PART I

i. Goodbye

"Just like a mediocre drama that you know what lines are coming,

I know what you’re going to say to me today."

September 2014

She doesn't know how long she has been staring, eyes glazed over, at the sheet of paper lying on the table in front of her. She just sits there, shoulders slumped and stares.

The minutes continue to tick by.

The contents of the page still haven't changed; the words haven't changed despite what seems like the thousandth time reading them and they still cause her to feel like everything inside her has been crushed to million piece; ground to fine dust and scattered by the wind.

Jessica Sooyeon Jung

An elegant cursive signature

There's a vacant space beside it, where her own signature--a messy scrawl--would occupy should she pick up the pen and commit.

And maybe it is finally the time. The searing red hot anger, the uncontrollable desire to rip the page to shreds has died, along with every other remnant of emotion. She feels numb.

Or at least so desperately tries to convince herself of this.

Her eyes sting and she blames it on the blinding white of the paper and blames it on the lack of blinking. She snatches up the pen, uncaps its lid and presses the fine tip to the page -- hard. Ink starts to bleed from the nib, marring the perfection of the page. Taeyeon clenches her fist, and grits her teeth, watching the ink blot slowly grow in size.

this.

Lines of ink scratch themselves onto the page and somehow her signature fills the space adjacent to Jessica's. It's a mess of angry lines, a mess of smudged ink and of finality.

She signs away their memories, and all accompanying emotions, all their time spent together in the past few years.

Despite what she had said, she'd be lying if she didn't admit it hurt like hell.

But it's over.

/

Taeyeon's starting to feel the bite of the cold wind as she stands on the rooftop area of her apartment building. The sun's set long ago but the bleeding red and purple hues of the sky are still burned into the backs of her eyes.

It's symbolic, she thinks.

It matches the state of her emotions. It's like they've been put through a blender and she can barely recognise anything let alone, discern where the anger ends and where the hurt begins.

So, she thinks of Jessica and if Taeyeon's sure of one thing, it's that everything--the anger, the hurt, the self-denial--begins and ends with Jessica.

Jessica.

She sees it so clearly again, the turbulent and dark look in those brown eyes, the clenched jaw and faint twitch of Jessica's thin lips. The way Jessica had stormed into her apartment yesterday.

"Kim Taeyeon!"

"What, Jessica!"

"Why are you doing this? Why are you like this?"

Taeyeon knows Jessica means to say it with pure animosity, but when the words come out, it mixed with a hint of hurt, of desperation and confusion, softening the otherwise sharp tone.

"I don't know what you want me to say Jessica."

"I don't know who you are anymore, Kim Taeyeon. Did it all mean nothing to you?"

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