PART - VII - ACCEPTANCE C3/4

I love him.

My mom called later in the day. She wanted to know how the mediation went. She wanted me to get the dog. And I didn’t want to move for the next forty years.

“How did it go?” she asked impatiently.

“Not well.”

“Are you divorced?” Her tone was panicked and concerned. She rarely sounded panicked or concerned. “Is it final?”

I sniffled. “No. No, it’s not final.” I didn’t explain to her that we couldn’t have finalized it in mediation.

That there were more steps to it than this. It didn’t matter now because if I had any say about it, I would never take those steps. Taehyung would have to go on living his life forever anchored to me. I would be the ball and chain that never let him move on.

He’d have to become a polygamist if he wanted to get married again.

Oh, god, what if he wanted to get married again?

I collapsed back to my side and let out a high-pitched whimper. “Gguk? Jungkook? What’s wrong? What happened? Oh god, say something.”

“I couldn’t go through with it,” I cried.

“Go through with what?” Her patience had run out. She had started shrieking.

“The divorce, Mom! I couldn’t go through with the divorce!”

“Oh.” Her tone evened out and she sounded obnoxiously pleased. “Well, that’s a good thing.”

I started crying harder. It wasn’t a good thing if Taehyung still wanted one. “Oh, Jungkook,” she sighed. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to work out.”

She had never said that before. Not once since I told her Taehyung and I were going to end things.

“How do you know?” I croaked.

“Because you love each other. Because you went through some really tough times, but you’ve never stopped loving each other.”

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jeon Jiana—my mother, the closeted romantic.

I propped myself up on my elbow. Some of my tears dried and I took a steadying breath. “He didn’t say he didn’t want to end the divorce. He might still want one.”

“He doesn’t,” she said confidently.

“How do you know?”

She sighed again, only this time I could hear the smile in her voice. “Because he’s a good man, honey. He’s a good man that loves you.”

“I thought you hated him?”

“Jeon Jungkook, I am your mother. I always want what’s best for you. I suppose we were a little harsh with Taehyung because…well, because I didn’t think he was giving you the life you deserved. But when you left him, I realized I was wrong.” She cleared her throat while my entire world tipped on its axis.

Did my mother just say she was wrong?

Had I prayed a little too hard for that zombie apocalypse?

“In comparison to your life of loneliness, he was the best thing for you. No matter what his profession. No matter what you went through. You survived worse. You could survive this. Your love was impeccable.”

I let the passive-aggressive digs slide and said honestly, “Thanks, mom.”

“I love you, Jungkook.”

“I love you too.” I sat up fully and added, “I can’t come to dinner every Sunday though. It’s too much. I love you and Dad, but I can only make it once a month.”

“Twice.”

“What?”

“Come twice a month and I won’t bug you about it again.”

“Okay,” I laughed. “I’ll come twice.”

“We can keep the dog another night, too. Your father has grown really attached. I think I’m going to have to buy him one by the end of it.”

I blamed my heartbroken exhaustion, but nothing she was saying was making sense. “Buy him what?”

“A dog,” she muttered. “Like this one. I might have to hit it with my car too just so he can feel needed.”

“Who?”

“Your father, Jungkook. Keep up! He won’t watch TV anymore unless the dog is curled up on his lap. It’s ridiculous. You should see the way he babies it! You’ll help me find the right breed, won’t you?”

Feeling sufficiently exhausted and completely weirded out, I nodded.

Then I realized she couldn’t see me and so I said, “Oh, okay. If you think he really wants one.”

My dad had never loved anything in his life. Not even me! Okay, that wasn’t true. But small animals were definitely not on his shortlist. They ranked right under traffic for things he could not tolerate.

I couldn’t picture him cuddled up with Pikachu.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to picture him cuddled up with Pikachu. “Alright, get some sleep. Your dad will bring the dog back to you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, mom.”

She clicked off and I dropped my phone on the cushion beside me. That was the most bizarre conversation I had ever had with my mother. It beat the birds and the bees talk she tried to have with me when I was fourteen.

It had been too late by that point. I went to public school and there was this thing called TV.

I knew everything I needed to know. I figured the logistics out later. As God and my sanity intended. I felt oddly at peace then. Everything wasn’t quite so dismal. My mom believed Taehyung still loved me, so that had to mean something, right?

