You were twenty-one when you married her. You had just graduated from university, and it felt like you were on top of the world. You got the job at the place you wanted, and you thought you found the love of your life. It felt like nothing could go wrong, and it didn’t. At least, not at first.

When you married Naeun, it was after four years of dating, all throughout college. It was a summer day. You remember begging her for a summer wedding. She didn’t like the idea of sweating in her wedding dress, but you said you wanted to see the sun shine down on you in your happiest moment. You remember the way she had softened, her beautiful smile warming up her face, and agreed. 

It was a small affair. You had just graduated, and Naeun just the year before. Neither of you had a lot, but it didn’t seem to matter then. It was a simple wedding with your friends and family, and that was all you really needed. You still look back on this day fondly. Much to Naeun’s relief, it hadn’t been too hot, and there had even been a breeze. Everything went perfectly, and sometimes, you can still feel your arms wrapped around her as you posed for every photo.

Thinking back on that day, you wonder where it all started going wrong. 

It probably started when your work started assigning you more and more work. You practically lived at the office during that time. You only really came home to sleep and eat if you remembered. Naeun told you time and time again that they were mistreating you, but you didn’t want to hear it. This had been your dream job since you could remember. It wasn’t supposed to be this nightmare, so you lied to yourself. Naeun was being overdramatic. You told yourself it was fine. 

After a few months, your workload finally lightened, but the damage had been done. The first three months of your marriage had found you absent and cranky, unwilling to listen to your wife’s concerns for you. That will never be the start to a lasting marriage. 

You knew you’d messed up, but you’d never really fought with her before. Four years of dating, and the most the two of you ever fought over was what to order for dinner. So, you had tried to make it up to Naeun the best you could. You did all of the little things you had done back in college. You surprised her with flowers and sweets. You held her close and told her dumb jokes to brighten her day. Slowly, Naeun’s iciness towards you thawed. She smiled more and resented you less.

It had been a rocky beginning, but you thought the two of you were finally getting the hang of this marriage thing. 

Then Naeun brought up having kids.

Looking back on it, you’re ashamed of how you handled this. You’d been afraid though. You had just graduated, and you had just started working. It felt like you had just started your life, but Naeun was suddenly ready to settle down. When you think back on this, you realize Naeun hadn’t even wanted to have kids right then. She just wanted to discuss them in more depth with you, but you’d heard the word “kids” and automatically shut down. You refused to talk about it at all, and that small wedge that had pushed you apart at the beginning of your marriage made a reappearance. It dug into the resentment you had for each other and pried you apart.

The two of you barely lasted a year. You started fighting about every little thing, and instead of talking it out like adults, you let it fester. You ignored the charged fury between you, like it would disappear if you just pretended it didn’t exist. It only made things worse though. It became hard to remember why the two of you got married in the first place when you felt so miserable all the time together. 

When Naeun finally dropped the divorce papers in front of you one night after dinner, you weren’t even surprised. If anything, an awful kind of relief had filled you. Then you cried. You both cried actually. You both sat at the ty table you bought from a thrift store and cried your hearts out. Sometimes, you let yourself wonder what would have happened if you had taken her into your arms that night. Would she have taken the papers back? Would it have mattered if she had?

You think about this more than you like to admit. 

It’s been about a year and a half since then. It’s been about a year and a half since you moved out of the apartment, since you left everything you knew, since you left everything you loved. It’s been painful. Your job felt soul- and empty, your friends weren’t sure what to do with you, and you were hopelessly lonely.

You ended up going to therapy for a little while after the divorce. It felt necessary. You were drowning in this feeling that you’d done everything wrong, and you needed to know if you had. After a few months, you struggled to come to terms with the fact that you had done things wrong. You also learned that she also did things wrong. You had to face the hard truth that you both hadn’t tried hard enough for your marriage. You let it all go all too easily.

Six months after the divorce, it had felt wrong to go crawling back. Naeun didn’t deserve your groveling. Just because you feel like you want to try again doesn’t mean she will too. You have no idea what she’d been up to. She was a stranger. 

Then, on your last day of therapy, you were leaving at the same time as another woman. You bumped into her, and the coffee the woman had been holding fell to the ground. Thankfully, none of it got on either of you, and when you turned to apologize, you found the words stuck in your throat. The woman you had bumped into was beautiful.

You hate it, but your first thought was that she wasn’t beautiful like Naeun. It wasn't that Naeun was more beautiful, but she is a different kind of beautiful. Naeun has always been an ethereal kind of beauty, the kind of gorgeous that doesn’t seem to fit in on Earth. The woman in front of you was beautiful in a warm way. When she smiled at you and apologized, it felt like the loneliness that had been clutching your heart loosened its hold.

When you asked her for coffee to replace the one she dropped, the woman had agreed, and it felt like your life was coming together again.

Her name is Oh Hayoung. You started officially dating two months after you met, and you’ve now been dating her for six months. It’s still in it’s casual phase because you both know you’re in no place to be dating seriously. Hayoung knows about Naeun, and you’ve learned about Hayoung’s brother who recently passed, which was how you ran into her at therapy in the first place. You’re both still fragile, but you both need this, you think. You both need someone to hold and be held by when the days are rough. 

It works, you tell yourself. It works, even on the days when Hayoung says something that reminds you of Naeun, and it still feels like a punch to the gut a year later. You can’t help it. It’s so hard now. It’s harder than before because you don’t hate Naeun anymore. Thinking about her used to make you so bitter. It used to make you angry. It used to make you want to throw something at the wall and scream.

Thinking about Naeun hurts. Instead of filling you with rage, it drains you of your fervor. It makes you feel defeated. Thinking about Naeun makes you ache and cry because you gave up a woman you loved because you were too young and dumb to swallow your pride and talk it out. 

You keep trying to move on from this, but how can you? You never truly got to have closure with Naeun. You never got to apologize once you sorted through all of your . You’re left with nothing.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Hayoung teases you. She holds your hand in hers as the two of you walk around the food stalls. It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and the two of you have decided to go out to the beach where food vendors have lined up. “Are you thinkin