PART - I : C2 - Seven Stages of GRIEF

He hate (ate with) my family.

Sunday rolled around with a crashing finality that made my legs lock up and my eyes instinctively roll of their own accord.

The apocalypse had arrived. Also known as family dinner.

It had been a tradition in my household as long as I could remember. It was cemented into place when my older brother, Jungwon left for college; written in blood from all members of my family when he got married twelve years ago; and cursed to damn those members of the family that did not show up straight to the fiery pits of hell when I got married seven years ago.

My mother was nothing if not intolerant of our absences. My father was the same way. He wasn’t the most amorous man alive; in fact, some might take his stoic demeanor and lack of affection to mean that he didn’t love us- or at least he didn’t like us very much.

But the opposite was true. He did love us. More than he cared to tell us. He just showed us his love with high expectations that were both everlasting and time punctual.

Translation: Don’t ever be late. Never ever.

Like I said, Sunday meant lunch with my parents. Neither of them could be bothered to pick up a phone during the week to check in with me, but by God, if I didn’t show up on Sunday, I’d better be dead.

Taehyung had always found my family stand-offish at best. He loathed any time spent with them, but most of all Sunday lunches.

My father, a successful plumber and notorious hard worker, didn’t and wouldn’t try to understand Taehyung’s aspirations to be a professional musician.

And my mother, who had been both emotionally neglected all of her marriage and also completely spoiled by my father who only expected her to cook, clean, iron his shirts and go to bed with him at nine pm every night, refused to respect someone that would choose an unstable career and could therefore impose upon his family to support him.

My mother always thought I could do better and she never kept that opinion to herself. My father didn’t speak his mind openly, but he had never been Taehyung’s number one fan either.

When I walked into my parent’s dated, red brick row house five minutes before lunch began, I felt the dismal weight of failure settle on my shoulders.

As disappointed as my parents were when I chose Taehyung, they were even more disappointed in my pending divorce.

Love and happiness had never played a part in their marriage. They took vows, they made promises to each other and no matter how miserable they made the other, they kept their word.

It was embarrassing to them that they had a child who couldn’t keep his.

Especially since my perfect brother Jungwon had married such a nice girl and their marriage was never in jeopardy of dissolving and, consequently, their souls never at risk of being damned.

To ice the cake, my brother’s two kids were beautiful. Jungwon had a fantastic job and Soyeon, his wife, couldn’t have been a better homemaker.

I, the baby of the family, was still acting like one. My dangerous job, my failed marriage and my lack of children spoke for me.

I had disappointed my parents. In every way that mattered.

“There he is,” my mother announced when I swept into the house, dropped my bag on the desk near the front door and tripped into the dining room.

My mother’s dark brown hair, which had streaks of gray that she would never bother to cover with dye, was pulled severely from her face in a bun on the top of her head.

Her high cheekbones and pursed lips made my stomach twist with dread. I felt like one of my students when I called them out for missing homework.

I should be nicer to them, I thought.

No, wait.

I had momentarily forgotten that I loved torturing them. Apparently my mother and I had more in common than I thought.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I huffed, even though I was early. “Traffic was a nightmare.”

My father made an approving grunt. He hated traffic above everything else. If he could sell his soul for clear streets and green lights for the rest of his life, he would.

He wouldn’t even ask to read the terms and conditions.

Sign here, Satan?

Sure thing.

“We’re just sitting down,” my mother allowed.

Her hazel eyes flicked across the table and took in my appearance with a shockingly quick assessment. “You’re too thin. It’s a good thing you come over here to eat.”

I sunk onto my straight-backed oak chair and gripped the edges of the matching table that had been the centerpiece of my childhood. She said this to me every time she saw me during my divorce.

Before that, it had been, “You’re gaining too much weight. You need to exercise.”

“He’s under a lot of stress, Ma, give him a break.”

I shot Jungwon a weak smile. He made life difficult for me because he did everything right the first time, but he always had my back. He really was a good guy, which was why it was so easy to hate him.

“He’s under a lot of stress because he puts himself under a lot of stress.” My mother thrust the bowl of green beans amandine at my sister- in-law catching her off guard.

She jumped a little in her seat and I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing.

I was twenty-seven-old and hadn’t lived at home since the year before I got married, but my mother could get under my skin like no one else.

She came equipped with internal radar of what buttons to push to piss me off the most. Zero to instant-rage in less than thirty seconds.