That peace carried me through the rest of the day and eventually I was able to get up off the couch and at least change clothes.

I took my phone with myself and walked to my bedroom. I was debating whether to call my mother-in-law or not. After going through call her -call her not I settled I needed to out my emotions.

I dialed her number. She picked up on the third ring.

"Ggguk-ah. Why didn't you come home?"

"Mom." I didn't know how to say what I wanted to say. It felt all very dramatic. This whole year felt like the biggest sham.

"No need to say anything Guuk-ah. You'll always be my son. No matter what. Take as much time as you want. It was right of me to let you keep that ring. it always belonged to you." She assured me that she was going nowhere.

"Thank you so much, Mom. I hope you forgive me." I was sniffing as I couldn't contain the myriad of emotions in me anymore.

"I know my son is an idiot. But you were the only right thing that happened to him. He should know you are a keeper. forgive him for whatever it is he had done to you."

She kept saying things to calm me while I cried silently on the phone. After she calmed my wolf down enough to subside my hysterics into slight hiccups, she disconnected the call before promising to call me back before going to bed. She even made me promise to eat something.

After washing my face and eyes of the blotchiness, I stripped off my trousers and blouse and replaced them with yoga pants and a tank top. They were workout clothes, but I was not planning on working out.

Unless one considered inhaling a couple of gallons of ice cream working out.

But mostly I needed the clothes for their stretchiness.

I walked down the stairs, anxious to get started on my ice cream marathon when I saw him. The sight of him there, in the entryway, standing so tall and looking so beautiful, nearly made me face plant down the remaining four stairs.

I caught myself on the railing, but my stomach took the tumble anyway. “What are you...doing here?”

He stood there out of breath with his shoulders heaving, as if he’d run all the way here. Still in the clothes, I saw him in the lawyer's office - now disheveled, his mouth was set with determined lines. His eyes were so intent, so intimately focused…but maybe a little lost too. Or maybe it was something deeper than lost. Something profound and permanent that reflected in my eyes too. Something like finally being found. “You still don’t know?”

I shook my head and tried to swallow. “No.”

“You, Jungkook. I’m here for you.”

I carefully made my way down the rest of the stairs and took a step toward him. It was strange being in this place. I felt like my emotions had taken steroids. There were too many of them. And they were at war with each other.

The man that I wanted, the marriage that I wanted, stood right in front of me and still, I had to fight my pride and swallow humility.

I had to choose to let go of our past and hold onto the hope that we had a future.

I had so many things I wanted to say to him, but I needed to choose the best things…the things that would move us forward and give us healing.

It wasn’t easy. It was the opposite. It was traumatizing and against my nature. I knew I was stubborn. I knew I was a control freak. I knew I had a thousand faults that only this man could love.

We were so broken. I was so broken.

Yet I wanted this more than anything in the world. More than I had ever wanted anything else in my entire life.

And I knew, without any doubts or misgivings, that if I let him go…if I gave up on our marriage and walked away, I would regret it every single day for the rest of my life.

More than that, I would be giving up a quality of life. I would be letting the best thing in my life go. I would have to resign myself to secondhand citizenship in my own life and I could not do that.

I didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve it. We didn’t deserve it.

Before I could create words and explanations and apologies out of all of that, he stepped forward again, closing the distance between us, and said, “I’m sorry, Jungkook. I’m sorry for everything. I’m so sorry for the silence. That prevailed between us. I thought I was giving you the space you needed. But I didn’t realize in my hurt that...that you would be hurting worst.”

When I saw real tears reflected in his deep green eyes, I immediately burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. I had never seen him like this before.

“Tae, you don’t have to—” Taehyung held me in his arms.

“I do. I need to say all of this. It’s stuff I should have said years ago. I should never have let us get this far. I should never have let you go. Not once.”

