Til Death Do Us Part

36

"Here, it's hot. Drink slowly." Jyeon hands me the warm mug of coffee carefully and moves the tissue box from my lap. Now I no longer need it and seem reasonably sane. He's sitting on the coffee table opposite me now that I'm calm again, and yet his eyes are glued to my face while I stare at my milky brown beverage. It feels like it's been hours since she left, although the reality is it's been less than thirty minutes.

"You should go downstairs and show face. The employees will notice your absence and wonder why. They saw us in the building, and word spreads fast." I remind him softly, needing the breathing space now I've stopped acting like an emotional wreck. I'm embarrassed by how easily I fall apart around this man nowadays. I am exhausted and tired of how coming back here has been nothing but one tear fest after another and messes me up. Opening wounds I never wanted re-opened, and yet here we are, pulling up every single painful thing from my past to hash over them, and I always seem to end up crying in his arms. It's becoming a bad habit.

"I'm not abandoning you up here when you're upset. You remembered more, and you seem fragile right now. I don't want to go." Jyeon leans in and brushes hair from my face to tuck behind my ear, and I have no will or energy to stop him. His touch is both familiar and yet painful. Igniting confusion once more about where he stands in all of this.

"I need some headspace. To think. You have no idea how confusing all of this is and......." I sigh heavily, cradling my mug without drinking it. Lost for words and excuses with a headache brewing. He has no idea how his presence is like an imposing force that clouds my judgment.

"You don't trust me." He answers for me. Exhaling softer than I did, and it pulls my eyes to his face. It weirdly ignites a strange sense of guilt inside me to see his subtle tortured expression. We lock eyes for a second, and I lose courage and glance away before shrugging. Shaking it out of my head and reminding myself not to fall for anything while the jury is still out on him.

"I know you don't think the car was something important... but I remember it as though it was yesterday. The car was tampered with. I should never have crashed the way I did. I wasn't trying to hurt myself. The steering didn't work, and the brakes were non-existent. The lights were out all over the dash, and it felt heavy and clunky before I even got up to speed. It was that way from the second I got in it, and it almost didn't start." My voice fades out, knowing I'm talking to a brick wall that has convinced himself that I'm overreacting. The lines between what I recall and remember and what I don't are so blurry now that I don't think he even questions my memories anymore. He just accepts they are coming back slowly at speed, and in a way, it's a relief not to have to keep pretending so hard.

"I still have it.... since you told me that it was tampered with, I had it pulled out of storage to be examined thoroughly. It'll take time to see if they find anything unrelated to the crash. I'll get us answers, Sohla.... I won't ignore it."

My head snaps up in shock, blanching at him in wide-eyed question. My heart jumping through my rib cage. Not expecting this at all.

"You still.... Why? I thought it would be long gone."

"I told you.... It was the last place you were, inside that car. I couldn't accept it or let you go. So, I kept it. You bought it for me when we got married. It was a connection to you, even if I couldn't bear to look at it. If I had known the car was at fault, I would have done this long ago and realized something else happened to you."

I don't know what to say. My eyes blurring out as tears once again fill my eyes, feeling heard by him finally, and for the first time, genuinely believing Jyeon knows nothing about the car being a death trap. He wouldn't go this far. He would have gotten rid of it long ago and destroyed any evidence of foul play that I'm sure of. He's not that stupid to keep and bring back something that could incriminate him.