It was actually pretty impressive.

“Can I have the bread, please?” I kept my voice evenly upbeat and pasted on a fake smile. If I didn’t provoke them, I could be out of here in two hours.

Taehyung would always come up with a code word before we walked in the house so that I would know when he’d reached his limit.

Rotten bananas smell good.

Tyeokbukki is sadder.

Winter is warm.

He would just blurt whatever safe word he’d prepped me with on the way over in the middle of a conversation and then jump to his feet as if he couldn’t live through another second of my family.

Sometimes it had been in the middle of the meal.

Sometimes he made it to dessert.

Sometimes he started spouting code words before we’d made it through the front door.

During our marriage, I had been annoyed with his desperation to leave my family. I wanted him to somehow love spending time with them, even though I couldn’t stand it.

Even though they were rude and unaccepting of him.

Over the last four months, I’d realized this was one thing I could have been nicer about.

I missed his stupid code words now.

I missed his push to leave so we didn’t get trapped in an endless marathon of bitter family and snide comments.

I missed his intolerance for how my mom spoke to me.

He had always been respectful to her face, but after we got in the car, he had always reassured me that I was beautiful, that I was successful and that I didn’t need her approval.

I hadn’t done the same for him and now I wondered how her snarky digs must have cut him. I wondered if he had needed my encouragement as much as I needed his.

I wondered if I had enjoyed his code words and sarcastic tolerance of my family, if we would still be together.

I wondered if those small things would have fixed us.

Or at least kept us from breaking.

But it was all pointless now. Taehyung was gone and I was left to face my family alone.

“Take two biscuits,” she demanded. “You’ll never find another alpha with those hollow cheekbones.”

“Hyun,” my dad warned with his rumble of a voice. “Let the boy eat. He doesn’t need your instructions. I’m sure he’s got the basics of it figured out by now.”

My mother’s disgruntled expression argued differently, but she let it drop. Jeon Hyunjae was a force to be reckoned with.

I had never been under a different impression. My mother had intimidated the world from day one.

But I had been born with something wild and uncaring. My mom overwhelmed me easily. I knew better than to talk back. I knew better than to start something with her.

And yet, I could not keep my mouth shut. It might be some kind of disease. I should probably get it checked out.

I told my mashed potatoes, “I’m not sure I want to find another...man.”

My mom snorted a bitter laugh and I felt my father freeze from across the table. I didn’t have to look at him to know I’d shocked the hell out of him and not in a good way.

“Of course you want to find another man,” my mother insisted. “You think that now, but give it a few months or a year. You won’t want to be alone. You’ll get lonely and then you’ll see. You’ll know you need someone.”

As if my mother’s words weren’t damaging enough, my father chimed in, “It’s dangerous out there, Jungkook.”

Ladies and gentlemen, my parents’ opinion of me.

Neither of them thought I was capable of taking care of myself. A man had to be part of my equation or I was destined to turn into a crazed omega that went batshit crazy and was pillaged in his own home one night by the pizza delivery guy.

As if my future didn’t feel bleak enough… Geez. Thanks, Mom and Dad. And obviously my army of plushies would protect me.

“Come on, guys,” Jungwon interrupted again. “Enough already. He walked in the house five minutes ago and you’re already giving him a hard time. Let him breathe a little, alright?”

Both of my parents looked put out this time. I wanted to cry.

One of my nieces piped up, wanting more mashed potatoes and the attention, thankfully, shifted off me.

Jungwon had two beautiful girls, one alpha and one omega and they were as well behaved as children could be and still be kids. They whined too loud and they screamed like banshees when they got mad, but they were beautiful and lovely and so precious they made my heart ache.

Ella and Evelyn had been easy for Jungwon and Soyeon. They had gotten pregnant exactly on schedule with their perfect lives, just like Jungwon had gotten the position he wanted and the raise he needed when they decided to start a family.

Life worked out for Jungwon in a way that was completely unfamiliar to me.

Not that I didn’t think he worked hard.

I did.

I knew he gave his hundred and ten percent and worked his ass off to be where he was today. But he shined brighter or something. He was born alpha...he was loved by my mother even though he was older...he got a beautiful and loving wife. The universe loved him more or maybe he had a head start toward perfection.

I worked hard too. I worked my ass off too. And yet… there was something missing.

