JENNIE
"I'm Tonie Phillips and I'll be your counselor."
The man seated in front of us had on dark pants and a dark blue shirt that was buttoned up to his neck. He was a bald older gentleman. Unlike Vanessa, his office had three couches, one long one and two love seats, there were pictures of quotes on the wall. The windows were full length and somehow it felt better.
"Hi. I'm Lisa and-"
"I'm Jennie."
Tonie gives us a big smile, his eyes crinkling by the side. "I have your file but I want to hear what happened from the both of you. How about you Jennie?"
I look down at my lap. Our sessions were on Sundays, Wednesday and Friday. It's Sunday and I'm in a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a pink shirt while Lisa had on a pair of jeans and a denim jacket under white shirt.
It takes a bit for me to get his words together and I speaks. I talks about what happened two years ago, slipping my hand into Lisa as we talk and Tonie quickly takes notice of the action, including the way Lisa's thumb softly stroked my hand.
Tonie listens, nodding his head here and there but he doesn't write anything.
When I was done, Lisa speaks up.
"It's good. I'm impressed if I'm being honest." Tonie says. "I've been at this for thirteen years and the one thing I always tell couples who deal with infidelity to come clean if they cheated. To stop pretending like nothing happened." Tonie says and I listen, so does Lisa. "To know you two have acknowledged this, the fact that you two want to try therapy shows commitment. It shows you two know what you want."
I licks my lips, eyes trained on the wall behind Tonie, not wanting to look the counselor in the eye because it felt like Tonie would be able to tell my thoughts. "How long is therapy going to take?"
"We read somewhere that it might be short term or long term." Lisa adds and Tonie nods.
Tonie rubbed his hands together and leaned forward, his arm resting on his thighs.
"It depends really. We'll see how it goes and then I'll tell you." Tonie says and it went on from there. The session lasts for an hour and we were given homework.
"Thirty minutes to talk about your favorite thing about the other and why. Then we will talk more on Wednesday." Tonie says with a grin and a that concluded their first session.
We both walk out hand in hand, the two of us silent as we tried to soak in the events for the day. We had talked and listened and this was the first step, scratch that, we were heading somewhere. We had a plan, we had a direction and it was gone.
"That went well." Lisa says once we stepped out of the clinic.
"It did. When do we do the homework?" I asked as I look up at her. I moves when Lisa slips her arms around my waist and pulls me up close. Lisa was always touching and kissing a part of me, my forehead, my nose, my cheeks, my lips.
"We can do it now or after dinner? Whenever you want, we have till Wednesday." She replies.
"How about we have a quick bite and see." I replies, my free hand sliding up Lisa's chest and going behind her neck.
"Rosé wouldn't mind if we are a couple hours late." Lisa says, the two of us swaying a bit. I giggles as I leans up, rubbing my nose against her's in an Eskimo kiss.
Our session was just for an hour and half, we had gone in at one, so it was two thirty something. We still had time. On the way to the car, I hits the speed dial for my best friend.
"Wifey." She said when she picks up the call.
I rolls my eyes at my bff. "Don't call me that."
"You've been saying that for eighty years now. Look for
something new."
"We Aren't eighty. If we combine our ages even, we still don't hit the eighty mark. What the hell are you talking about?"
"That is so not the point."
"Rosé..." I sighs, rolling my eyes as I pulls open the door. I slid in and straps on my seatbelt, my phone still pressed to my ear.
"What? What do you want? We are playing hide and seek"
"We might be a little late." I admits, looking over at Lisa who gives me a thumbs up in motivation.
"Jennie..."
"A little late. Can you still watch the kid a little bit more?" I asked, my tone going high. It went quiet for a bit and I could almost feel Rosé's eye roll. Lisa hadn't started the car yet, she was just watching me and waiting.
"Fine but on your way back I want egg fried rice from that place." She says.
"Got it."
"With kebab from the store near your house."
"Got it."
"Good. Okay I've got to go. Lego bet me twenty, if I beat Lily at this game." She says and then ends the call.
"She said okay."
"Awesome! I've been thinking of taking you to this little restaurant I found the other day. They make the most amazing spaghetti and meatballs."
"Ooh, are we going to share a large plate and then kiss Lady and the Tramp style?" I teased, winking at her. It had been Lisa's favorite cartoon as a child but as she grew older there had been many that have taken its place.
"You teases and tease and yet I'll still get to kiss you while we eat spaghetti."
"You are a determined girl." I mocks with a nod, bursting into laughter when Lisa pouts. I unbuckles my seatbelt and leaned over to kiss her. She cups my cheeks as our lips moved, the kiss soft and warm.
