What an idiot he had been. He hated himself; he had been every inch the indecisive intellectual, weighing every move until it was too late. It had taken him so long to ask her to marry him that she was gone. In truth, he had wanted to ask her to run away with him to South Korea, but didn’t have the courage. Throughout their relationship, he imagined himself as the one in charge. He was the man, he was two years older, he had a university degree. He brought her poems from Pyongyang and told her about books and movies she’d never heard of. But in the end she was the brave one and he was a
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