I moved slightly away to look at his face. More hot tears spilled down my cheeks and I nodded, letting him go on.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t let go of the band. It was stupid. It was stupid of me to hold onto it for so long. Before I met you, my dreams, career, and everything were set. you came and my world revolved around you. Between my dreams and you, I chose you. And I never regretted it. But when I couldn't do anything with my career for a long time, I started hating the taste of failure and disappointment. When I looked at you, with this career that you loved and all of your success, I just couldn’t…I couldn’t deal with that. I was stubbornly stuck to my own ego in a way that deeply hurt us…hurt you and I’m sorry I did that to us.” I opened my mouth to answer him, but he held up his hand and with a small smile said, “Please wait. There’s more.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry I didn’t take the burden off you financially. I know you will teach no matter what I do, but I shouldn’t have put you in that position. I will never do it again. And it’s not because I don’t think you’re capable or that you weren’t handling it. I know you are and I know you did. But we are in this together. We have to be in this together. We’re a partnership. One-half isn’t greater or less than the other. We are two halves that make one whole. I’m sorry I stopped us from being equals.” He took another step toward me and we were only an inch apart. I felt him this time and it was real. I felt his body heat. I smelled him, the way only he could smell. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted…if I wasn’t so afraid he would shatter into the glass, proving I had conjured him up in my depression.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. I’m sorry that in my hurt I totally disposed you off. And left you alone to fight with your demons. I’m sorry that I left you alone to feed on the insecurities that you weren’t enough. I’m sorry that we haven’t had a baby yet. I’m sorry I haven’t done everything in my power to find out what’s wrong and give you the thing you wanted the most. I’m sorry I ignored you, neglected you and treated you cruelly. I’m sorry I let us drift apart while we were together. I’m sorry I left you alone, dealing with everything. And I’m sorry I stayed away for so long. There are so many things between us, Jungkook. I know we can’t just fix ourselves overnight. But I want you to know that I’m going to do everything I can to make this work. I am going to work as hard as I can. I am going to think of you firrst and show you love…show you how very much I love you. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep fighting with you and making you miserable. I can't make you feel that you aren't enough. That you are alone. I can’t keep making myself miserable. We deserve so much more.” His eyes speared me with a heated, powerful look. “You deserve so much more. Because the truth is, I surrender too. To this. To us. To you.” He swallowed roughly, then with sincerity that rocked me to the center of my being, asked, “Will you...will you forgive me, Jungkook? Will you love me again? Will you give me a second chance?”

The words were stuck in my throat, clogged with too much emotion, and racing each other to get out. I threw my body at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and flattening myself against his chest. He caught me. I knew he would. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, I forgive you.”

When he tightened his arms around my waist, it was different than before. He held me with promise, with hope. He held me in a way that was so permanent and lasting I felt it to my bones.

“I’m sorry, too,” I cried against him, wetting his shirt. “I almost don’t know where to begin. There are just too many things.” His fingers trailed gently through my hair, giving me the courage to go on. “I’m sorry I didn’t respect you. I’m sorry I didn’t support you. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I’m so sorry this got so convoluted.” I took a second to breathe through trembling sobs. “But most of all I’m sorry for leaving you too. I’m sorry I didn’t try to do everything I could to fix us first. I’m sorry I was so selfish.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered against my hair. “It’s going to be okay.” His lips touched my forehead and he said, “I should never have let you drift away.”

Some of the old fear reared its ugly head and I tilted my face toward his. “Are we going to be okay?”

He pulled back so he could hold me with his gaze again. “We are. We’re already on our way to okay.” A tremulous smile tilted my lips and he mimicked it. “God, Jungkook, I have never loved anything or anyone like I love you. I know we’re going to make it because you are the most important thing in my life, and I am tired of not treating you like that. I can’t let you go. I don’t want to let you go. I want to fix this, Jungkook. I want to shed all the bullshit and get to the center of things…the center of us. I love you, Jungkook. I’m never going to leave you again. I love you. I love you. I love you so much and I'm going to remind this to you each second of our life.”

I leaned up on my toes and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. He didn’t hesitate to dip his head and meet my mouth. His tongue swept over my bottom lip and then he deepened the kiss into a frenetic free fall of love and passion and apology.

We clung to each other as tightly as we could, as if the smallest space between us was intolerable. His mouth moved over mine greedily, hungrily…adoringly.

This was just a kiss, but so much more than anything we had ever done. This was more than sex, more than fighting, more than any hurt we could have ever caused each other.

This was a promise of a new tomorrow. New us.

We promised something new to each other, saying our vows all over again. This kiss became the beginning of a new life for us, the foundation for which everything else would be built.

