The Love We Had | JENSOO [18+]

Chapter Six: Almost Naked

Jisoo swung back and forth in her hammock and stared up through the tops of the trees, waving in the rising wind, at the grey sky looming overhead.

She remembered lying this same way with her wife in the nook of her arm and suddenly felt a pang of loneliness.

It had been a rough few months for her, full of lawyers, paperwork, embarrassment, a wounded ego, and a mutilated heart.

Soojin, Jisoo's best friend and fellow musician, had shown up unannounced at her penthouse apartment one evening in February.

Jisoo had done nothing that week but languish and fret around her place in pajama pants, worrying about her strained marriage and replaying the last conversation with her wife over and over.

"I'll only be in Busan for three weeks. It'll give us both some time to think about things."

When her friend turned up with a sullen face, Jisoo was taken by surprise. Was her grief really so obvious that her friends were coming to console her?

"Sit down," said Soojin, rubbing a nervous hand over her black hair.

"Um, okay. What's wrong?" Jisoo's heart was starting to palpitate.

Soojin pulled a manila folder out from her leather jacket and dropped it on the coffee table.

"Ji, this is not gonna be easy."

"For fucks sakes, Jin, tell me what's the matter!" Jisoo wanted whatever this was ripped off like a bandaid.

"It's Soojoo." Jisoo saw her friend's jaw go slack and quickly added. "She's all right, Ji. But you need to see this."

Jisoo tore open the envelope and pulled out a stack of glossy prints. Her heart dropped into her slippers.

"I'm so sorry," said Soojin as she watched Jisoo shuffle through one horrifyingly graphic photo after another.

Jisoo dropped the photos and covered her face with her hands. "...think about things, yeah sure," she mumbled under her breath.

It took all of Soojin willpower to spit out the next words. This was gonna cripple her already suffering best friend.

"They go to press tomorrow."

Jisoo shook away the memory and jumped from the hammock. She had to do something, anything to occupy her mind.

Over on the rocky waterfront strip she saw her fishing boat.

Fishing. I'll go fishing.

**********

As the heavy clouds rolled in, Jennie made her way up the stairs to the upper level of the boathouse.

Her parents had suggested a game of dominoes in the kitchen, but she politely declined in favor of brooding over the day's events in solitude. She wouldn't be good company.

She puttered around upstairs, sifting through the dusty board games to see what was still there after all these years. Mixed in between Trouble and Battleship she spotted a thick photo album and pulled it out.

Plopping herself down on the ugly tattered sofa she flipped open the pages, a huge smile overcoming her face.

There were her parents, so young, sitting around the campfire, her dad smoking a cigarette.

Wow, flashback.

Eight-year-old Jennie stood on the end of the dock in a neon pink bathing suit, dangling a fish on a line beside her. She had been so proud, she remembered.