JENNIE

It's a quarter past nine and sitting in my messages was one from Lisa. I had already put Luca to bed with a little fussing and had done the same for Lily, my little princess. Kuma was in Lego's room, both of them playing what looked like an intense monopoly match. It had started out between me, Lily and the two boys, words were thrown and so were glares.

Fr[Lis]

Hi

I stared at the message. I knew we had honesty hour but I didn't want to read Lisa's explanation, I wanted to hear them, so I called Lisa instead. She picking up after three ring.

"Hey Jen."

"Hi, Lis." I says. I didn't know what to say or how to even start the conversation we were meant to have. I just kept staring at the wall beside me, legs jiggling a bit. "So..."

"Um... do you want to go first?" She asked, her voice a little shaky.

"Not really. Do... did you have something you want to say first" I asks.

"I... I really did want to try the couples therapy with you. I knew what I did was wrong but I was just really scared of talking to you about it. I..." her voice cracked. "I didn't want you to see me as weak. I was scared you wouldn't understand what I was feeling. Everyday I'd try to talk myself up to tell you what I was struggling with. The little voices of doubt in my head."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I just stays silent and lets Lisa talk.

"Do you remember what I said when I proposed to you?"

How could I forget. I remembered every darn word. I hadn't let myself think about it for years now.

"Yeah I do."

"I promised to take care of you. I promised to always be beside you. I promised to love you and the kids. I promised to love you with all my heart, with all my soul and I do."

"Lisa..."

"I couldn't spend a lot of time at home because of the guilt. I couldn't look at you and S-"

"Why Somi? You could have come to me. I married you because I loved you and wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, through thick and thin, through sickness and health." I said. "But... I get it. The whole issue with anxiety.

"To be honest with you, I talked about you all the time with Somi. She'd kiss me to shut me up but I can promise you, I'd swear on my life that we never went further than that."

"You're lying, Lisa." I says, gripping the phone tightly. "I saw the marks."

"She did those to make you see. We'd kiss and she would just scratch and grab. She wanted more but I could never bring myself to actually do more." She said, there was a shuffling sound on the other side of the phone and what sounded like a sniffle.

"It tore me apart to know you went to look elsewhere. I felt like I had been lied to for years, like you didn't love me as much as you said you did because you never acted like it, like I didn't mean that much to you." I sits up, resting against the headboard as I talks. "It made me question everything I thought I knew about you."

"You know me. I'm still the same girl you met twenty two years ago, the same woman you married twenty two years ago, the same woman who loves you and our kids. No matter where I went to, I still came home to you. I... I've spent all my life hearing the saying, home is where the heart is and it took losing you and our kids to learn that lesson."

I wipes my tears away with my hands as I listened to her talk. She was talking about our past but there were key things I had noticed as she talks. She uses present tense while talking about somethings and there's a part of me, a part that fell asleep all those days, weeks and months that made up the two years of our separation. waking up.

It shocked me to know Lisa had been willing to work out our marriage. She sounded like she would have done anything to keep me and the kids. And from the way she was talking right then, voice coming in through the tiny speaker of my phone, she sounded like she still wanted to try and get me back.

I has known Lisa for twenty two years. I knew almost everything about her. As she tells me all these things, I imagines her getting home one day, pushing open the doors to find the entire house empty. The rooms cleared out and everyone gone.

I stared at my fingers, especially the one where my wedding ring used to sit.

"I didn't think you would want that. I thought you might have preferred blondie to me so I didn't bring it up. I was too scared of what you might have said."

"Never. I made a mistake. A big mistake that cost me everything and I'm going to try my absolute best to fix this, to get your forgiveness and also the kids."

Forgiveness.

A topic that I had never wanted to think too much about. I had kept so much buried within me and had also denied myself of some thoughts. Forgiveness. It was hard letting go, it was so hard packing up everything and leaving though I had a lot of questions to ask her.

Forgiveness.

Now that we were talking, now we were trying to figure everything out, I felt like forgiveness was something I could give back to Lisa. The main issue we would have would be trust. Forgiveness was just a little cut that would take a little time to heal but the trust her had lost was like a huge gaping wound. It was going to take so much fucking time and care to heal properly.

