Best For Me | jensoo

Chapter 4

For Jennie, the afternoon was a combination of slow torture and reprieve. Her mother wouldn't let up quizzing her about Jongin and showing her off to all their friends.

"This is my daughter. Her husband couldn't be here. He's an engineer. He's just gorgeous, you should meet him." Okay, so her mother didn't quite gush that much, but, to Jennie, that's what it all sounded like.

Sometimes she wondered if she should just offer him up to her mother and let it be. That thought disturbed her greatly. Luckily her father was around to distract her. Watching him play with Elly and just talking to him made her happier.

The worst point was when she was trapped with her mother in the kitchen. The constant diatribe about Jennie's life was starting to push her closer and closer to the edge. She tried desperately to hold her tongue but her mother's nagging was stronger.

"You know, you and Jong should consider coming away with us this summer. We're heading up to... and it was such a fun time last year.... You two can get started on ..." her mother mused, not really paying attention to Jennie, who was only really hearing every third sentence.

Suddenly she broke. "Hell, Mom, I can't get Jongin to stay home for dinner, his new project is so fucking interesting! What makes you think I can get him to come away with you and Dad?" the blonde snapped, unable to hold back any longer.

"Jennie, that language!" her mother began to scold.

"No, Mom." Jennie was on a roll and nothing was going to stop her now. "Your perfect son-in-law isn't so perfect, you know. He's never home and, to be honest, I don't know if he gives a flying fuck about his wife or his daughter." Ignoring her mother's open mouth and her own language, she threw her hands up, rant in full swing. "You like him so much? You marry him. Because if he doesn't get his ass into gear sometime in the near future and actually spend some time with his family, he won't have one."

It took mere seconds for the silence between the two women to harden into a moment that seemed frozen in time. It also took the same amount of time for Jennie to realise what she'd said. What she had finally articulated. And she knew, in that space, in that time, that everything she'd just yelled hadn't really been said to her mother.

She'd said it to herself.

* * * * *

Placating her mother enough to be able to escape home had been difficult. Placating Elly at being torn away from her grandparents had been even harder. As close as the two of them were, Jennie knew that her daughter was not happy.

She was cute when she was mad, arms crossed and a frown across her little four-year-old brow. She looked like Jennie when Jennie was mad. She was so damn cute that Jennie couldn't possibly have been mad back, but that didn't stop the four-year-old from quite pointedly not talking to her.

Jennie was impressed with that. Her daughter didn't actually talk at all and yet managed to convey the message that she was not talking on purpose at this point in time. It was cute but slightly infuriating.

By the time they got home, Elly was in the worst mood possible. The car trip had been hot and there was an accident, causing traffic to back up for over an hour. If there was one thing that Jennie didn't need right now, it was a grumpy four-year-old. Yet, she had one.

The grumpiness culminated in an almighty tantrum on the living room floor. The child managed to throw it without making a sound. Had she spoken, Jennie supposed she probably would have woken the dead, but instead she threw the most impressive silent tantrum the blonde had ever seen.

It ended with Jennie picking her up off the floor and dumping Elly in her bedroom, on her bed, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it.