through the cloth of my suit. My nose starts running, and yet my focus is entirely on them and how much I wish they were here right now.

"I threatened a girl today with destroying her life. I threatened Jyeon with the same thing. And if they fight me on it, I'll have no choice but to follow through. Because that's who I am, who they made me be." I slip from knees to my ass ungracefully as more tears start to fall in silent sadness, and the hopeless despair of earlier starts to show face, deep within. Curling my fingers into damp cold grass and ripping strands out with carelessness.

"I'm so tired, momma..... There's only a little tiny bit of me left inside, and I'm scared that if I do this, then I'll be snuffed out completely. I can't not fight back. Everything hinges on it. Even if he hates me, if he never forgives me, I can live with that. I just can't live without him being there. What am I supposed to do if Jyeon goes? It's all you ever prepared me for. It's all she prepared me for. What am I supposed to do if it all goes away?"