Let me remind you this was what you wanted (oh oh oh)
You ended it
You were all I wanted (oh oh oh)
But not like this
Not like this
Not like this
Oh, all you had to do was stay
Hey, all you had to do was stay
Had me in the palm of your hand
Then, why'd you had to go and lock me out when I let you in
Stay, hey, now you say you want it
Back now that it's just too late
Well could've been easy
All you had to do was stay
-
She let out a shaky laugh and leaned back in her seat, giving Jennie a rueful smile. Her palms were clammy as she ran them over her thighs.
"Marry you?" Rosie echoed, her voice hollow and halting. "This is a joke, right?"
Confused hurt crumpled Jennie's expression as she let out a quiet laugh of bewilderment.
"What? No. No, it's not a joke. I- I love you. I want to ... spend the rest of my life with you."
Rosie's heart wrenched in her chest as she gave Jennie a pained look, "I love you too, I-"
"So marry me," Jennie insisted, a childlike look of wonder and earnestness on her upturned face.
Sunlight bathed her skin golden and her eyes were wide, piercing azure and full of so much hope. Rosie gave her a tight smile as she reached out and cupped Jennie's cheek in her hand, tenderly stroking her cheekbone as she looked at her for a long moment.
"I'm only twenty-three, Jennie, I can't get married."
"So we'll have a long engagement."
"Jennie. This is serious ."
With a wide smile, Jennie's eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement, "of course it's serious. That's why I'm down on one knee. Ring and all."
Running a hand through her hair, Rosie opened and closed her mouth for a few moments, speechless in the face of such a proposal. As she floundered, Jennie's impish look of delight dropped, slowly retracting into a wounded look of disappointment.
"Oh. So ... no?"
Stomach lurching, Rosie jerked forward, reaching out with desperation to graze her fingers along the underside of Jennie's jaw, along her shoulders and the side of her neck, reassuring herself with touch.
"No, no, it's not- it's not no , but I- I can't just ... make a decision like this. I need time to think- there's a lot- it's- it's a big decision. And not one I can make lightly."
With a tight-lipped smile, Jennie's slender fingers curled around the ring in her palm, hiding it from sight as she clenched her hand into a fist. She reached up and cradled Rosie's face in her other hand and tenderly stroked her thumb over her cheekbone.
"Take a few days. Think on it," Jennie whispered.
Relief washed through Rosie, followed by a flicker of fear and guilt, and then a softer flutter of desire, of urgency, and she leant forward to gently press her lips against Jennie's, putting as much love into it as she could.
She pulled back and gazed at Jennie for a few moments, before the kneeling woman climbed to her feet and gave her a crooked smile as she looked down over her, her shadow falling across Rosie's face.
"I should go home."
"Wait," Rosie blurted out, rising quickly to her feet and taking Jennie's hand in her own. "You don't have-"
"I know. But I think I should. I think ... maybe I should give you space while you decide."
Swallowing thickly, Rosie ducked her head down and nodded slowly. The thought of being apart from Jennie without necessity chafed against her, but Rosie knew that it would be easier for her to make her mind up without having Jennie around, giving her expectant looks or fidgeting restlessly as she waited.
It was further motivation for herself too, to make up her mind as soon as possible, but all Rosie really wanted was to be sure that things wouldn't change, regardless of her decision. Somehow, she wasn't sure that they wouldn't. With the question of marriage came the sudden rearing of her old fears, of that feeling that she was watching the end approach before it had even begun.
Jennie stepped in closer and kissed her on the forehead, giving her arm a gentle squeeze before stepping back and smiling down at her. The air was warm and sweet with the fragrance of flowers but the day seemed at a close, despite the earliness of the evening. Their barely touched dinner still crowded the end of the patio table, unfinished and almost forgotten about, until Jennie jerked her chin towards it.
"You should finish eating. A home-cooked meal will do you some good."
"Alright," Rosie weakly chuckled, trailing after her girlfriend as they rounded the table and slipped inside.
Jennie took a cooling cookie from the tray in the kitchen, taking a bite and smiling as if she didn't have a care in the world, before she slipped her shoes on and crouched to ruffle the velvety fur of Hank's head. She was still wearing Rosie's floral robe when she stepped outside, keys to her car in hand, and they said goodnight. Rosie was sure to tell her she loved her and they chastely kissed with troubled thoughts, before parting ways.
Clearing away the dinner outside, Rosie obediently shovelled a few more mouthfuls of risotto into her mouth and cut a slice of the brownies Jennie had baked. With a cup of green tea in hand, two sleeping pills safely tucked beneath her curled fingers and the slice of babka, Rosie retired to her bedroom.
The room felt cold with disuse, too neat to look lived in, despite the touches of her belongings and decor. Depositing her tea and snacks onto the bedside table, Rosie switched the TV on and put an episode of Friends on, before changing into a pair of pyjamas. Beneath the silk sheets, she swallowed the pills with a swig of tea and watched the figures on the screen, blurred without her contacts in, slowly making her way through the brownies as she savoured the sweetness of the chocolate Jennie had baked into it.
She fell asleep propped up on a stack of pillows, a plate full of pastry abandoned in her lap as the sleeping pills crept up on her.
Midday sun woke her with a sliver of periwinkle sky visible through the window. Her mouth tasted powdery from the sleeping pills and she took a sip of stone-cold tea from the nearly full cup beside the bed, rinsing her dry mouth out with the earthy taste as she blearily blinked through the harsh sunlight streaming in.
Thoughts of Jennie were the first to come to mind, and with startling clarity, Rosie realised that the proposal hadn't been a dream. It had been as real as anything else in their relationship, another spike in what they'd tried so hard to keep off the radar. Each blip made things more difficult, and a proposal was perhaps the biggest of them yet. Rosie didn't think that they'd be able to settle things back down after this.
