I Am Not Apologizing

I keep trying to make the red mark into a smaller thing. A stain. A detail on a wall. Then I remember how deliberate a thumb looks when it has been dragged downward, and I hate that my mind immediately starts arranging proof for someone else to judge. I photographed it because I trust a record more than I trust the family version of events. That may be the only practical instinct I have left.

Appa made the Chuseok table sound like a place I could earn my way back into by apologizing to Ji-seok. I felt my hand tighten around the phone before I had even decided what I thought. The demand is supposed to pass for ordinary family order. It is not ordinary to ask me to apologize before I am allowed to sit down. I am angry that he can say it so calmly, and more angry that part of me still wants to obey just to stop being the difficult one.

The torn page behind the rice cooker made the sentence feel less like a family principle and more like a warning: “Family chooses family.” I have spent too long letting that kind of sentence borrow the voice of love. I sent Maa a refusal instead of giving Appa the apology he wanted. My hands shook, which is embarrassing, but shaking did not change the answer.

Tomorrow I will take the tooth and the lock of hair to Bae Yu-jin’s evidence locker myself. Tonight I have put them beside my bag. I am afraid of what this will cost me with my family. I am also afraid of how relieved I feel not to be the one making peace at any price.