I didn’t have a gorgeous house in the suburbs or my two point five kids. I barely had a puppy and a job that paid less than tolerable wages.

I had a mountain of student loan debt and a husband that didn’t fight for me.

And a pity party.

I had a massive pity party that made me sick of myself and of the constantly self-absorbed thoughts I couldn’t shake. Ugh.

I needed a wakeup call.

Or a giant bottle of Whiskey.

“So how’s the school year going so far?” Soyeon asked while my parents drilled Jungwon about his newest promotion opportunity.

“Rough,” I said honestly.

“Because of the divorce?” Her tone was gentle and nonjudgmental.

I loved Soyeon, despite her serendipitous marriage to my brother. We weren’t the closest friends, but Jungwon had chosen well.

I chewed a bit of pork chop while I decided how to answer her. “That’s definitely part of the reason. But I have a few difficult classes this year. It’s only the middle of August and they’re already acting out. I feel like it’s getting harder and harder to get through to them.”

Her frown was both authentic and sympathetic. “I think what you’re doing is amazing, Jungkook. Those students, all students, need teachers that genuinely care about them. You’re doing something great. You need to remember that.”

Soyeon was six years older than me and even if it was hard for us to connect sometimes, she gave really good advice. This was something worth listening to.

“Thanks, Noona. I needed to hear that.”

She smiled softly at me. “And don’t worry about rushing into another relationship either. I know the divorce is something you want, but I’m sure you’re still struggling to move on.”

I nodded, unable to form the words it would take to explain how very reluctant I was to even consider moving on.

“It’s not like he was a bad guy…” My lame attempt at an explanation fell as flat as it tasted in my mouth.

It was so much more complicated than two well-meaning people moving on with their lives. There were so many subtle nuances that would take days to explain.

I needed complicated pie charts and colored graphs. I needed to watch a movie of my marriage and analyze exactly where things went wrong. Saying Taehyung was a great guy, though, usually caused people to question all of my motives.

Was I having an affair?

Was I a cold, heartless monster?

Had I been abducted by Lucifer who sucked out my soul and left me vapid and broken?

I hadn’t ruled out that last option yet. It might have happened. Because why else would I have suggested that my husband leave me?

For good.

Satan were a legitimate possibility.

“Of course he’s not a bad guy!” Soyeon rushed to agree. “But sometimes… sometimes it doesn’t work out.”

It wasn’t her words that bothered me, but her lack of conviction. I hated that everything had become so personal to me lately.

I couldn’t have a conversation without a reminder of how great Taehyung was and what an idiot I was for leaving him. I was as obsessed with myself as everyone else.

Only, I was really, really getting sick and tired of me. I cleared my throat to avoid commenting anymore.

“Divorce is hard,” Soyeon went on. “When my parents divorced, my mom said it was like going through the death of a loved one. She struggled for a long time to stay out of depression.”

I turned toward her and hoped to change the subject completely or at least get it off me. “That must have been really hard. How old were you?”

She nodded slowly, clearly struggling with hidden emotion. “I was eight,” she admitted. “They thought they would be better off without each other.”

Her words hit too close to home and I immediately wanted to change the subject to something else. The weather. Football. Aliens and anal probing.

Anything else.

Instead, I said, “Were they?”

She quickly shook her head. “I don’t know, honestly. My dad never remarried. My mom did. She seems happy now. But we went through a lot of painful years afterward. It was really, really hard on my siblings and me.”

“At least we don’t have kids,” I mumbled to myself.

If Soyeon heard me, she didn’t respond. And for that I was grateful. I didn’t need to talk about kids tonight or what it was like not to have them.

I knew what it was like. I knew that acutely.

I smiled at my youngest niece, Ella, as she tried to sneak long green beans back into the bowl. I shook my finger at her playfully and watched her five-year-old face turn red from embarrassment.

Even Taehyung thought my nieces were precious. He had one brother, but Soobin was younger than us and Namjoon hyung was not married yet, so Ella and Evelyn were all we had. Both of us loved to have them over so we could spoil them or take them to fun things around the city.

They gave us the excuse to eat chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs and watch cartoons.

I might not have appreciated his attitude toward my mother, but he had always been the best uncle. He would have made a phenomenal father.

If only things had been different for us.

After Jungwon and I cleaned off the table and started on the dishes, a job that was still ours no matter how old we got, I felt his probing eyes on me. I could feel the serious conversation brewing between us, but I had hoped to avoid this awkward portion of the afternoon.

