Chaennie Collection Volume 2

First Place - To the Finish Line

I can lose it all, but the one thing that I can't lose is her...too bad I already did. Now what?

Now what...I've been asking myself this since that day in Santorini..now what. I know I've got to move on..but 2 years later and I'm still dreaming of Rosie's smile.

"Jen...Jen..Jen..Jen."

"Hey Jennie." I'm harshly pulled out of my thoughts by my ex-wife, "You okay?"

"Rene hey..yeah sorry..I.." I trail off, feeling slightly disoriented...forgetting that we were having lunch together.

"You, Jennie Kim, are most certainly not okay."

"I am fine." I say more sternly, trying to convince her.

"Okay..if you say."

"I really am, so you all can stop asking me everytime."

"Alright...fine." Irene sighs loudly.

"Thank you." I smile.

~ ~ ~ ~

"So...you're really going?" Jisoo asks, leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed while I continue to pack.

"Mhm." I nod, giving her a small smile.

"For good?"

"Mhm."

"Okay." Jisoo settles on my bed.

"Okay...that's all you have to say?" I turn to her with a raised brow.

"Were you expecting me to say anything else?"

"In a way I was expecting you to give me the whole 'don't run away from your problems talk.'"

"Hmmm so you feel like you're running away?" Jisoo asks, and I pause.

Am I?

"I... well...I don't know, maybe?" I stop, sitting next to Jisoo on my bed.

"Maybe...." Jisoo mumbles and she stares at me inquisitively, silently asking me why.

"I guess it just feels like I need to be here and leaving is me just running away.."

"You feel like you need to be here?" Jisoo looks at me with a frown.

"What's with the frown?"

"Do you want me to be honest?"

"So this is the 'don't run away talk.'"

"No, this is the 'stop wallowing in your guilt talk.'"

"Guilt? What guilt?" I shake my head with a light chuckle.

"Jennie."

"Jisoo."

"I'm serious though...you need to stop feeling so guilty."

"But I don't have anything to feel guilty about."

"Right...but you feel like moving to Prague is running away somehow..and I know that you know exactly what it is that's making you feel like that." She gives me a pointed stare.

"Humor me then..what's making me feel like that."

"Rosie." Jisoo says so matter of factly, I couldn't even deny it.

"Your silence means I'm right." Jisoo stares at me and I feel myself shrinking under her gaze.

"I just feel like I need to stay here...to stay in the place where I hurt her so that I can always be reminded that I don't deserve her..I never did."