KICK IT | JENLISA

113

Jennie

Time and patience. Time was the cruel bitch who faded the details of my memories and moved life around me forward. Time moved others forward in their lives while mine was destroyed. And patience? We'd never gotten along.

"You're assuming I want to love again." My heart's tendencies were a major reason I held back from reforming emotional connections. I fell hard and fast for Taehyung, with my entire heart and soul. The idea I repeated the gut-wrenching process with Lisa Loose Dick Manoban rolled nausea in my stomach.

I curled my knees up into my chest. If I could have rammed them through the pain squeezing my heart like a heart attack, then I would have. Asking Irene how to repair my bleeding heart played on the tip of my tongue but I clenched my teeth to contain it.

"Exercise a lot of patience and forgiveness..." she whispered, curling her fingers around my wrist and squeezing. "... of yourself. Stop putting too much blame on yourself for Taehyung's choice. You know what he'd want if he was in Mino's position."

"Keep living on."

Upon every deployment, Taehyung made me promise if I lost him that I would keep living on. Each repeat of the empty words was a dull spoon carved into my heart. Three years later, I wasn't anywhere near that, and honouring his memory wasn't remembering him by the demons he succumbed to.

He wasn't in control of his mental health issues. And I was too ignorant to act on the warning signs. The blurred line of spouse responsibility versus influence refocused my life into bare existence.

I pushed a slow breath out of my pursed lips. Knowing I needed to practice self-care and immerse myself in the world outside my head and doing it were opposites. Yoga's holistic approach of restructuring my mind through meditation, movements, and embracing the philosophies was one tool I'd abandoned. In a jungle of thick, constrictive vines, I carried a Swiss army knife instead of a machete.

Be honest.

"I feel guilty for not feeling more guilty." I muttered to the side wall. "And I'm trying hard to not think about Lisa, because of her fuckery. How fucked up is that?"

"Not at all." Her voice brought my eyes over my shoulder, where I traced the downturned corners of her mouth. "It wasn't your fault but you need to forgive yourself for Taehyung's passing. Only then you can make a new beginning and allow yourself to have feelings for Lisa. You can love more than one person, Jennie."

I gagged on the air I sucked in. "The only feeling I have for Lisa is pure disgust. She's nothing but a two-faced, lying cheat."

Her eyes rolled. "It's more and you know it. Otherwise, you wouldn't have let her in."

She was right. Fuck, I hated that she was right. If I felt nothing for Lisa then I would've dismissed her existence. I certainly wouldn't have kissed or slept with her. Twice.

The hypocrisy that I denied myself the same happiness I had for Irene moving forward wasn't lost within my mental fog. Thick and viscous, grief and guilt coated my sense of logic with a sludge I didn't understand.

"And you know you need to talk to her. You need to know each other's truths."

She drew a line that I wasn't ready to cross. Opening up my heart was painful enough, but opening it up to a cheating asshole? Reckless and beyond stupid. I felt dirty and cheap. She was thicker than indigo paint, coating my skin until I couldn't scrub it clean.

I cupped my damp cheeks. Fuck, all I did was cry. How long was too long? Some days it felt like never. Widows were older women with decades of loving memories to recall through their last days. Bereavement training on base hadn't prepared me to be a widow after the way Taehyung slipped through my fingers.

Not the way I failed him.