17

“Ask his wife. No one knows better than her what he’s doing or where he is. They have an excellent relationship.” She chimes back without a heartbeat of hesitation, and my face numbs with this pasted expression that churns my stomach up. I feel Yoonah tense beside me.

My sweet, big brown-eyed puppy dog, boy, cuts in by pulling a card from my hand and tuts loudly. My savior.

“Play this one, and you’ll win. How can someone so smart and observant suck this much at a card game? Why did you throw that one, you empty head.” He grins, patting me on the shoulder, and retrieves the card I had put down to switch it out.

“I know, right. I guess I can’t be talented in all areas of life.” I softly smile his way, catching his eye and meeting the warmth always there in him. The complete opposite to his emotionless brother, who serves me only ice-cold at all times. Without Yoonha, I don’t think I would have survived all these years, being that tiny glow of light in the darkness.

“I think you’re probably too caught up in here.” He taps my temple in a comedic gesture, beaming at me, and then turns to the ladies. “Always thinking about work. She really is no fun. Just like my brother. I’m such a lonely child who has to compete with acquisition files and board meetings.” He laughs and get’s a little round of subdued giggles. These women can’t resist a handsome young man when making jokes.

“You’re probably right. I have a lot to do, so I will apologize and take my leave. I can’t focus when I know how much there is. Enjoy your game, ladies. Mother.” I slide up, placing my cards face down carefully, and get ready to leave. Yoonha frowns slightly with a supportive half-smile. Saving me, and I give him an IOU face scrunch.

“Make sure Jyeon eats when he comes home. I know both of you skip meals all too often, but his woman’s place is to care for his every need even when he isn’t aware of what that is.” Mother’s suddenly serious tone hits me in the belly, and anxiety rides up. This feeling is whenever I am reminded of my purpose in life, and I nod. I know her tone, her way of placing the words out without emphasis even though it screams of it.

“Of course. Jyeon is my priority in all things. Good night.” I nod to the table and turn on my heel, barely swallowing the lump in my throat and hating that she felt I needed a subtle chastisement in front of these women.

I know mother all too well. I knew it’s been irking her and coming.

Lately, her little niggles and jibes about how long it’s been since Jyeon came home early enough to see her or eat with her, yet I do it frequently. She thinks I’m neglecting to take as much of his pressure as possible and that he’s doing more work than me. That I’m slacking and letting my care of the details slide. God forbid I should let her precious son bear more than what I do.

Always her voice inside my head – Don’t cry, Sohla. Pull yourself together, Sohla. Don’t be weak. Don’t crumble. Women don’t get tired. Don’t show him you’re struggling. It’s unattractive for a man. Don’t burden him with your feeble emotions. Make life easier for him. Lighten his workload. Anticipate his needs. Push everything about you to one side and make Jyeon the most crucial thing in your existence. Isn’t that why I let him marry you? So you could elevate my son to being the most powerful and successful at the head of OLO. You are here to compliment him, protect him, elevate him. Know your place. A wife should silently support.

Know my place. Know my gender. Know my worth. Know what it is she made me for.

From the age of fifteen….. I have been her little handful of modeling clay.

It’s so easy for her to think in such black and white terms, for, after all, isn’t that who she was for her husband. She only had one identity, and that was the wife of Joseph Park. She has no personal achievements to show for it, other than providing him with two sons. A silent force that made him what he was and zero recognition. I took her place in the company, and Jyeon took his. We became them. My life is always about Jyeon.

And now father Park’s not here, and her purpose in life is gone. She yoyos between despair and fake. Entertaining bitch wives so she can retain her status in some way and stay relevant in this circle. Getting on top of me.

She doesn’t know who to be. She failed. Her entire existence is an empty shell of a woman who thinks only in terms of the family legacy, and her only joy is knowing Jyeon’s climbing higher than her husband ever did. My father’s legacy doesn’t even cross her mind or the fact that I’m doing it for him as much as I am for Jyeon.

