PART -I - C1 -Seven stages of Grief

My life will be (bitter) better without him.

The bell rang and my stomach growled. I looked at my classroom, at the kids shoving papers and notebooks into their backpacks and the energetic chatter that warred with the high-pitched ringing of the fourth period bell, and wondered if I had some Pavlovian response to that sound.

I had been conditioned to know hunger, but I hadn’t felt it in months.

I smiled at my students as they filtered from the room and reminded some of them about homework they owed me, but I barely heard the words that fell from my lips or acknowledged the brief instructions I was infamous for.

Behind my smiling mouth and teacher responsibilities, I was made of brittle glass and emptiness. I was nothing but paper-thin defenses and sifting sand.

I had never known this kind of depression before. I could hardly tolerate my soon to be ex-husband and yet his absence left me unexpectedly battered.

Once my English class filled with a mixture of juniors and seniors had left me behind, I let out a long sigh and turned back to my desk. I dropped into my rolling chair and dug out my lunch from the locked bottom drawer.

I set it on the cold metal and stared at the sad ham sandwich and bruised apple I’d thrown together last minute this morning. I couldn’t find the energy to take a bite, let alone finish the whole thing.

I’d lost seven pounds over the last three months, one for each year of my disastrous marriage. And while I appreciated the smaller size I could fit into, I knew this was the wrong way to go about it.

My friend, Hoseok, called this the Divorce Diet. But I knew the truth. This wasn’t a diet. I’d lost myself somewhere in the ruins of my marriage and now that my relationship was over, my body had started to systematically shut down.

First my heart broke. Then my spirit fragmented. Now my appetite was in jeopardy, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I didn’t know if I would ever feel hungry again.

I didn’t know if I would ever /feel/ again.

I used to eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge, but lately I couldn’t bring myself in there to face other people, especially my nosey colleagues.

Everyone had heard about my failed marriage.

They stopped me in the halls to offer their condolences or hit man services with empathetic expressions or playful smiles.

They watched me with pitying eyes and sympathetic frowns.

They whispered behind my back or asked invasive questions.

But none of them cared.

Not really.

They liked having someone to talk about that wasn’t them and a topic that didn’t dive into their personal lives.

I was the gossip martyr. As long as they could tear apart my bad decisions and argue whether it was my frigidness or Taehyung’s playboy tendencies that hammered the last nail in our coffin they shared a macabre sense of community.

They didn’t care that each callous comment shredded me apart just a little more or that I could hear them cackling from down the hall.

They didn’t take into account their own divorces or unhappy marriages or faults or hypocrisy or shortcomings.

They only saw mine.

And now so did I.

I should at least get a thank you for my efforts.

Or a spiked Starbucks.

Where was the gratitude?

The creaky door swung open and my best friend and fellow teacher/school guidance counselor, Jung Hoseok popped his pretty red head in the room.

His pert nose wrinkled at the sight of my untouched lunch and he smoothed down some of his wild frizz with a perfectly manicured hand.

He had locks that could make anyone envious but as the day went on and he dealt with more and more apathetic high school kids, his beautiful hair would expand with his impatience.

“That looks… yummy.” His stormy gray eyes lifted to meet mine and I couldn’t help but smile.

I wrinkled my nose at him. “Don’t judge! It’s all I had.”

He walked all the way into the room and leaned against the whitewashed cement wall with his hands tucked behind his back. “You used to be better at going to the grocery store.”

The small dig cut deeper than it should have.

“I’ve been busy.”

His lips turned down into a concerned frown that I mildly resented.

“You can’t wallow forever, Jungkook. Your marriage ended, not the world.”

But he was my world.

I kept that thought to myself. Now was not the time or the place to sift through my complicated feelings regarding Taehyung.

I wanted this.

I wanted this divorce.

I had no right to be this upset or depressed.

Deep breath.

“You’re right,” I told him. “I just haven’t gotten the hang of cooking for one. Last time I went to the store, I ended up way over- shopping and then had to deal with rotten oranges and moldy cheese. Plus, I don’t want the Chinese delivery guy to feel abandoned.”

As gently as he could, he said, “You’ll get the hang of it.”