“I thought you would get back with him by now,” he said out of the blue, with soap bubbles up to his elbows and a porcelain platter squeezed between his hands.

I nearly dropped the wet glass I was drying on the linoleum floor. “What?”

“I didn’t think you were serious about the divorce,” he explained. “I thought you guys might be having a rough patch, but I always expected you to work through it.”

My stomach churned and my heart squeezed with racing panic. I tried to keep my voice steady when I replied, “It was worse than a rough patch.”

“He didn’t hit you or anything, did he?” Jungwon paused mid-rinse to look at me seriously.

I hated that people always jumped to that conclusion.

Did all men have this hard of a time divorcing?

Were they always silently questioned about domestic abuse?

“He never touched me like that, hyung. He...never touched me for...don’t ever think he did. We just…we don’t get along. We’re not right for each other.”

“You haven’t really tried,” he countered immediately. “You guys are still newlyweds. Give it some time.”

“We’ve been married for seven years.”

My brother was nothing if not persistent. He got it from our mother. “It’s nothing a couple kids won’t fix. Try that. See what a baby can do for you guys. You could still save this. Whatever mess you created.”

I sucked in a sharp breath and kept my tumbling thoughts to myself. I could have told him that I hadn’t talked to my husband in four months and that if he wanted to speak to me, he would have by now.

If he had cared just a little bit about salvaging what we had, he would have reached out. I could have told Jungwon that we knew each other too well. That our faults had become walls that kept the other out and that our fights had scarred us so deeply we would never heal.

I should have told him that a baby wasn’t a magical potion that made people stop fighting and every problem disappear.

But instead, I told him the reason that would shut him up for good, the one thing he couldn’t argue with.

“We did try to have kids.” My voice was a shaking whisper, reflecting all of the shattered emotions I couldn’t reconcile. “We tried for two years.”

He was silent for a long time. I had kept this to myself during our entire struggle. Only Taehyung knew how desperately I wanted a baby and how impossible it seemed.

We hadn’t told our parents or our families because we wanted to avoid this moment. We wanted to avoid the questions and the pity and the attempts to understand something that devastated both of us- something we couldn’t understand ourselves.

“Oh,” Jungwon finally groaned. “I wondered—”

“It’s me,” I said quickly. “Or at least that’s what our lab results say. I’m the one that stopped it from happening.”

My brother had rolled up the sleeves to his arms and looked out of place next to the soapy water and pile of dirty dishes. He had the face of a corporate man. He was all clean angles and sharp edges.

But at this moment, he looked as lost as I felt.

“That’s not a reason to get a divorce, Jungkook.” His rasping rumble grated against my heart and I wanted to cry.

“That’s not why we’re getting divorced, Jungwon.”

“It’s a reason for something,” he pushed.

“Then it’s a reason that led up to the reason we’re getting divorced. There’s a lot to us that you never saw or heard about. A lot you will never hear about. Whatever my reasons for ending my marriage are mine alone. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Does he know them?”

“Does he know what?”

“Your reasons for leaving him.”

The wind rushed out of me and I thought I might pass out for a minute. The pain was too acute, too blinding. I couldn’t breathe through this. I couldn’t live through this.

My brother had dealt the final blow, but the expression on Taehyung’s face, when he had grabbed the pillow off our bed to take it downstairs all those months ago, annihilated whatever was left of my heart.

“Yes,” I whispered. “And he has his own reasons for wanting to leave me too.”

We finished the dishes in silence. I left my parent’s house soon after that, using the valid excuse that I had a ton of papers to grade.

My parents weren’t happy to see me leave, but I wasn’t sure they would have been happy to have me stay either.

I drove back to the small house I’d shared with Taehyung for the last five years. It was empty when I got there except for my puppy.

Of course. I lived by myself now.

It was quiet too.

Too quiet.

It was dark and quiet and for the first time since we bought this damn house, I hated it.

I hated it because it represented everything I couldn’t have. Everything I lost.

I hated Taehyung too.

He wasn’t supposed to let our marriage end like this. He wasn’t supposed to let things get this bad.

And most of all.

I hated myself.

I couldn’t help it.

At the end of the day…after all of my explanations and logical choices, after my lists of his wrongdoings and all of the reasons we were not right for each other, I hated myself and what I had done.

I hated myself for what I couldn’t take back.

!!~~~~~!!