Chapter Two: A Cage Called Home

The city outside Jessie’s apartment window glowed with late-evening calm. Seoul was always moving—cars like blood through steel veins, neon signs pulsing like electric dreams—but for Jessie, the world might as well have been paused behind glass. She sat there silently, knees pulled to her chest, staring at the golden-lit streets below. Freedom was everywhere. Except in her world.

Inside, the room was clean but sparse—just like her life. A desk with sketch pads and a flickering monitor. A few framed photos of cherry blossoms. A stuffed bear from childhood she couldn’t throw away. Jessie was twenty-two, and for the first time in her life, she had her own space. A job. A routine. But not peace.

Her parents' voices still lived in her head. Their rules. Their cruelty. The pain she’d hidden like folded letters in her spine.

Growing up in a small town hours away from the city, Jessie was never a daughter. She was an obligation. Her mother treated her like a mistake that kept walking, breathing, asking for too much. Her father’s silence was never mercy—it was a storm waiting for thunder.

She couldn’t remember the last time she laughed in front of them.

She couldn’t remember a single birthday where someone asked her what she wanted.

Even now, away from them, the shadows of her childhood stretched into her present.

Jessie reached for her phone. Her fingers hovered before opening her chat with Vanessa, her best—and only—real friend.

Vanessa:

🎉 “My birthday dinner’s this Friday! You better come, or I’m hunting you down.” 🎈

💜 “Please, Jessie. Just once. Be there for you.”

Jessie read the message again. A party. A real one. She imagined candles, music, people who laughed loudly without fear. She had never gone to a party—not even in college. There was always the guilt. The shame. The echo of her mother’s voice:

"You want to roam the streets like a filthy girl? Don’t bring shame into this house."

But this time, Jessie didn’t want to say no.

This time… she wanted to try.

She picked up her phone and dialed home. Her hands were shaking. It didn’t matter that she now lived in Seoul, that she paid her own rent, had her own job. She still felt like that small girl in the living room corner, afraid to breathe too loud.

The phone rang. Then clicked.

“Why are you calling?” her mother snapped.

Jessie cleared her throat. “Umma… I was wondering. It’s Vanessa’s birthday. I thought I might go. Just for a few hours.”

There was a sharp silence on the other end, followed by a bitter laugh.

“Birthday?” her mother hissed. “Do you think life is a festival? Did we raise you for this shame?”

“I just… I want to go. She’s been there for me—”

“You think you can make your own choices now? Talking like a spoiled girl. Do you even know what people will say?”

“I don’t care what they say,” Jessie whispered.

“What did you just say?” her mother’s voice rose. “You ungrateful thing. I should have left you at the orphanage when I had the chance.”

Jessie felt something in her snap. For years, she had stayed quiet. For years, she had swallowed every insult, every bruise. But not today.

“I’m tired,” Jessie said, voice cracking but rising. “Tired of pretending I’m okay with this. You treat me like I’m nothing. Like I don’t deserve joy. I’m going to that party. Whether you like it or not.”

Her mother didn’t speak.

Then, coldly: “I’ll tell your father.”

The line cut.

Jessie dropped the phone. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might explode. But beneath the fear was something else—something new.

Defiance.

The next day, Jessie made the mistake of going home. Some part of her, small and wounded, still hoped. Still believed maybe they’d understand. That her mother would cool down. That her father wouldn’t…

She was wrong.

The door opened. Her mother stood there, face blank but eyes boiling.

“He’s inside,” she said. “Go.”

Jessie stepped into the living room.

Her father sat quietly, the leather belt already in his lap.

“Is it true?” he asked.

Jessie froze.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Raise your hands.”

She didn’t move.

“I said, raise them!”

The first lash made her knees buckle. The second, her breath stop. The third hit her ribs. And then more, until pain blurred into numbness.

She didn’t scream. Not this time. Not anymore.

The bruises would bloom deep purple by morning.

Later that night, curled in the corner of her old bedroom, she couldn’t sleep. Her skin stung, but it was nothing compared to the wound growing inside her.

She stared at the ceiling—peeling, cracked, the same color it had always been. And she prayed.

Not with words.

Just with the soundless ache of someone who had nothing left.

God. Universe. Anyone.

Save me. Please… Save me from this hell.

The morning light crept in, cold and indifferent. Her parents moved around the house as if nothing had happened. As if her pain was a forgotten spoon on the table.

Jessie knew then.

They would never change.

And she could no longer wait for them to love her.

That evening, she took a train back to Seoul, her bruised arms hidden beneath long sleeves. She stared out the window as the landscape blurred by, face pale but eyes dry.

Each mile between her and that house felt like a step toward the edge of the cage.

She would go to that party.

She would learn to smile again—even if her lips trembled.

She would break free.

Even if it took everything she had.

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