Chapter 5

By the time Sulli had been home a week, she looked healthy and well, she was back on her feet, and out having lunch with her mother and sister. She seemed fine although both women thought she was still a little quiet.

The three of them had lunch together at Victoria’s apartment one afternoon, and their mother tried to ask Sulli casually about Jonghyun. She was still deeply concerned over everything Sulli had told her when she lost the baby.

‘He’s fine,’ Sulli said, as she turned away. As always, she said nothing about the nights she spent alone, or the condition Jonghyun was in when he returned in the morning. In fact, she barely spoke about it to him. She had accepted her fate, and she was determined to stay married to Jonghyun. If nothing else, it would have been too humiliating not to.

Jonghyun sensed a change in her too. It was as though when the baby died, a piece of her died too. But Jonghyun didn’t question it, he just took full advantage of what appeared to be Sulli’s good nature. He came and went as he pleased, seldom bothered to take her anywhere, made no secret of the other women he saw, and drank from the moment he got up until he finally sank into unconsciousness at night, in their bedroom or someone else’s.

It was an incredibly unhappy time for her, but Sulli seemed determined to accept it. She kept her sorrows to herself as the months went on, and she said nothing to anyone. But her sister grew increasingly worried each time she saw her. And as a result Sulli saw her less and less often. There was a kind of numbness about Sulli now, emptiness and her eyes were filled with silent cries. She had grown frighteningly thin since she’d lost the child, and that worried Victoria too, but she also felt that Sulli was doing everything she could  to avoid her.

‘What’s happening to you?’ Victoria asked her finally in May. By then she was herself six months pregnant and she had hardly seen Sulli in months because Sulli couldn’t bear seeing her sister pregnant.

‘Nothing, I’m fine.’

‘Don’t tell me that Sulli! You’re like someone in a trash. What’s he doing to you? What’s going on?’Just looking at her, Victoria was more than ever worried. She also sensed how uncomfortable Sulli was with her, so most of the time she didn’t press herself on her sister. But she didn’t want her to her own desires now. She was beginning to fear Sulli’s sanity or her life which was in Jonghyun’s hands and somebody had to stop it.

‘Don’t be silly. I am fine/’

‘Are things better than they were?’

‘I suppose so.’ She was intentionally vague and her sister saw right through it.

Sulli was thinner and paler than she had been right after the miscarriage. She was profoundly depressed and no-one knew it. She kept assuring everyone that she was fine and that onghyun was behaving. She had even told her parents that he was looking for a job. It was all the same old nonsense which no-one believed anymore, not even Sulli.

And on their anniversary, her parents intentionally continued to believ her little stories and held a little party for her and Jonghyun at their house in Southampton.

At first Sulli had to discourage them, but in the end it was easier just to let them do it. Jonghyun had promised he’d be there. In fact, he thought it was a great idea. He wanted to go to their town for a week and bring half a dozen friends with him. The house was certainly big enough and Sulli asked her mother if it was all  right and her mother was quick to tell them that their friends were always welcome. But Sulli warned him that his friends had to behave if they stayed with them, she didn’t want them embarrassing her with her parents.

‘What a dumb thing to say Sulli,’ he told her. In the past month or two, he was slowly becoming increasingly vicious. She was never sure if it was due to the alcohol he consumed or if he had truly begun to hate her. ‘You hate me don’t you?’

“Don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t want your friends to get out of hands at my parents house.’

‘Aren’t you the prim, prissy little thing? Poor darling, afraid we can’t behave at your parents.’ She wanted to tell him that he didn’t behave anywhere else, but she refrained.

She was slowly resigning herself to her lot in life, knowing full well that she would be miserable with him forever. There would probably never be another baby and even that didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. She just lived day by day and one day she would die, and it would all be over. The thought of divorcing him never even occurred to her in any case. No-one in her family had ever gotten divorced and in her wildest dreams she would never have thought of being the first one. The shame of it would have killed her and her parents.

‘Don’t worry Sulli, we’ll behave. Just don’t annoy my friends with that long, sad face of yours. You’re enough to spoil anyone’s fun at a party.’

It had only been since being married to him, and losing the baby, that she seemed to have lost all her color, all her life, all her excitement or as the French called it joie de vivre. She had always been lively and bright and happy as a young girl, and suddenly she seemed like a dead person, even to herself. It was Victoria who always commented on it but Changmin and her parents told her not to worry, Sulli would be all right because they wanted to believe it.

Two days before the Thompsons’ party to take place, the Duke of Windsor married Wallis Simpson. They were married at the Chateau de Cande in France in the middle of press and international attention all of which Sulli thought was tasteless and disgusting. She turned her thoughts back to her anniversary party and instantly forgot the Windsors.

Changmin and Victoria and little Baemin planned to spend the weekend in Southampton where their parent’s house was for the big event. The house looked beautiful, filled with flowers and there was a tent over the lawn looking out over the ocean. The Thompsons had planned a beautiful party for Sulli and Jonghyun.

On Friday night all the young people were to go out with their friends and they went to the Canoe Place Inn and had a wonderful time, talking and dancing and laughing. Even Victoria who was extremely pregnant went and so did Sulli who felt as though she hadn’t smiled in years.

Jonghyun even danced with her and for a few minutes he looked as though he were going to kiss her.

Eventually, Changmin, Victoria and Sulli and some of the others went back to the Thompson’s house afterwards and Jonghyun and his friends went out to do a little carousing. Sulli grew quiet again then but she didn’t say anything as she rode back to the house with Victoria and Changmin. Her sister and brother in law were still in high spirits and seemed not to notice her silence.

All Sulli thought of then was to get the party taking place the next day over with. She was not interested in fun anymore. She thought the more she had it the harder it would be living her life, her lonely life.

Sorry for the delay!!

Who is excited about that happens at the party??!

Hope you liked this chapter ^^