I pushed off in my chair until the back of it slammed against the whiteboard behind me. “I hope that’s true.”

Because if it wasn’t…

Had I just made the most colossal mistake of my life?

No.

This was right.

But then why did it feel so…wrong?

“Until then, let’s sneak out and grab something better than…than whatever is on your desk now.” His expression brightened until I felt myself smiling at him.

We had been friends since we started at Seoul High School eight years ago. We had that kind of natural connection you only find once or twice your entire life.

We were instantly inseparable.

Even though Taehyung and I were already together, we were only engaged at the time. Hoseok had been my best man at our wedding and my closest confidant over the years.

He knew the lowest lows of my marriage and the hard adjustment I’d faced since I ended it.

I didn’t want to think about where I would be without him.

I looked at my wrist and checked the time. “I have twenty minutes. Can we be back in time?”

“We’ll hurry.” His shoes clicked against the polished floor as he moved to hold the door open for me.

He was the only teacher at this school that had any sense of style. His expensive taste didn’t mesh well with his public high school teacher’s salary, but thankfully for him, his wealthy parents supplemented his meager income.

My parents questioned my choices and assumed I was a failure at life. They might not be wrong.

And yet we both knew what it was like to struggle to please impossible expectations and feel insignificant in the wake of our parents’ cold assessments.

I might not have had a designer wardrobe, but at least my parents didn’t try to buy my love.

I grabbed my bag out of the same locked drawer I’d tucked my lunch into and straightened my pants as I stood. I felt my spirits lift immediately.

Hoseok usually had that effect on me. And it helped that we were sneaking out of our jobs, to do something forbidden.

I loved breaking rules.

Just don’t tell my students.

We were halfway down the hall and laughing with each other when we were caught.

“And where are you guys off to today? I’m certain Mr. Jeon has class in a few minutes.” The deep voice made my skin feel too tight and my insides warm slowly.

I turned around and met Min Yoongi’s rich brown eyes and tried not to smile too big.

“Checking up on me?” I raised a challenging eyebrow.

Yoongi moved closer. “I was just in the lunchroom and heard a pair of junior boys discussing their hot English teacher.”

That wiped the cocky expression off my face. “Gross. Don’t tell me which ones. I don’t want to know.”

Yoongi’s face split into a grin and a rich baritone rumble of a laugh fell from his full lips. “On one condition.”

“This is blackmail!”

He laughed at me again, but when he raised his dark eyebrows and gave me an expectant look, I couldn’t help but soften toward him.

He was adorable. “Bring me back something from Gourmets.”

I couldn’t believe him. “How do you know we’re going to the Gourmets? We could just be…just be…going to the bathroom together.”

He shook his head slowly and grinned. “I see the determined look in Hoseok’s eyes. I know that look. He’s hungry. And he’s enlisted you to help him sneak out.”

“He’s good,” Hoseok mused. “I think our science teacher is a little too good.”

“I’m starving,” Yoongi admitted. “I’ve been watching the hall for five minutes hoping to catch a teacher on their way out.” He held out his empty hands. “I forgot my lunch at home today and I have a meeting in three minutes.”

I looked at Hoseok and tried to figure out what he was thinking. Yoongi had transferred to our school two years ago and over that time I had gotten to know him slowly.

I could now say I counted him as my friend, but for a long time I had kept him at a distance. He was too good-looking, too perfect.

His skin was nicely paled, his hair perfectly quaffed and for an alpha, his body was surprisingly too perfect.

I had found him intimidating at first and then because I was married to a perfectly handsome alpha and supposedly in love with the said alpha, I found it utterly ridiculous to be so affected.

I was a mess. Even back then.

But I had kept my distance until a few months ago. Until after Taehyung moved out.

“I suppose we can take pity on him,” Hoseok sighed. “He does look famished.”

I ran my eyes over his broad chest and flat stomach. “He’s practically starving.”

“Should I get you the fish rolls?” Hoseok asked innocently.

Yoongi pointed a playful finger at him. “Don’t you dare. I wouldn’t know what to do with something slippery. I’d probably make my students dissect it.”

It was my turn to shake my head. “You’re hilarious.”

