Chapter 11: Reading Between The Lines And More
639 Words
The rain had stopped, but the air still smelled like yesterday.
They sat across from each other in the study — awkwardly, but both pretending not to notice the weight in the air.
“Let’s do a book discussion today,” she suggested, her voice even and measured. “It’ll help you pick up conversational English more naturally.”
Seon Ho nodded.
“I picked up a translated novella at the bookstore the other day.”
Eun Ha Neul reached into her bag and pulled out a slim paperback —
and immediately realised it was the wrong book.
But she didn’t flinch.
Didn’t fumble.
She simply set it on the table and opened to a marked page, deciding to go ahead with it anyway.
Because the last thing she wanted was to look unprepared —
not in front of him.
He watched her for a moment.
The flicker in her eyes. The way her fingers hovered just a second too long over the cover. The fact that she didn’t look at him when she spoke.
She wasn’t nervous.
She was covering something.
But he didn’t press.
He simply leaned back in his chair and waited.
“We’ll go paragraph by paragraph?”
“Okay.”
She flipped past few pages. Cleared her throat once. Then began.
“It’s about a woman,” she began in English, voice steady.
“Her husband leaves after finding out she’s been diagnosed with PCOS — that she might not be able to have children.
He tells her she’s not broken… but he wants a family.
She says she still wants to try.
He says that’s not enough.”
She didn’t look up. Just opened to the page she had dog-eared at midnight.
“He left her the next morning,” she continued,
“with the dishes still drying in the rack.
He said he needed to chase the version of himself that still believed in legacy.
And she, quietly, sat by the window and wondered what part of her was so forgettable.”
When she finished, the silence stretched.
Seon Ho straightened his back, arms folded.
“It’s sad,” he said. “But I understand why he left.”
Her breath caught.
“You understand?”
“He wanted something she couldn’t give. Maybe that’s not cruelty. Maybe that’s honesty.”
She closed the book slowly.
Her hands trembled.
“It’s POLY. CYSTIC. OVARIAN. SYNDROME,” she spat, word by word, like he was dumb.
“For God’s sake — she wasn’t infertile. She just… needed time. Treatment. Maybe support.”
“Well, some people don’t want to wait.”
“Then maybe they shouldn’t promise forever.”
He tilted his head slightly.
“But is it fair to ask someone to give up their dream of being a parent?”
Her voice cracked — just barely.
“Is it fair to leave someone because their body doesn’t follow the rules?”
Seon Ho opened his mouth, preparing a rebuttal.
But the words stalled when he saw her biting her lower lip — holding it there, tense and trembling — until her eyes began to blur.
“I didn’t say no to children. I said yes to hope.
But he demanded a guarantee, or nothing between us.”
She didn't know why she said that.
But it was out now.
The room went still.
And just like that —
her tears fell.
Quiet. Slow.
Like the story was crying with her.
Seon Ho didn’t move toward her.
But his eyes didn’t leave her face.
“You still showed up,” he said quietly. “That means something.”
She didn’t respond.
She couldn’t.
But in that moment, she wasn’t a teacher.
She wasn’t a character in someone else’s story.
She was just Eun Ha Neul.
And someone finally saw her.
- Writer
