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Chapter 4: Unworthy or Forgivable? – October 29, 2020

She was weeping again.  In Jin’s arms.  How she had missed those arms.  Longed for those arms.  In the middle of hundreds of nights.  

She’d thought of him countless times when her baby couldn’t sleep or her tiny one had a nightmare.  When he was sick or she just couldn’t figure out what he needed because he refused to be comforted.  In those terrifying moments, she’d imagined what Jin would have done.  What Jin would have said.  

And then she would cry silent tears because she could have had him.  But, instead, she had spurned him for a lie.  A lie that had broken her heart more times than she could count.  Any tenderness Seungbin had ever shown her had been a terrible lie.  A terrible lie because it had led her down a horrifying path.

“Have you seen him since you left him?” Jin was breathing into her hair again.

She shook her head.  

“He hasn’t come for his son?”

“He doesn’t care one whit about his son.  He just wanted to punish you and me for all the years we were happy together.”

His eyes grew wide.  “What?”

“He told me the night I left him.  He told me that he had never loved me.  That he just wanted my body.  And more than that, he wanted to punish you for beating him up.  He wanted to punish us for being happy for so many years.”

She was shaking like a leaf.  She couldn’t seem to stop.  Even her teeth were chattering.  

“My God, Jin, how could I be such a fool?” she cried out.

“Shhh.  Shhh.  Have a care. You’re going to wake Minhyuk, and he’ll wonder why his precious eomma is crying.”  He was shushing her so tenderly.  

She quieted down immediately and clung to him.  Still weeping into his shirt.

Jin’s soft voice began to murmur quietly in her ear as he bent his face close to hers.  “He used you.  He lied to you.  He enticed you.  He used his knowledge of a girl’s body against you when you were naive and vulnerable.”

“Stop it!”  She pulled away from him.  “Stop making excuses for me, Jin!”

He gazed at her with compassion in his eyes.  “I’m not making excuses for you, Yura.  I know you.  I know who you were then.  You never would have set out to hurt me.  You were attracted to him.  I have no idea why,” he paused a moment.  

“But he manipulated your pity of him into something more.  He twisted your kindness to bend you to his will.  He did use you.  In the worst way possible.  Baby, I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry you got so hurt.  I’m so sorry you spent all these years raising your son all alone.  If only I’d known, I would have been there for you…”

She could hear the regret sharp in his voice.  She unwittingly reached up and placed her hand over his heart.  Her fingers caressed him. 

“No, Jin.  That was my fault.  I didn’t deserve your love.  I didn’t deserve your help.  But…you were always there for me.”

She glanced up at him, and he bent a quizzical stare on her.  “What do you mean?”

“You got me through my hardest moments.”

Confused, he knit his eyebrows together.  “What are you talking about?”

“When I was scared.  When I was terrified that I was a horrible mother. When I was overwhelmed because I was parenting him alone.  I would imagine you were with me.  I would ask you what to do.  I would imagine you taking him from me and holding him.  Calming him.  It always calmed me, and then he would relax too.  Jin, you have always been with me.  In my heart.  Every moment of every day.  You never left me.”

His heart melted at her words.  He felt a tear invade his eye.  She hadn’t forgotten him.  She had reached out to him…if only in her imagination. 

He glanced down at her hands then.  They were both now resting on his chest.  He couldn’t have explained what made him look at her hands.  But his eyes had fallen to her ring finger, and he stilled.  

She was wearing his promise ring.

“Yura,” her name was just a breath passing over his lips.

She felt the shift in him.  She looked up into his face.  He was gazing down at something, but before she could follow his line of sight, his eyes captured hers.  And she felt her stomach do a little flip.  Then his eyes flooded with tears.  She saw it happen.

“Jin…”

“Why are you wearing my promise ring?”

Now it was her turn to weep again.  Her face crumpled.  “To remind myself of what I lost.  Of what I gave up to have my own way.  And…to dream of a better life…even while I’m living this one.”  

She reached up and wiped a tear away.  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.  I have my son, and we have a roof over our heads.  But we don’t have much else, and I have no one but him.  And, someday, he’ll grow up and leave me too.”  