He smiled at me, wide and carefree. “I’ll owe you one.”

“Sure you will.” Hoseok and I started walking again. “I’ll be sure to collect.”

“I’m counting on it.” His low voice followed us down the hallway and I had to turn around before he saw an inflamed blush spread across my cheeks.

I pressed my cold hands against my face and tried to ignore the burn in my abdomen.

It had been a long time since I flirted with someone, even longer since that someone wasn’t Taehyung.

Hoseok’s elbow found my side playfully. “What was that?”

“A favor?” I turned my wide eyes to him and silently begged him to tell me it wasn’t as forward as I thought it was.

He pressed his lips together to hide his smile. “Sure it was.”

“We’re just friends.”

“And now you’re single.”

A shuddering breath shook my lungs. “Not really. Not yet.”

“Soon, then.” he argued. “When the divorce is finalized, you’ll officially be back on the market. Obviously, Yoongi knows that.”

The flirty tingle turned sour in my stomach and suddenly I’d lost my appetite all over again. The blush drained from my cheeks and I felt myself turn pale and translucent.

Hoseok noticed immediately. “I’m sorry, Jungkook. I didn’t mean to…to upset you. I just thought… It’s been three months, babe. Taehyung hasn’t even reached out to you. Not really, anyway. I thought you might be ready to move on.”

FLASHBACKS

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“I give up,” I said when I heard him come into our bedroom. “I fully surrender, now where are they?”

“Where’s what?” he asked distractedly.

I turned to look over my shoulder and found him on his phone texting with one hand while drinking coffee. His tie was hanging open under his collar and his first few buttons were undone.

He stopped when I didn’t answer and looked up. “Oh my God Jungkook! What the hell happened here?”

I looked down and around at my mess. This was like nails on a chalkboard. “Well, if you hid my gifts in plain sight we could avoid messes.”

“What gifts?”

I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Ha, ha, very funny.” Then I mocked his deep voice, “What gifts?”

“I don’t sound like that and I don’t have time for this, what are you talking about?”

I opened my mouth to rail at him for being stubborn but then I saw how serious he looked.

Granted, he was a master trickster, he could hold face like no one’s business but he’d been different this past year, getting more and more distracted by gigs and incompetence and less so with me.

Actually, we fought more than we talked.

“Did you really forget?”

He shook his head and went back to texting. “Never mind, when you feel like telling me what the hell you’re talking about feel free.” He walked to his side of the room and fished out a watch from his top drawer.

Meanwhile, the lump in my throat was making it hard to say anything. I heard him go into the bathroom as I started to shove stuff back in my closet.

Then I computed something. “Wait, are you going out?”

“Yeah, I’ve a gig. And after that I’m meeting with a producer.”

Wow, more gut wrenching sadness. He really did forget but this was big for him, so there was no point in bringing it up.

“Do you think they liked your music?”

“I don’t know that’s why there’s a dinner.” His sarcasm stung. “Can you stop messing around long enough to put our room back together while I’m gone?”

I nodded, “sure.”

He went to tie his tie and brush his teeth. At first, I’d thought all this was a bad mood but after a year and some pocket change of time, you have to fess up to yourself that the mood has elongated into a steady disposition.

“When do you think you’ll be home?” I called back.

He gargled and spit, “Whenever they finish, I guess.”

I stood and forced my closet closed. Then an idea yanked me from my boredom as he came out of the bathroom. He looked amazing like always. My husband is built like a romance book cover model.

Handsome face, muscled chest and torso and arms that show he lifts. He’s also inked up but no one outside our inner circle knows because he wears suits that cover it all up.

He has hazel eyes that shimmer and dark sandy hair that glosses into gold in the light.

Hottest male in Seoul.

No, scratch that. Hottest male to ever exist.

He’s owned my heart since the day I saw him but now I think it’s as important to him as one of his ties.

“I’ll wait up.”

His phone rang and he picked up. While he talked he put on the last of his things and I handed him his wallet, keys, and jacket. He kissed my cheek before leaving but it was a habit not heartfelt.

Then he was gone.

!!~~~~!!

