“I feel nothing for that man.”
Sujin set her coffee cup on the table and spoke. Steam still rising from the barely touched americano trembled across the surface of her eyes. My left hand still rested, ghost-light, on the back of her right. After seven years, her skin was cold for the first time. When it had been warm it had only been lukewarm; now that it was cold it cut like a blade.
“What are you saying?” I opened my mouth, but the whisper snarled in my throat.
Should I seize her wrist this very second, shake it, beg her to tell me what she truly feels?
Sujin did not blink. She cupped the white porcelain in both palms; the glaze gleamed, and her lips parted.
“Seven twenty-three in the morning. The sunlight outside the window is beautiful.”
Still, my body lies. In the end it cannot conceal the heat I feel for you.
While the sentence settled on the tabletop, I heard, with perfect clarity, the words she swallowed.
I’m sorry—my body remembered again today.
A Cold Weapon That Hides Its Heat
Six months ago, at a company dinner, Sujin refused even a single glass of soju. When clients pressed her, she smiled and gently pushed the clear glass away. Behind the smile, deep in her pupils, embers remained.
I know those embers. Last November, the unfamiliar woody perfume clinging to her nape when she came home late—an aroma that had blossomed where my hands never reached.
Since that night Sujin has carried a cold weapon: the phrase I feel nothing for that man. With it, no one could approach her. Yet I know.
At 2 a.m. while she pretends to sleep, she sits on the sofa and unlocks her phone. The finger that swipes past the lock screen trembles. A message meant for someone else is typed, erased, typed again.
I wish my body would harden to stone. Then the marks you left would vanish too.
Toes Set Upon Bathroom Tiles
Every night Sujin showers for forty minutes. Even with the door shut, three minutes after the water stops a muffled sob leaks out—small, deep, a voice no husband should hear.
A few days ago I glimpsed a single page of her diary.
April 3. I prayed again under the water that my body would stop shaking. But the moment my fingertips brushed my breast I remembered the kiss you left and I broke.
That night I stood outside the bathroom and held my breath. The water ceased; droplets shattered on the tile. Then a stifled gasp. Through the barely open door I saw her leaning against the wall, eyes closed, one hand low, the other clenched on her shoulder.
I must not burn—my husband is still inside the house.
A Taboo upon Silence
“I feel nothing for that man.” The sentence gives me two gifts at once: first, an unmistakable distance; second, an impossible desire.
“Never come to me” carries the same force as the taboo you can never come to me. Lay a hand on the prohibition and it sears like cold iron.
I want to know what Sujin pictures when she speaks. Whether someone still makes her burn, or whether she has truly turned to ash. I want to ask, but I cannot. Because right now Sujin is practicing the art of cloaking a scalding want in icy disregard.
Embers Survive Hottest beneath Ice
Sujin has just risen and is getting ready for work. While I knot my tie, my finger brushes the back of her hand. It is still warm; only my senses have frozen.
Should I say I too feel nothing for you?
But I cannot. I still want to believe in her warmth. The fear that it no longer faces me is outweighed by a greater terror: that she has truly gone cold.
As Sujin steps toward the front door, I catch her hand. She pauses, then slowly pulls away. The door clicks shut. A hot fragrance lingers in the room.
I still feel her warmth. Under ice, embers survive most fiercely.