Chapter 27 Jin #2
I let out a short laugh. “How can you tell? Was it the shattered cheekbone or the swollen black eye? Maybe the giant bandage on my chest from the knife that was jammed into me?”
“Jin…” She shakes her head, dropping her gaze. “I can’t believe you… you found me and then defeated him. You jumped into that water after me.”
“What have I told you? I will always take care of you. If you were going to die, we were going to die together. I was going to be beside you doing what I could to save you.”
“I was so scared. I thought… I’d never get to see you again. I’d never get to tell you…” Her shoulders quake as she draws in a deep breath and quickly wipes at her eyes. “Thank you for always being there for me.”
My chest clenches tighter. “Monroe—”
“There’s something you should know—if you don’t already, I guess—Myeong-su poisoned me. The tea he gave me was part of his revenge against you, and I drank it. I… killed our baby.”
The tears she’s been preventing by staring down at the floor and wiping at her eyes can no longer be denied. They slide down her cheeks as she still refuses to meet my gaze.
…as if she’s ashamed.
“That’s not true,” I say. “Monroe, how could you have known he’d poisoned the tea? Myeong-su was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He deceived everyone—you, me, your colleagues at the school. You couldn’t have known what he was.”
“But I should’ve been more on guard,” she insists, her features scrunching up from grief. “I should’ve dealt with the nausea on my own. I should’ve questioned his intentions—”
She interrupts herself with a sob that bubbles its way out of her. Her hand comes up to her mouth, and she shakes her head and turns her back to me.
Watching Monroe cry has always been extremely difficult. Even when I was still pretending I was on my mission to eliminate her at Jae-hyun’s behest, it was like torture watching her tear up and get so upset.
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’ve let her 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.
Honest and vulnerable emotional intimacy that she deserves.
As I rage at myself for being so detached and closed off, so fundamentally damaged that it’s cost me the only woman I’ve ever loved, I blink and feel moisture in my eyes.
I lift a hand to my face and my fingers come away wet.
For a moment, I don’t understand what I’m seeing. Then it hits me that I’ve teared up.
For the first time since I was a small boy neglected in an orphanage, I’ve been brought to tears.
I’m crying.
The thought of permanently losing Monroe brings me to such intense distress I’ve teared up. A crack has formed in the same wall I’ve struggled to knock down.
It’s the most profound realization I’ve come to since perhaps the moment I realized I was in love with her. It’s the mere possibility that I can push through for her.
That the barriers and walls aren’t so immovable after all. That it’s what I must do because losing her can’t be an option.
…because I can’t survive without my rabbit.