Til Death Do Us Part

44

Jyeon is sitting reading the paperwork at his desk while I pour us both coffee to wake us up. It's very technical and detailed, and as I have zero mechanical knowledge of vehicles, I left him to decipher it. He knows about cars, especially that one, given how much time he used to spend on it, and I wonder why he never had it repaired and brought back to life after it was recovered.

The office feels eerily quiet at this time, and I forgot how much I used to enjoy this silence and serenity before the employees started clocking in at nine am. This was my hour to stroll the nearly empty building, drink coffee, and find my armor for the day in the peace of the company we owned. I forgot what it was like to feel like a queen roaming her kingdom and knowing it belonged all to her. It's not as weird being back here as it was the first time, and I'm familiarizing myself with Jyeon's office, even if I don't dare venture near my old one. That's a closed and locked room I have no intention of visiting anytime soon. It's the prison cell of the me I left behind. I don't want her escaping.

"I'm guessing it's not good if you're frowning like this." I nod at his sour expression as I slide a mug in front of him on the smooth polished walnut, and he only seems to furrow his brow further. Sitting upright in a straight and business-like manner, with an aura of agitation.

"The crash caused a lot of damage, and it was hard for them to decipher before and after issues. It does seem like several things make no sense from an impact or water submersion. They have listed several of them. If someone was tampering with a car to make it a weapon, it's clumsy and erratic and seems more like the intention was to immobilize it completely." Jyeon flips a page and reads on, his eyes scanning the words while looking crazy serious, and I lift my chin to stare out of the window to absorb what he's saying.

"It's a lot of yanked leads, ripped off hoses, bent metal..... someone who didn't know what they were doing. The intent of that much damage wouldn't be a silent attempt at murder, more like an angry rage on my car."

"You mean... it was vandalized? Not intentionally set up to fail at the opportune time."

"Yeah, it's amazing it even started, let alone drove. So many leads pulled...plugs, liquid leaking out. The power steering pipeline was completely ripped off. You said the steering was heavy and hard, that's why. It seems like whoever messed with it did so to ruin it and make it undriveable completely, and it was a complete fluke that it started. It should never have moved."

"If they wanted to make it so someone would drive it and crash......." I mimic robotically, letting that sink into my thoughts.

"Then the damage wouldn't have been so extensive or obvious. One or two tiny changes would have been undetectable until the car failed, not obvious from the get-go. Whoever messed with it wasn't trying to hide the fact it was wrecked."

"Why would someone trash the car? That makes no sense.....why...... ?" my words trail off as my memory flashes back to that night, and I think about the importance of that car in our relationship. It was a symbol of our marriage and something I always believed Jyeon cared about more than anything... If you wanted to get under Jyeon's skin, you only had to dent or scratch his prized baby. Other than me, only one other person would have known to use it to wound him. Only one other person was as mad and devastated as I was that night and stupid enough to behave in such a thoughtless manner. Venting his rage.

I drop my chin down and stare at Jyeon, frantic thoughts building in my frontal lobe, wondering if he's clicked on the same thing I have, but his expression is back to serious and focused, and he's still reading. My heart racing as I dissect the genuine possibility, and my stomach clenches tight as my thoughts pile in on one another. I'm hit with the most significant case of 'how did I not see this?' and nausea rises from my stomach to my throat as the room starts to spin.