She sounded so forlorn.  

She pulled away from Jin.  “I’m so sorry.  You have school tomorrow, and I’ve kept you so late.  I should let you go.”

“Yura.”  

He had no desire to leave.  He wanted to stay here forever.  Better yet, he wanted to move her in with him.  Her and her little cutie pie.

She stilled.  But she couldn’t bring herself to look at him again.  She was so ashamed of herself.  Of her choices.  And her selfishness.  Of how she had hurt Jin.

Jin had always been too good for her.  She knew it now.  Her appa had been right.  She had never deserved a knight in shining armor.  It had taken Seungbin to show her who she really was.  And where her weaknesses lay.  To reinforce what her father had always seen in her.  And to reveal to her how unworthy she was of the kind of love Jin cherished in his heart.  

—

“I don’t care,” he whispered.

Confused, she looked up at him.

“I don’t care what you did to me.  I want you back, Yura.”  He blinked, and all those tears slid down his cheeks.  “I have always loved you.  I didn’t stop just because you left me.”

She stared up at him as a sob built in her chest.  How many times had she dreamed those words?  This exact scenario?  Him standing in front of her declaring his undying love for her.

“Can it really be that easy?” She gasped as that sob tore loose of her.

“Easy?” Jin’s voice rose an octave.  “I have been miserable without you for five years.  I’ve gone on several dates with very nice girls.  None of whom I could take seriously.  For one simple reason: they weren’t you.  

“You,” he glanced around her dingy, little apartment, “you have been scraping by for four years on your own.  You endured a year of hell, I suspect, before you left that man.  You suffered, raising your precious, little boy alone.  Yura, you were never meant to be alone!  Neither was your son meant to grow up without an appa!

“It hasn’t been easy for either one of us.”  He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.  “I, for one, want to make it easy on us now.  I don’t want to suffer anymore.  I don’t want you to suffer anymore.  I never wanted you to suffer.”  His voice cracked on never.

She stared up at him as tears flowed down their cheeks.  “Jin, I…I don’t deserve ease—”

“Stop it!” He reached out and grabbed her, hauling her up against him.  “You can’t deserve love!  Love is a gift.  I love you, Yura.”  He radiated earnestness.  “No matter what you do – no matter what you say – no matter what you feel, you can’t change that fact.  I love you.  You have simply proven that my love stands every test.  Won’t you please – please,” his eyes as well as his voice begged her, “let me back in?”

He bent his head towards hers.  Very slowly, his lips approached hers, but he was giving her a choice.  Time to back away.  His arm was around her waist, pulling her lightly up against him.  But there was nothing demanding in his demeanor.  A patient love, a timeless love, was shining out of his eyes.

When she felt his breath pass over her lips, an echo surfaced.  The first time she ever kissed Seungbin.  And with that memory came a flood of others.  All the things she’d done with him.  All the parts of herself she’d given him.  That were meant for Jin.  A thousand different ways she had betrayed Jin.

How she had betrayed him!  She didn’t deserve Jin’s forgiveness.  She hadn’t earned a second chance.  She pulled away and buried her face in Jin’s chest.  

“You don’t understand.  I can’t.”

His heart sank.

“I can’t forgive myself.  It was too much.  What I did to you.  Jin, I didn’t save myself for you!  After all you did for me.  After all those years of you being patient and sweet.  Not pushing me.  Demanding nothing from me.

“But I kissed him, and I liked it.  God help me: I liked it!  I wanted more of him.  And I got it.”  She sobbed into his shirt.  “And he broke my heart.  But that wasn’t the worst part.  The worst part was that I hurt you in the process.  And that is unforgivable.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of what’s unforgivable?  I have already forgiven you.  For it all.  Every kiss.  Every touch.  Every sigh.  For my broken heart.  And my burst dreams.  I forgive you, Yura.  So, you see, apparently, it’s not unforgivable.”

His arms pulled her close.  She was weeping still.  He couldn’t take it anymore.  She was clearly exhausted.  He shifted, bent his body, and hoisted her up into his arms.  Startled, she lifted her face.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you to bed.”