After what we’ve been through now and what she’s told me, it’s excruciating torture.
The voice inside my head yells at me and demands I go to her. That I push myself out of this bed however injured I am and put my arms around her.
Hold her and share my own grief so she doesn’t have to carry hers alone.
Make her understand this is in no way her fault and there was nothing she could have done.
Finally open up and admit I’ve been drowning in unspeakable guilt too—remorse over our son and feelings of failure that I couldn’t protect them better.
Tell her I love her and never stopped. Not even for a second.
I’ve loved her this entire time, so deeply it terrified me. That I chose to push her away rather than confront what loving someone through tragedy would mean.
But like the other times she’s needed me to open up and be vulnerable, the words remain trapped. They’re buried inside and I go mute, incapable of speaking them.
I’m stuck.
Broken in ways that have nothing to do with the injuries covering my body.
So I just sit there, fucking useless and silent, while the woman I love cries in front of me.
Eventually, Monroe brushes away enough tears and straightens her shoulders, pulling herself back together with visible effort.
“I… I think it’s best to go,” she explains, her voice small. “I can’t stay here. Being in Korea, being surrounded by all these memories—it’s too much.”
“You’re leaving…” I say slowly.
Finally meeting my gaze, she gives a resigned nod. “We’ve booked our flights back to Philly. We leave day after tomorrow.”
My brain goes blank. It refuses to cooperate as I’m forced to look at her and accept her decision even as it destroys me. What else can I do when I’m so broken I don’t know how to fix things? When I can’t even begin to tell her what’s really on my mind and how I feel?
The damn fucking wall won’t fall. It won’t allow me to climb over.
So I just nod, my insides coiling tighter.
Monroe crosses to my bedside and leans down, wrapping her arms around me in a delicate hug that avoids my worst injuries. She smells so good, just like she always does, sweet and woody notes filling my nostrils.
I wish she could stay like this forever, pressed up against me as I inhale her and never let her go.
But then she draws back and says, “Take care of yourself, Jin. Okay? Please.”
She presses a kiss to my cheek, soft and warm and final.
Then she’s turning away and walking out of my hospital room without looking back.
I watch her go, silent and stunned and more than wounded.
Broken.
Too damn broken for a woman as precious as Monroe. My rabbit is gone, and I’m left staring at an empty doorway, confronted by the realization I’ve allowed it.
I’velether go.
All at once, a tidal wave of fury and frustration and self-loathing crashes over me.
I release a howl of pure anguish, the guttural sound filling up the room wall to wall. My hand shoots out and shoves at the tray beside my bed, sending the empty broth bowl and the untouched cup of Jello crashing to the floor in a mess of plastic and green gelatin.
I’m so fucking angry at myself that I can’t stand it. I can’t bear it any longer, hating myself for how I’ve failed to lower the barriers I’ve put up. The wall that prevents me from giving her what she needs.