"It would take a little more time for me to forgive you. I can see you putting effort, trying your best to open up to me and the kids. Kuma has started calling you dada again. It used to hurt whenever I thought about what happened but it's been two years and yeah, I'm going to need a little more before I forgive you."

"Of course. Whatever you need."

I nods, pulling my phone away a bit so I could sniffle without her hearing it. I puts my phone against my ear and sighs. This wasn't easy. Everything felt raw and open.

"Did you... have you dated anyone since our divorce?"

"I haven't."

"Not even to... have coitus with?" I winced. If it had been any other time, we both would have laughed. But right now, the air was thick with some tension and I wasn't sure why I, myself wanted to know.

"No one since you."

That...

That, if I was calculating correctly meant, Lisa hadn't had sex in almost three years. The last time we had sex was a year after Luca was born, a couple months before she started coming home late.

"Lisa..."

"I know you might find it hard to believe but I haven't. I haven't touched anyone the way I touched you, I haven't loved anyone the way I love you. I haven't had sex with anyone but you." She said, her voice coming off as strong and sure.

I wasn't sure what to believe at this point. There was a part of me that truly believed what Lisa was say but there was also another part of me that questioned it. If she could have s secret affair, she could be lying through her teeth presently.

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She was right when she said she always came home. She always did come back home, she didn't lie about emergency meetings or need to travel out, wherever she went to, she always came back home to me.

Flashback

"What do you think we'll be doing when we are ... twenty three?" I asked Lisa. We were in the pool house, since it was late November, everything was covered and no one was coming in there due to the cold.

"We'll be married." She answer, voice sure, hands in the pocket of her jacket.

I stared at her with wide eyes. She never understood how she was so sure of all the shit she said.

"We aren't even dating right now, I don't think we would get married." I said, rubbing my palms together. I had forgotten my gloves in my haste to reach here before Lisa.

Lisa rolled her eyes at me, hands leaving her pockets so she could hold mine, squeezing our fingers to give them warmth. "I always ask you out in a date and you always tell me no. If you say yes, it's be faster. Well date for a year, get married after high school and Th-"

"You have big dreams." I laughs, shaking my head at the silly girl beside me.

"Let me dream then. Because it seems like it's only in my dreams I can have you." She says with a small smile.

It was times like this, when Lisa said words that made my heart skip a bit that I thinks, yes, yes, let's date, let's do everything together.

"We are young. We shouldn't be thinking of marriage. We aren't dating, we haven't kissed, haven't had sex yet. I haven't even been to your house." I says and then adds. "I don't think your family would like me anyway. I'm poor and have only a handful of dress and even a lesser amount of jeans and shoes. You should be dating someone like Kendal in homeroom."

"Kendal is an spoiled brat. I don't like spoiled brat. I like you." She said, raising our locked hands to her lips, pressing small kisses to my knuckles. "You don't have to like me right now, I'll wait for you."

Of course me likes her. I likes this Lisa that only me got to see. Not the popular girl that always looked untouchable. Not that. This Lisa that was soft and liked to recite bad pick up lines to get me to laugh, this Lisa that says so much sweet things, this Lisa that looks at me like I'm special and wonderful.

"How about we go for ice cream first? We'll start slow and see where we go. No talking of marriage, no talking of kids and the houses we'd live in."

Lisa lets out a loud cheer in excitement, the smile on her face the biggest and brightest I had ever seen and it warmed my heart to know I had been the one who made her that happy.

"Ice cream and whatever you want." She said. I smiles at her in reply, shifting a bit closer so our shoulders touch. I was about to place my head on Lisa's shoulder when she asks. "How many kids do you think we'll have? I want like four or five. It's stupidly boring being an only child."

"Does he treat you well?" Lisa asked, her sudden question snapping me back to reality.

"Who?"

"Jiyong. Does he treat you well?" She asked.

"He treats me well. He takes me out, buys me stuff and asks about the kids but..." I wants to say there was something missing. I wants to say whatever I thought I felt for GD was gone. Like a brief spark. Like a flame that goes off with the slight brush of a breeze.

"That's good. I'm happy you're happy." She says honestly and I hums. I checks the clock sitting on my dresser. We had two more minutes till ten o'clock. So I decided to ask.

"Was it worth it? Was losing me worth it? Was losing the kids worth it?"

Lisa's reply was simple.

"No"

~~~~~~~~~