Hours later as we closed in on eleven-thirty I heard him come in. I burned myself with the curling iron in our bathroom when the door downstairs closed.

I’d spent every minute he was gone making this magical. All those years of having the pressure of making a perfect Conflict’s Day, maybe it was my turn to do it for him.

Every year we celebrate our Conflict’s day – the day we get into a fight and ended up in a janitor’s closet for almost five hours. That day was the day he fell in love with my shenanigans and I despised him like any oHarima of my age should.

But then he was everywhere and a year later we started celebrating it as our Conflict’s day...because same day a year later I had to pursue him while he was avoiding me like a plague.

It was our thing...and Taehyung forgot about it.

Between candles lighting our entire bedroom, incense burning, a new black sheer negligee on my body, and The Weekend playing on my phone in the portable speakers I felt like I had this pretty down.

We hadn’t had sex in months since he’d been coming home so dog tired, but maybe I wasn’t setting the mood?

When I heard his feet on the stairs I primped a final time in the mirror and unbuttoned the few buttons of the transparent black robe I was wearing so my skin showed more.

The door to our bedroom opened and I almost couldn’t contain the excitement. I’d run out to get chocolate cookies in a heart-shaped box and it was sitting on his pillow with a card. I took a deep breath and opened the door at the same time as he yelled.

“Kookie, those incense gives me headaches, you really had to light it tonight?” I opened my mouth to make him look at me but then...

“Son of a bitch!” He shouted and rushed to the window where one of the curtains had caught fire. It was dangling too close to the candles and he had to yank them down and stomp the flames out. They hadn’t totally ignited yet but it shook me up to think I could’ve missed it.

“I didn’t even smell anything,” I said as we stood over the damage.

“Because you don’t pay attention to anything! A bomb could drop when you’re in the clouds and you wouldn’t notice.” He bent to gather the ruined curtains and I swallowed the scolding.

I deserved it. I did almost burn the house down.

“I’m sorry Tae, I wasn’t—”

“I warn you about your scented candles and those fcuking incense and your microwave all the time. Yesterday it was your damned curling iron. It’s like you want to burn to a crisp.”

I sided a glance at the bathroom trying to remember if I unplugged the curler. While he bagged the curtains I back stepped into the doorway and jerked the plug out without being noticed.

“I’m sorry, I really...am, I was trying to make tonight special, and I just didn’t see it.”

He grumbled as he took the bag downstairs, and I fought for a way to regain the night. When he came back, he was set for pissed. “I have a freaking headache now. Feels like a high school band on crack are in my head.”

“I can make chamomile—”

“I don’t want that shit. I want painkillers.” He started blowing out all the candles and turned on a small lamp by the door. “I just really need to go to bed. We’ll talk about it later.”

He turned down his side of the bed and didn’t even see the candy box or the card until it fell near the toe of his shoe. “I’ll get it,” I tried to beat him to the stuff but he picked it up and turned it over like he didn’t know what it was.

“What’s all this?”

“Well, it was for you. It’s just little stuff…”

He stared at the heart box forever. “Oh, right, Conflict’s Day. Is that-? What’s today?”

I felt a spark of hope. I would actually prefer to think he forgot than to think he didn’t care. “The 4th.”

“Is that what all the candles were for? Wow, okay. I didn’t…really think we were doing all that stuff still. We aren’t teenagers, it’s just so childish.”

I wasn’t sure how to even respond. “Yeah…that’s true...it’s not important or anything.”

“Especially not if it involves burning the house down.” He tapped the top of my head with his card then dropped it and the candy on his nightstand like it was junk mail before undressing.

Ouch, ouch, ouch! I could actually feel his shoe on my heart.

I heaved a heavy sigh, “But Tae—"

“God Jungkook, what are you? Twenty-five and still all this.”

I came off his shoulder and looked up at him. “Twenty-seven.”

“What?”

“I’m twenty-seven, not twenty-five.”

“No, your birthday is in—”

Yeah, jerk, do the math.

His eyes flashed with a little ping then recovered. “September…” he murmured.

I scooted away a little and lay down on my back. Still in this useless nighty that he didn’t even notice. “How did I miss that?”

