The Christmas Party

Stay With Me

Jennie chewed her lip in thought. "You're not going to get sick of me?"

That small glimpse of insecurity, so uncharacteristic of the Jennie that the world saw, reared it's head and while I was touched that she allowed me to see this part of her, that she allowed herself to be vulnerable with me, I never wanted her to feel such a thing about us.

"I could never get sick of you."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do."

Jennie dropped my hand and shook her head. "Jisoo, we've been together for-what-ten days? We're still in the honeymoon phase. You don't know what you'll think or feel about me in a month, a year."

I was pulling into her apartment complex as Jennie began spewing her fears and worries. Perhaps the spell of the holidays was broken and as we returned to reality, to living apart, to our jobs, to our lives-reality-the worries and fear Jennie perhaps had been keeping at bay flooding through her.

A small part of me panicked.

What is she regretted everything? Regretted kissing me, making love, saying I love you?

I swallowed down my fear and parked the car. "Let's unload everything then go for a walk."

The worry was palpable in Jennie's eyes.

Taehyung was none the wiser when we unloaded. When we said we were going to go for a walk, he said have fun and took a shower. Jennie and I pulled on our coats and stepped out into the snow. Our hands were stuffed into our pockets. Jennie looked at the ground, her jaw set.

"Do you regret this?" I asked her.

"No," Jennie said so quickly and confidently that I believed it to be true, even if she wouldn't look at me.

"Are you ... worried what people will think being with a woman?"

Jennie looked at me. "No. I don't care what people think."

I chewed my bottom lip, peeling back layers of skin as I thought and I worried. I didn't know where all of this was coming from. Jennie allowed me to see all of her, including this insecurity. but she was always so confident, so sure of herself. I didn't understand what had happened between us laying in bed together, confessing our love for one another and talking about marriage, to Jennie suddenly pushing me away.

"Is everything okay?" I asked. "Did I do something to upset you?"

Jennie sighed. "No, nothing."

"I don't understand."

When Jennie looked back up at me, there were tears brimming her eyes and it felt like a steak had been driven through my heart. I'd never seen her cry, never even seen her on the verge of tears, in the three years I'd known her. I wanted to reach out to her and wipe the tears away. I wanted to take away everything that made her hurt and fear.

Instead I stood helplessly by her side.

"I just... Maybe we did move to too fast."

I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.

"Okay... We can slow things down. Whatever you need. Whatever you want."

Jennie bit down on her bottom lip. I felt like she wanted to say something but wasn't sure how. We walked in silence, my heart beating so fast in my chest I thought I wouldn't be able to breathe. Jennie struggled to find words. I struggled to understand.

"If you need space, I can . . . I can give that to you. Whatever you need." Even as I said these words I felt my heart breaking. My mind tried to play catch up, to wonder what happened on the car ride that made Jennie suddenly question every single thing that had happened to us in the last ten days.

The only word that came to mind was regret. She must have regretted everything and only when we returned to our lives and the holidays were winding down and that haze of happy, warm feelings faded that Jennie realized she made a mistake. A mistake. Was that all I was?

"I think that's... A good idea. Space. Yeah, I think maybe we should."

"Right, yeah."

Silently, we turned back to Jennie's apartment. I was carefully not to walk too closely to her, to give her space. She didn't look at me. She walked with her head down and I saw tears fall from her cheeks every few steps. I felt tears prickling my own eyes while my brain worked furiously to work out what the hell happened. What had I done?

I walked Jennie all the way up to her door. I wish I could kiss her again. One last time. I didn't know what would happen or where we were going, but the thought of not being able to kiss her physically hurt me.

"Okay, bye." I said and turned on my heels, hurrying down the stairs. I held my tears back as best I could and I had to turn my back on her or risk her seeing me cry and she obviously had enough to deal with as is without having to worry about my feelings.

"Jisoo," I heard Jennie weakly call, but I didn't turn around. I couldn't. I couldn't face her.

I drove home, tears blurring my vision, and I wondered what happened. How could we have gone from joking about a wedding to her... What? Breaking up with me? I introduced her to my family, we made love, she said she wanted to marry me!

Did she really regret all of that? And so quickly? Was I just a game?

I had a text from Taehyung when I got home, but I ignored it. I ignored everything and crawled into bed at five at night and tried to sleep.