Back for Good

Chapter 8

"Nini! Wait! W-where are you going?!"

"Lisa, please..."

"Why are you doing this?..."

"I'm sorry Lisa, but please... please let me go."

"I missed you, Jen."

"I missed you too. You don't know how much I've missed you guys." Especially Lisa, she wanted to add.

Jennie had once again found herself in the bar, this time with Seulgi, sharing a few drinks after that overly exciting meeting at the hotel corridor. They have been there for a handful of hours now, just drinking the night away, talking about anything and everything under the sun.

Including Lisa.

"Seulgi... Li... Lisa... How...?"

"How was she?"

Jennie had been dying to ask ever since they've started talking about what had happened for the last four years.

She saw Seulgi shift her eyes to the side before sighing.

'It's that bad, huh?...'

"I don't know if I should tell you anything, Jen..."

"Please, Seul? I-I want to know—"

"Know how much she suffered when you left her?"

Jennie flinched at the sudden hostility but she knew she deserved it. She knows how much she had hurt Lisa, how much she had practically destroyed her heart.

"I... I'm sorry."

"No, Seulgi, don't apologize. It's my fault."

Silence dawned upon the two as they continued drinking. Gone were the comfortable chatters and Jennie wanted to beat her head with the bottle. She leaned back and turned to observe the bar instead. It was the same place where she met Lisa again. Even after four long years, Lisa still had that effect on her. She'd feel her heart stop for a second before gradually increasing beats. Every sound around her gets drowned out in her mind and the only thing her eyes can focus on was Lisa's.

She was about to excuse herself when she heard Seulgi speak.

"She stayed here, even after you left. She spent your supposed honeymoon days alone, doing God knows what. I didn't know, 'cause she insisted, heck, she pleaded that we all leave her alone to think. So we gave her that time."

Jennie clutched her fist tightly. There's nobody else to blame but her.

"Lisa came back, after two weeks, looking like a different person. Honestly, I was expecting a very depressed, self-loathing Lisa but... She was all smiles when she got back. And to be honest... it hurt us more to see her like that. You know how she is; she likes to bottle everything inside."

Jennie merely nodded.

"And, a few months after that, she started her wedding photography business. You do know why she chose weddings, right?" Seulgi softly stared at her and she wanted to cry.

Yes, she knows.

Another round of silence engulfed the two with only the sound of clinking glasses and bottles can be heard clearly. Jennie had accustomed herself of the familiar sound that the bar made until Seulgi had decided to pull her out of the safe confines of familiarity that she had surrounded herself with.

"Now tell me, Jennie... What exactly happened?"

Jennie let out a sigh before pouring out everything to the other girl.

-------

Seulgi slumped at her hotel room sofa and heaved a sigh. Drinking was never a problem for her; she knows her alcohol tolerance. But the talk she had with Jennie had stressed her so much, even more than that pile of work she deliberately left just to be in Lisa's rescue.

What she told Jennie was true, all of it.

She just omitted the part where she accidentally walked in on a sleeping Lisa one night they had to stay in the studio and learned how the poor girl silently cries in her sleep almost every night while calling out to the love of her life.

Jennie doesn't need to know that.

-------

She found herself awkwardly standing in front of her hotel suite again, clutching the doorknob with one hand while holding the key card in the other. Jennie felt like she was about to open Pandora's Box and doom the whole universe because of it, but in reality, she had doomed hers a long time ago.

A click of the lock and she's inside.

Jennie went directly to her room and was surprised to see the bed empty. She turned towards the direction of the living room and heard the low sound of the television as she neared the area. Thinking that Lisa had left the thing opened, she went directly to the television to turn it off. Just as she was about to head to Lisa's room to see if her daughter was in there, she saw the two peacefully sleeping on the sofa.

Jennie felt her body shook, and slowly, she approached the sofa and bent down to observe the slumbering duo.

She felt a lone tear roll down her cheek as she covered her mouth to stifle a sob as she let her eyes drown in the sight in front of her.

Lisa had her body stretched on the whole length of the sofa, her head propped up nicely by a throw pillow while Ella lay comfortably on her torso. The Thai girl had both of her arms around the kid, securing her from falling off the sofa.

They looked peaceful.

Moreover, it was a scene that Jennie had wanted for Ella and her father.

He promised her a family, their own family.

But the only thing she got was a broken heart and a broken promise.

She let the tears flow freely now. The sight in front of her had pulled on her heartstrings and she can't help but cry more. Jennie had accidentally slipped out a sob and her breathing stopped when her daughter moved. She quickly wiped the tears from her face and composed herself in case one of them, or even both, start to wake up.

Jennie breathe a sigh of relief when neither opened their eyes. She continued to watch as Ella clutched a fistful of Lisa's shirt as the little girl snuggled more under the older girl's chin, the latter responding by tightening her embrace on the sleeping kid.

She didn't have the heart to separate the two, and as much as Jennie wanted to sleep with her daughter beside her, she just couldn't break the heartwarming scene.

Finally smiling, Jennie stood up and made her way towards the closet to fetch a fresh blanket. She draped the clean sheet over the two and bent down to give Ella a goodnight kiss on the forehead. She shifted her gaze on the sleeping Lisa and was surprised to see the latter shedding silent tears.

She was about to wipe them when she heard Lisa whisper in her sleep.

And there she was, still rooted on the floor, thinking that her heart couldn't break anymore that night.

At least, not until she heard Lisa's silent plea.

"Please... Please stay with me..."