“You were in that club you didn’t even invite me,’”

He reached out and gave my hand a squeeze and even in my sadness it excited me to be touched by him.

“Sorry, I’ll make it up okay? We can go do that star gazing museum thingy you like or something.”

Then he was off to bed.

!!~~~~!!

“If you don’t like me anymore just say so.” He ignored me while he typed.

“Taehyung.”

Still nothing.

“Could you stop that for just one minute?”

“What Kookie? What?!”

“Is there anything about me you still like? Yeah, I’m clumsy, I don’t clean, I forget things, I collect books...You knew all that stuff about me when you married me, I didn’t change.”

“Jungkook please, I can’t do this now.” He looked back down at his phone and I felt like there might be an opportunity.

I went up to him and took his face in my hands.

I kissed him.

I kissed him the way I wanted to be kissed, the way I needed to be kissed and in a scared way.

My lips danced over his even when I felt him drawing his neck back.

Please, please, please, don’t. I pleaded in my head.

I let go of his face to caress his neck and down his shoulders and chest. He felt so good, like home and love. His lips weren’t in it though, they weren’t taking mine like they used to.

I started to unbutton his shirt.

He frowned, “Kookie, what are you doing?” I silenced him with another kiss and let go to try and pull my shirt up over my head. He caught my arms and pulled my shirt down. “I have to make a call; I can’t do this now.”

“Don’t you remember the time we were both sick with the flu and you randomly got horny? You shoved me down on the countertop here, and,” I smoothed my hand over the surface. “You were your best when we had to do quickies and in fits of passion. Let’s do it now. Like that, right here. I want you; I miss you.”

He opened his mouth to say something when his phone rang. Before I could stop him, he answered. I looked at him in disbelief. He shushed me when I tried to whisper, and the rejection was like a hot poker running me through.

I left the kitchen and went up to our room. I can’t take this. It’s like he finds me the most invisible person in the world. I felt like crying but that wouldn’t solve anything.

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Hours later he came up for a shower and I stopped in the middle of folding clothes from our laundry basket to watch him undress.

He was facing the bathroom, so he didn’t see me but God. He’s so beautiful. His shirt came down off his arms and I watched his back work. Tattoos winded from his shoulder blades, then down his arms. He had a thin, long dragon down his spine and when he undid his pants, I realized my nether regions were throbbing with desire.

What an ass. A perfect ass. The kind you want to bite and strong thighs to support it. He went into the shower and I decided on a new plan. He’s an alpha! How hard is it to make an alpha want sex? The word sex should be enough.

I took off my jeans and stripped to my satin blue panties. All bought with him in mind, just in case the occasion he wants me should ever arrive. I’m not a conceited person but I know I’m not ugly.

I snuck into the bathroom as I heard the shower go on and stepped into the shower.

Taehyung heard me and turned in time to catch me before I could take down the shower curtain. “Good lord Jungkook!”

I clung to him when he brought me up against him. Ohhhh this felt good. This felt right being in his arms. He smells amazing and he hasn’t even scrubbed yet. I wrapped my arms around his neck and even though I was chilled I felt warm.

“I love you…” I whispered into his neck.

He kissed the top of my head. “Love you too. I need to shower babe.”

I went stiff in his arms. I think he felt it. I pulled back enough to see him and set my hands over his chest. “You didn’t say it,” I said.

“Say what? I just said I love you too.”

That hurt worse.

“No, you didn’t say it the special way. The special way we’ve said it for years.”

“Oh, my God, I said I love you. You want me to build you a shrine? Things don’t stay the same forever. It doesn’t mean anything.”

I felt a tear stinging my eye. “What if I said it does to me? What if I need you to say it like you used to? Like you mean it.”

“You make everything so big. You do this all the time. You over do everything. You’re either super excited about stupid little things or super worked up about even smaller things, there’s no in between.”

“Do you still love me?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Taehyung, you never touch me anymore, I went to bed in only a thong three nights ago, I looked like a hooker and you didn’t even say anything.”

“Well, I was tired and you are damned horny all the time. I’m tired. Sorry I don’t stare at you every night to see if you’re horny.”

