Best For Me | jensoo

Chapter 12

Jennie jiggled up and down on the front step and shook her hands nervously at her sides. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Jennie, calm down, no-one is going to eat you alive!" Jongin laughed gently.

"My mother might."

"She's not going to. Just calm down. We're doing this together, right?" Jongin sounded so calm and in control. Well, it wasn't his parents he was going to tell; that was next week. On the other hand, it couldn't be that easy walking into your soon-to-be-ex-in-laws house and saying, 'Hi, she's pregnant, we're still getting divorced. See ya!'

Jennie still couldn't shake her butterflies. Jongin squeezed her hand understandingly one last time and then rang the doorbell. Jennie's mother answered it, smiling her pretty smile and, on seeing Jongin, Jennie couldn't help notice that the smile went all the way to her mother's stunning eyes, the exact same shade as their daughter's.

"Jongin, Jennie, it's so good to see you both. Come in, come in." Letting them through the door, she gave her daughter a knowing grin and a squeeze on the shoulder. Jennie rolled her eyes at her mother's retreating back. Trust her mother to read way too much into them coming over together. Well, she should have expected that, really.

They wound their way through the house to the back porch where Elly was safely ensconced in her grandfather's lap with Mr Ruffles grasped in her arms. Seeing Jongin, she hopped down and ran over excitedly and threw herself into his arms, accepting his hugs with giggles.

"Hiya, champ," he said, and Jennie felt like rolling her eyes again. Would he ever remember that Elly couldn't hear him?

Elly's fingers flew, and Jongin looked to Jennie who translated. "She said: 'Daddy, I hurt myself but it's all better now.'" Jennie looked at Jongin pointedly. He had the decency to half-smile ruefully. He kissed Elly gently on her bandage and put her down. Holding Mr Ruffles by one forelorn leg, she ran off to chase her grandparents' cat around the yard.

Jennie sat down at the table after kissing her father on the temple and grabbed a glass of lemonade. She wished that it was something stronger but, even if her parents had something remotely strong on offer, she couldn't anyway.

Funnily enough, it was the first time since becoming pregnant that she had even wanted any alcohol. It was just like her mother to be the one to drive her to drink. Actually, that wasn't fair. It wasn't her mother, so much as Jennie's own anxiety over her mother's response.

Now that Jennie thought about it, leaning back in her chair and regarding her mother tending to Jongin with over friendly gestures, Jennie seemed to care an awful lot about what her mother thought while always being intently fearful of it.

Jennie's gaze narrowed slightly. Why was that? It was awful the way her relationship with her mother had disintegrated.

Jennie sometimes wondered how her mother showered without screaming, "I'm melting, I'm melting... Oh, what a world!" And that was unfair.

Yes, in point of fact, Mrs. Kim had put unfair pressure on Jennie, but it was Jennie who had caved. She was the one who had married a man whom she frankly didn't love because it made her mother happy.

She was the one who had studied things she hadn't wanted to because it made her mother happy. Enough was enough. Jennie loved her mother, and she knew, deep down, that her mother loved her. Only now she was going to have to love Jennie on Jennie's terms and no-one else's.

"Mom," she interrupted Mr. Kim doling out potato salad and caught her dad's attention too. "Can you sit down? We need to tell you something."

Mrs. Kim sat down with a knowing, happy look on her face. Jennie decided to tackle that first.