This wasn’t just a kiss. This was forgiveness. This was healing. This was our future.

When he pulled back, it was to trail sweet kisses along my temple and down my cheek to the line of my jaw. He tasted my tears and I felt cherished.

I felt loved again.

He took my hands and led me to our couch. We sat down, tangled in each other with the words to his song hanging behind us and the home we’d built surrounding us.

“It was all for you,” he murmured.

“The job?”

“That was the start of it,” he agreed. I had my head on his chest, listening to the beautiful cadence of his heart, but I felt him nod. “The night I left I knew I’d lost the best thing in my life. I knew I’d lost everything. I want to correct all my wrongs. The job was the first of all. I knew I couldn’t come back to you without one.” He laughed at himself, running a hand through his hair. “God, I sound like a deadbeat.”

I sat up quickly, facing him, letting him see the truth in my expression. “You’re not one. Taehyung, I never thought that. No matter what we fought over or how damaged we became, I never thought you were a deadbeat. I wanted to support your dreams. I did for as long as I could, but...but there came a point when I didn’t think you wanted it anymore. It felt like you were just hanging on to it because that was all you could think of. I saw so much potential in you, Taehyung. It destroyed me to see you give up on one thing you loved the most.” I chuckled adding, "Only after me of course."

His hand, filled with callouses from his guitar, cupped my jaw. “I know that now. I didn’t then because I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to blame someone. I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted someone else to feel like I did. I’m sorry that was you. I will never let it happen again.”

Fresh tears filled my eyes. “I believe you.”

He swept the sweetest kiss on my lips and pulled back. We weren’t finished talking. “It wasn’t just the job. I, the, uh, the mediation was because of you too. I couldn’t let you go. Not even after you made it so clear you wanted nothing to do with me. I couldn't let you slip away from me and kept you on your toes the only way I knew wouldn't let you go. I knew you loved challenges so I became one for you. I got the best lawyer I could and made your life a living hell just to keep you from leaving me. I hired Park Seojoon to drag out our divorce for as long as he could.”

I felt my stomach pick up out of my body and start spinning uncontrollably. I felt like I was on the steepest rollercoaster. I couldn’t catch my breath. “You didn’t really want the house?”

His voice pitched low, “I wanted the house…but with you in it.” One corner of his mouth kicked up in a half-smile. “And I wanted the dog as long as you got him too. I wanted the TV and the kitchen table and the bed upstairs and whatever else I made that asshole lawyer fight with you about because they came attached to you. I couldn’t let you go, Jungkook. Until the other morning when I thought you would leave me anyway. That you were done with me. I didn’t know what else to do besides give you what you wanted. But you should know that if you had gone through with it, I would have still belonged to you. You own me, Jungkook. You will always own me. You are mine till death do us part. I would have allowed everything you asked me of.”

My heart swelled in my chest until I was certain it would burst. Until I knew I would die from happiness. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for fighting for me.”

He pulled me against his chest again and I rested there. I gave up everything at that moment and just breathed in my husband.

He was right. He was mine. I was his. He owned me and I owned him.

Till death do us part.

We stayed there the rest of the afternoon and evening. We stayed there, on our couch, and talked and talked and talked. We made more apologies. We made more promises. We decided to find a couple’s counselor who could help us deal with our issues and navigate through the next part of this journey.

And we finally made love.

Right there on the couch.

Afterward, wrapped in the throw blankets from our living room, we ate a meal of cheese and crackers and ice cream. Then we walked hand in hand to our bedroom where we made love all over again.

This time when Taehyung wrapped me in his arms, I didn’t wake in a panic. I fell blissfully asleep in his arms and didn’t stir until morning.

And when we woke, we kissed without brushing our teeth. We held each other closely and made promises all over again.

It wouldn’t always be like this. Seven years of marriage had taught us that every day would be different, that life would throw us curve balls and we wouldn’t always get along. But our eyes were wide open now. We knew what we wanted. And that was each other.

He would drive me crazy and I would inevitably make him furious.

But he would also make me happier than I had ever been. He would also take care of me, adore me, and love me. And I would love him in return. I would support him. And I would respect him.

We had a long way to go toward healing, but we were starting in the right place.

We were starting hand-in-hand and together. And neither one of us would ever let go.

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