“I’m horny all the time. I’m? Do you even remember when was the last time you touched me. Besides, that’s not what this is about. I asked, ‘Do you still love me?’”

He looked at me like I was speaking some other language. “Listen, I don’t know what brought this on, but let me get done in here and hand me the soap. And please close the door before you leave.”

I felt my chest cave. “I’m standing in the shower with you, in my damned underwear, telling you I love you and asking you to say it back, and you’re asking me to leave?”

He turned his back to me and started rinsing, “Fcuk, never mind.”

My heart broke so loud I thought we both heard it. I stepped around the broken pieces and him before stepping out. I changed into an old night shirt before drying my hair and went downstairs.

Am I going crazy?

We loved each other once right?

I dug through our Blu-rays and DVDs to find the little ivory envelope that held our wedding disk. I slipped it in the player then sat in front of the TV Indian style and watched.

In the video, I tripped going down the aisle, but my dad caught me. Then I forgot my vows at the front but Taehyung repeated them with me while holding my hands to his chest.

We’d practiced together even though it’s unconventional.

God, he looks good in a tux. Before we were pronounced True Mates he couldn’t take the waiting and kissed me anyway. He got impatient on the way out of the courthouse too and threw me over his shoulder to run me to the limo we had waiting.

I shut off the disc, put on the Ironman movie, and made a bed for myself on the couch. I need something fanciful to dull the pain and Marvel is my life line.

In the morning, my dear husband didn’t even notice I hadn’t come to bed.

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FLASHBACK ENDS

Ready to move on after three months?

Was that all it took to get over the last ten years of my life? To delete seven years of marriage?

I had been with Taehyung in some form or capacity for a decade, but I was supposed to erase him completely from the important parts of my heart in three months?

How?

I wasn’t against the idea.

In fact, I would have loved to forget about him and the poisonous relationship we’d created.

I would love for this pain in my chest to dissipate and the sickness that seemed constant and unrelenting to ebb.

But it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t shake our relationship or the hold he had over my heart.

Not everything about him was bad.

In fact, most of him was good and beautiful and right. But with me, he wasn’t those things and I wasn’t either.

But how was I supposed to let go of him?

I loved him. I loved him for ten years and knew nothing else but loving him.

How could I walk away from him and even entertain the idea of another man after everything I had been through?

I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to date again, let alone so quickly after my last relationship failed.

No.

Catastrophically failed.

Tae was supposed to be my forever. Taehyung was supposed to be my ‘until death do us part.’ And now that the rest of my life had taken a sharp, life- altering turn, I didn’t know where I was headed anymore.

I was lost.

I was directionless.

I was floating in a sea of confusion and hurt.

I needed something to tether me, to pull me back to shore. But I knew, more than anybody else in my life that I wasn’t going to find that with a new man.

“It’s okay,” I told Hoseok with a throaty whisper. “I just wasn’t…I wasn’t expecting that from him.”

He squeezed my forearm and gathered his thoughts. “I know that what you’re going through with Taehyung and everything is intense, but you’re still young. You’re still gorgeous. You still have a lot of life left to live. I don’t want you to give up, just because the first try wasn’t successful. You’re a catch, Jungkook-ah. You have to know that Yoongi isn’t the only man lining up to take advantage of Taehyung’s colossal mistake.”

“The divorce was my idea,” I reminded Hoseok. “I’m the reason we ended it.”

The words felt like stones on my tongue. I felt their gritty, dirty wrongness and I wanted to spit them out and wash my mouth out with something cleansing.

Something like bleach.

Or battery acid.

“Yeah, maybe,” he sighed. “But he should never have let you get away with it.”

Something sharp sliced against my chest. I felt the same way too. If he had really loved me, he wouldn’t have let me go through with it.

Right? If he really wanted things to work out between us, he wouldn’t have moved out.

He wouldn’t have stopped talking to me. He wouldn’t have left.

Desperate to change the topic, I pushed through a back door and blinked against the bright fall sunlight. “So, lunch?”

“Yes!” he smiled at me.

I could see the concern floating all over her face, but she held her tongue in an effort to keep me together. “Gourmets has the freaking best eatery on the planet.”