When we pull apart, she just stares at me, her eyes going over every detail on my face. Even at the age of thirty seven, she's still handsomely beautiful.
"Do I have something on my face?"
"Nope. Just beauty."
The car falls silent as we both cringe at her words. I breaks my silence by laughing, hard enough that I places my hand on my stomach.
"Oh my god, that was horrible."
Lisa's cheeks bloom red and I coos. "Tell me about it."
"Thank you for the compliment though." I says just as Lisa pulls out of the car park, heading towards the restaurant.
"You look..." Lisa clears her throat before continuing, the blush on her cheek turning darker. "You look even more gorgeous than you did when we first met all those years ago."
"That is because I was a fetus." I replies, chuckling a bit, my gaze on Lisa. "Do you remember my earring phase?"
It had been back then when we were in our final year of high school. I had gotten one ear pierced and Lisa being the encouraging girlfriend she was fueled the phase by buying different types of earrings for me. From the fake stud to the actual diamond studded ones, each one a different color.
"I still have pictures"
I gasped and smacked her arm. "Oh my god. You do?"
"It was actually in the attic. I...uh...found it when I was packing up the house." She says, her voice soft and the grip she had on the steering wheel tight.
I rests my hand on her arm. I could imagine Lisa seated on the floor of the attic, looking through old boxes of memories by herself. The attic was the one place in the house I couldn't clean up by myself and I had just kept postponing it.
"And um... do you remember throwing your ring at me back then?" She asks, still not looking away from the road, scared of what she'd find if she look at my face.
"Yeah?" I replies, wondering where Lisa was going with this.
"I know you must have left it somewhere in the house when you and the kids..." Lisa took a deep breath and let it out. "When you left. I promise I looked everywhere for it but I didn't see it. I'm sorry." She finishes as she pulls to a stop at a red light while a couple of people crossed the street.
"Li-"
"I know how much you liked the ring. It was the first permanent thing I bought for you with a year of saved salaries." She says, finally turning to look at me.
"It's with me. The ring is with me."
"What?"
"It's with me." I says with a soft smile. "I took it. I didn't want to return it to you and you never asked for it back. So I kept it."
Lisa looked like all the tension in her body had just flown out the window and I felt like it too. She cups my cheek and presses her lips to mine in a chaste soft kiss and pulled back.
"I spent two years thinking and wondering."
"You should have asked me."
I remember back to three years ago when I had met Mino. I remembers what Mino had said about my wedding ring. The simple band with small specks of diamond on each side of the large cut one at the center of it. Like wasn't the right word to explain how I felt about the ring. I had proper fallen in love with it when Lisa had proposed.
The light goes green and Lisa moves. It takes us a couple minutes to get to the restaurant. The ride had been silent, my hand resting on Lisa thigh, never straying.
We hold hands as we walked into the restaurant. The waiter shows us to a table close to the window and Lisa pulls it I sit for her. The restaurant was small and homey and warm, there were actually quite a bit of people in there but it was still somehow quiet. Maybe it was just me and Lisa. We were both wrapped up in our bubble.
There was a white cloth of the table, their menus stacked on a stand and a small basket of flower petals. I don't bother looking through the food menu since I knew what I wanted and just went through the wine list, settling for Pinot Noir.
It takes a few to place our order and then we were alone again. Lisa reaches over the table and takes my hand in hers. The warm and familiar tingle a welcome.
"Lego told me Kuma has a girlfriend."
I chuckles. "Of course he did. If he could, he'd shout it over the rooftop."
"He also promised to send me pictures of them." Lisa said and I laughs. It was something Lego could definitely do. Lego had started a group chat with me, his siblings and Rosé and had dubbed it, The Hot Fam. Or THF for short.
Lego was a special, special kid with a big heart, loads of sass and a sprinkle of attitude.
"Lily wants to meet her too. She doesn't believe it."
Lisa nods. I couldn't blame her. It took years for Kuma to get a girlfriend and he's all smiley and laughing and yeah, I could understand why Lily wanted physical proof. Kuma had never once talked about who he liked or what celebrity crush he had even though I knew the answer was Jisoo Kim the actress.
"We've got really special kids, don't we?" Lisa says.
"My special boys and girl."
"And the beat part is, we take after you. We are just as gorgeous and as perfect as you." Lisa says as she raised our joined hands to her lips and pressed kisses to it.
"Flattery, Lisa..."
"Will get me?"
"Everywhere." I replies with a wink.
~~~~~~~~~~