Father Park found solace in the bottom of a bottle when things got tough, and he lost his best friend and business partner. He turned his back on us, such was his pain of loss, but I wasn’t allowed to do the same. Mine wasn’t recognized or understood. He let our empire crumble in the same way his heart was slowly turning to ash. He abandoned his family emotionally for his selfishness. Then where was that strong woman who was made to keep her husband sane? She’s a hypocrite.

She left her son to bear the weight of everything he could, and she made me an image in her place to lessen it. I was the one who stood up to shoulder the burdens before I even became a woman. I was a child, left alone. I was the one who put aside grieving to let Jyeon loose from my side to take care of OLO because I didn’t want to do the same thing his father was. She made it clear he wouldn’t leave me alone if I seemed to be struggling, so I had to suck it up for him. I couldn’t cry for my parents, and I couldn’t miss them. I couldn’t mention them anymore.

I was the one who studied hard and graduated early while spending every waking moment of spare time in that company to learn the ropes. I dedicated my childhood, what was left of it, to become what she told me to become. Picking up where my parents left off, and yet her image of what I should be was so different to my mother’s. I worked hard, and I learned how to turn off my pain.

Despite being pregnant, I was the one who had to see her husband breaking at his father’s death and take on every single thing in the company right under his nose so he wouldn’t have to do it. Silently, stealthily, pushing all other things aside. I protected him single-handedly, and she encouraged it. Even when she took me to the hospital because I was bleeding, she told me not to tell Jyeon and get through it. I had to be strong, and my baby wasn’t allowed to slow me down. She hadn’t planned on there being a child so early in OLO’s development.

I took his place; I worked tirelessly and held everything together so he could grieve in the way I was never allowed to. So he could breathe for a short while and never suffer it as I did. I never knew it would cost us our child, but I made that sacrifice for him and earned his hatred in return.

And now here she is, picking at a sore point, knowing everything, and showing her disappointment in me because he spends zero time with her. His mother, her son, yet it’s on me that they never see one another. Nothing at all to do with the way she’s controlled his life and built a resentment inside of him since he was young. Failed to be there when he needed her. Like everything else in this existence, I’m the problem and the cure. I’m responsible for it all. It’s never her.

It’s no wonder that I feel like I’m unraveling as time goes on. It’s getting harder to add it all to the box in my soul where feelings go to be covered up, ignored, deemed unimportant. It’s getting full to bursting.

I blindly walk through the house and get to the bedroom on autopilot, finding myself standing in the dark room alone with my briefcase in hand and don’t know how I got here. It feels like I was getting up from the table only seconds ago. I shake it off because I’m fatigued and throw the case down on the bed, mentally chastising myself for becoming absentminded.

The room’s lit by the full moon, shining in the window as the housekeeper hasn’t ventured in to draw the drapes or turn down the bed yet. It feels suddenly incredibly lonely in here, as though I’m standing in some dark prison on day one of a life sentence. I stand and stare at the luxurious furnishing and impeccable décor in this shadowy, unreal atmosphere, and it makes me cold inside. Bubbling and rising of conflicting feelings inside that gnaw at my guts, and I turn to stare at the immaculate bed where my husband never sleeps.

A life some dream of.

Wealth, success, marriage in a picture-perfect family with a romance book backstory as childhood sweethearts. It’s all bullshit. My whole existence is bullshit. My life is bullshit. My marriage is bullshit. I’m so sick of it all.

I stalk to the window and yank the curtain closed, not wanting the moon to highlight anymore of this empty place and push it all back deep down into that place where all my feelings go to die, knowing tomorrow the mask will be back in place, and I’ll get through another week, month, the year just like before. Sometimes I wobble, but it’s no use crying over spilled milk.

What’s the point in obsessing, thinking? It’s not going to change a damn thing, and it can’t alter who I am or what’s expected of me. This is my life, and I need to suck it up and face it like I always do. Crying over what’s broken is for the weak.