I would never understand how Hoseok could eat so much and stay so fit. He didn’t have to do what the rest of us did, which was an insane amount of cardio and a universal ban on sugar.

He could eat whatever he wanted.

I looked at a piece of chocolate and my thighs started jiggling. It was like an alarm system for my flab.

Well, until recently.

We hurried across the lengthy parking lot and busy streets until we reached the tiny corner Gourmet that boasted whole pickles with every purchase and sandwiches the size of my head.

It was a favorite spot for everyone that worked on this block, but especially for the teachers at SHS. When given the choice of bad cafeteria food, a quickly packed lunch from home or a thickly-meated, moist-breaded, delicious sandwiches from Gourmets, the choice was obvious.

But after an incident last spring, in which a group of students had left school to corner and threaten a teacher off school grounds, the administrator had bPippad teachers from leaving campus during the school day and so technically we were sneaking out and breaking rules.

Dongho was located in one of the under-privileged sections of Seoul. We were firmly in the city proper, not skirting the affluent suburbs or near a wealthier area of downtown.

No, Dongho was directly in the middle of gang violence, low-income housing and race wars.

I’d been offered jobs at some of the more stable schools in the city and even one at a prestigious private school in a well-off suburb. But when I chose Dongho, it was with my heart.

I had examined all of my options, and I knew that taking this job was a risk professionally, but I couldn’t deny that I felt something meaningful for these kids.

I wanted to make a difference. Not the kind that you see on TV or that moves you in a heart-warming movie, but a real difference.

I wanted to empower these kids with knowledge that would never leave them and tools for a future that was beyond this neighborhood.

I wanted to inspire something inside of these neglected teenagers that had all of the odds stacked against them and had to fight to just show up on a daily basis.

I fought a losing battle every day and I was exhausted.

But it was worth it.

I could feel it in my bones.

Hoseok’s shoes clicked against the broken sidewalk as we hurried to Gourmets, mingling with the sounds of angry traffic and city commotion. The warm sun heated my exposed arms and face and I lifted my closed eyes to soak it in.

There was healing in this industrial chaos. There was a beautiful surrender to the noisy madness that felt cleansing and therapeutic.

It wouldn’t last. I would pay for my sandwich, go back to my desk and the reality of my broken life would come crashing down on me.

But for a few seconds, I had the flirtatious smile of an attractive man in my memory and a minute of reprieve from the demands of my life.

I sucked in a full breath, taking in the exhaust and grit from the city. And yet, my lungs felt full for the first time in as long as I could remember.

“It’s going to get better,” Hoseok said so softly I barely heard him.

I opened my eyes to keep from tripping and they immediately fell to the cracked sidewalk and patchy grass on either side.

“I’m not sure it is,” I told him honestly.

Hoseok dropped his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, pulling me into a side hug.

“There’s more to life than Taehyung, babe. I promise you. And it won’t take you long to figure it out. You just need to get the divorce finalized so you can move on.” His laugh vibrated through him. “And Yoongi would be a very good place to start.”

“Maybe,” fell from my lips, but I didn’t feel any sentiment behind it.

More sickness roiled through me and a cold sweat broke out on my neck. I swallowed against rising nausea and convinced myself not to throw up.

I was getting a divorce, but even the thought of someone else still felt like adultery. Whatever our faults, Taehyung and I had always been faithful to each other.

Moving on seemed impossible when I had dedicated my entire life to my one and only. To the one man that had let me down and stomped on whatever remained of my happiness.

Taehyung and I were over, I promised myself. I would move on eventually.

And Taehyung would too.

We grabbed our sandwiches, but I let Hoseok drop Yoongi’s off. I had lost any desire to communicate with other people.

I practically crawled back to my classroom and sunk into my chair. My sandwich went uneaten, just like my one from home, because I couldn’t bring myself to feel good enough to eat.

Hoseok had meant to encourage me, but he’d done the opposite. I realized that he was right. That one day I would move on.

But that I was right too. Taehyung would move on as well.

I knew I could find someone better for me.

I knew my life would be better off without him.

I just couldn’t swallow the hard pill that his life would be better off without me too.

That he would find someone better than me.

!!~~~~!!!~~~~!!