A/N: I felt like I should add a dislcaimer before I get yelled at by everyone haha. This is not the end, though we are getting there, but there's still a few more chapters left. I know this one feels like an ending, but it's not! ^^

She hadn’t heard from Min Ji in weeks and that was comforting.

As Mina stared up at her ceiling, she knew exactly why the comfort that she should have felt was absent. It was because the hardest part of anything was making decisions. Making choices that might be painful, but that were ultimately necessary. She wondered what would have been different if she had confronted Min Ji earlier, would anything even be different? She busied herself by cleaning the little nooks and crannies, doing the dishes, laundry. She was determined to leave this home completely clean.

As if she could scrub the past from it and maybe she could, at least a little.

The front door opened and closed and Mina pushed herself up, her heart hammering in her chest. She wiped invisible sweat from her palms and killed of the remainder of her doubt.

Life was all about choices, she reminded herself as she went downstairs.

“The doctor says everything looks good!” Sehun exclaimed, shedding his coat on the couch, “I’m officially cleared to go back to work!”

The big smile on his face faltered at the look on her face when she met him at the base of the stairs.

“That’s great” She said honestly, leading him to the dining room table.

He followed along dutifully, watching the nervous set to her shoulders, the rigidity in her back.

“I thought we should talk” She said, taking a seat before the large manila envelope on the table.

His heart sank, his mind putting together what he didn’t want to admit. She looked at up him, her round eyes widening when she realized he knew exactly what was going to happen. They both paused for a moment, giving the other the opportunity to come up with the correct thing to say, to come up with the right thing to say that would give them both what they wanted. The problem of course, lying in the fact that they both wanted, no, needed different things.

“You’re not giving us enough time” He said, sure that he was right and refusing to sit.

It was true, it had barely been over a month, he had just barely completely healed. It wasn’t enough time. He still had so much more to do for her, he had a whole lifetime to devote to her. He wanted to take her on vacations, a second honeymoon, a shopping trip, he wanted to give her the world, but she wasn’t allowing him to. He needed more time, he hadn’t even begun to truly show her the immensity of his love. He wanted to repeat that he loved her every morning, afternoon, and night, he wanted to scream it from the rooftop, to say it loud enough that she would stay.

She watched him for a moment, seeing the thoughts run through his eyes and finally shook her head, “I’ve given us more than enough time”

“You were supposed to let me fix this. I was supposed to fix this, to make us happy, to keep us together”

“It’s not you” She whispered, fully aware that she was about to deliver the oldest line in the proverbial book, “You’ve done more than enough, believe it or not, you have slowly been going over every bad memory, every wound, and replaced it with words of apology and repent, but it’s not enough for me. I thought it would be, but it’s not”

He said nothing because what was the proper response to that? It should be enough? He knew that’s not how it worked, he knew her wounds ran deep. Sehun had just never imagined how deep, how unforgivable everything had become.

“I want a clean slate. I want to love someone without thinking about the past, without wondering if my sister is going to come barreling into my life yet again, without having to pretend that nothing bad had ever happened. The people at the company, the people in our life, there’s always going to be something, something I don’t want”

“Is it him?” Sehun asked.

Mina grimaced, “No, not at all” She thought about it and in a way maybe it was him.

Baekhyun had helped her so much, had opened her eyes to a version of herself that she hadn’t thought was there. Someone stronger and braver, someone that could learn to love herself, someone that deserved to love herself. But Sehun wouldn’t understand that, he would misunderstand her words, because it was hard to explain that the gratitude she felt for Baekhyun was just that, a deep gratitude and appreciation. A precious friendship she would treasure for life.

“What are you going to do, I don’t get it” He said quietly.

“I wan