Catch The Stars

Chapter 15

When she opens her eyes again the sun is coming up and Y/n is gone.

It isn't raining anymore. Jennie's head doesn't feel like it's filled with cotton anymore and her body feels slightly more energized after having slept through the whole night.

She slept the entire night.

She can't remember the last time that happened.

Jennie sits up with puffy eyes, raking a hand through her hair and feels the blanket slip from her body.

Wait, blanket?

There was no blanket last night, was there?

She asks her grandmother over breakfast if she came to cover her up in the morning and she shakes her head no.

Jennie can't stop smiling after that.

-

Jennie used to be great with kids.

Back when she was in high school, everyone in the neighbourhood would want her to babysit their kids whenever they were in need of someone to watch over them, and Jennie would gladly agree because she needed the money and - like she said - kids just loved her.

That is until one night, when she was babysitting their neighbour's six year old son Haneul, something really bad happened.

Jennie always made sure to keep her eyes on the kids at all times, her phone on silent mode so all her attention could be on the children.

Haneul was a whirlwind; that child was running around until all the energy in his tiny body was used up and he'd just end up falling asleep on the kitchen floor on the toilet seat. And Haneul absolutely adored Jennie, as did her parents, which is why that night was as traumatizing as it had been for Jennie.

She went to the bathroom to pee, making sure Haneul was sitting on the couch securely where he was watching his children's TV show je always used to watch before going to bed.

She couldn't have been gone longer than three minutes, was washing her hands in the bathroom when she heard glass shattering and Haneul starting to wail at the top of his lungs.

Jennie ran to the child so fast she nearly split her head open because her socks slipped on the parquet, and then her heart dropped all the way to her stomach when she saw little Haneul sitting on the kitchen floor, a shattered glass mug lying next to him and blood gushing out of the wound on his chin like a out of a hose.

Haneul cried, stuttering and trembling from the pain, trying to explain what happened, which is that the boy tried to get the glass from the shelf, but his knee slipped on the counter and je ended up ramming his chin into the glass when he fell.

Jennie doesn't remember much of what happened after that. It's all a blur; Jennie calling an ambulance, trying to stop the blood flow and comfort a scared and crying Haneul, informing her neighbour's about what happened to their son, having Haneul's dad yell at her because the guy was so scared after seeing his boy covered in blood and surrounded by paramedics.

Jennie didn't babysit again after that, even when Haneul's parents apologized to her a few days after and tried to convince her that it was an accident and clearly not Jennie's fault.

It didn't matter at all, becausee Jennie couldn't even get close to a child without remembering little Haneul's face covered in blood.

When her cousin had her first baby, everything in Jennie screamed to hold the cute little thing because Jennie loves kids, but the fear of hurting the tiny baby was so overwhelming that she came across like a douchebag when she refused to hold her baby against her chest.