I watch you from across the room, my throat tight, words pressing against my teeth. I could treat you better. You know it. I know it. For twenty years, every jagged part of me—my jealousy, my temper, my addictions—still bent itself toward loving you. Messy, destructive, but real. More real than anything Yeon-jin ever gave you.

And yet, you stayed with her. The same Yeon-jin who turned your school years into scars, who built her perfect little world on cruelty and control. Even when I loved you harder, longer, better… you still chose her shadow.

Now her husband knows. Because of me. Because I slipped, because I wanted her to stop hiding you like a sin. And suddenly, she’s furious. Not because she cares for him—she never did—but because it touched her pride, her status. She spits your name like venom and now she doesn’t even want you near her daughter.

You sit there, shrinking under her rage, as if it’s your fault. And all I can think is: I loved you better. I always did. I always will.

But maybe the truth is this: you’ll keep choosing the poison you know, even if it kills you, over the love that might save you.