Still, she wasn't quite sure of her answer. The easy option was to just remain indecisive, to save herself the added stress, to take the cowardly way out and refuse to commit to either answer. Then there was the overwhelming part of her that wanted to say yes. Rosie loved Jennie, she was sure of that, had always been sure of that. She wanted to say yes just based on that alone, even though she knew it was a bad idea. Saying yes meant she could be happy with Jennie, have some reassurance that they would last. It would be easy.
But then there was the part of her, the quiet, reasonable part, that whispered no. There was no conceivable way that Rosie could see herself saying yes and it being easy. No matter how badly she wanted to, she just couldn't see a future where she was allowed that freedom to choose for herself. Sure, she could say yes, but there was no way she'd be allowed to come out, to throw the towel in on her career, give up everything she'd worked hard for. But that didn't mean she wanted to pick her career over Jennie either.
She could have both. She was young, too young to be thinking about marriage, and surely they could wait a little longer. Her team might even warm to the idea, given the time. Rosie was sure of it, seeing no reason why she couldn't have everything. In her foolish naivety, she allowed herself to push her concerns aside and focus on unwinding at home for the first time in what felt like forever.
After a bath, some freshly squeezed orange juice and some toast, Rosie sat outside in the warmth and absorbed herself in a novel. It was a pleasant day, the sun shining, birds flitting through the trees and the juice tart in her mouth as she dutifully flipped the page after her eyes had finished scanning it. Rosie didn't take in a single word.
Finding herself restless, shoulders bunching up as she slouched, she ended up slamming the book shut and heading back inside. Changing into a pair of leggings and a baggy t-shirt, she tugged a cap low over her face and clipped a leash onto Hank's collar, before stepping out of the front door.
Having gotten into the habit of wandering around with a bodyguard attached to her like a second shadow, Rosie felt almost paranoid as she wandered through the wide, neat streets, watching the air shimmer like a mirage where the sun heated the asphalt of the road. Hank trotted dutifully alongside her, tongue lolling as the warm air breezed past. The desert air drifting in on the wind was dry and dusty and Rosie found her pace quickening to a brisk walk, her frustration and confusion fighting to find its way out.
Up through the foothills, she jogged with the little dog keeping pace, until her damp shirt clung to her and her skin was beaded with sweat. Mouth dry and calf muscles aching, she grit her teeth and continued along a narrow alley upwards, the back of her neck prickling from the heat, yet Rosie didn't stop. She didn't stop until she couldn't walk any further, and then she stopped beneath the sparse shade of a desert willow with pale pink flowers.
Leaning against the trunk, she dropped Hank's leash from numb, sweaty fingers and watched him sniff the dry, cracked earth as she tried to catch her breath. Feeling limp and drained, Rosie listened to her heart pound in her chest as her thoughts turned back to Jennie. She wondered what she was doing, whether she should call her and if she'd come over if Rosie asked her to.
The truth was that she was confused. Rosie felt all alone in it, with no one to turn to as a voice of reason. Her mother would tell her she was too young to be thinking of marriage, too inexperienced to even know if Jennie was the one. Park Chanyeol would sooner break them up than even hear a whisper of the idea, and Irene and Hyeri would give her pitiful consolations, while ultimately siding with Chanyeol. Rosie didn't know who else to turn to. The truth was that she didn't have any close friends she trusted enough to talk to about that. Not that there weren't people she trusted, friends who knew about her and Jennie - they just weren't people Rosie would talk to about this.
Instead, after catching her breath and calling Hank over, she set off back home and took a cold shower, before sitting down to try and figure things out. It took her nearly three days before she settled on an answer.
It was devastating. Heartbreakingly crushing, but the right option. Rosie knew it all along and realised she'd only been trying to talk herself out of actually confronting the reality. There was no easy way to reject Jennie, no way to do it without hurting her, but Rosie knew that there was no other option. She couldn't say yes. And a maybe was just full of false hope.
The evening she made her decision, she skipped dinner on accounts of the queasiness tying her stomach into knots and grabbed her keys. Jennie's house was close enough for her to decide on walking, taking the extra time to breathe in the fresh air and clear her mind, steeling herself for the talk ahead of her. With each step, she grew more reluctant to continue, but she knew she had to.
With a heavy heart, Rosie arrived at Jennie's house and used the access code to the small gate beside the gated driveway and let herself through. Her feet scuffed the gravel driveway as she dragged her feet, clinging to the last few moments of normalcy before she tore off the band-aid and opened a wound in Jennie's heart. Rosie hoped she'd be able to see reason, to understand why, but even if she did, Rosie wasn't so sure that they'd be okay. There was only so much she could ask of Jennie, only so much time she could ask for.
Mounting the steps leading up to the door, Rosie raised her leaden hand and knocked with a sense of foreboding. Yellow light seeped out of the window set into the wooden door and she felt a lump form in her throat as she watched a dark shadow partially obscure it, before the door was yanked open to reveal Jennie.
As radiant as ever, a glass of wine in hand and a look of delighted surprise on her face, Jennie filled the doorway and smiled brightly at Rosie. "Oh, it's you! You should've called; I would've saved you some dinner."
"I already ate," Rosie lied, her voice barely a whisper. "Can I come in?"
Whether it was her tone, whatever Jennie read on her face, or perhaps the assumption that she might not be invited in after all, Jennie's expression fell as Rosie finished speaking. She paused for a moment, wine glass lowering and the look of warmth and happiness fading, before stepping back with jerky motions.
"Oh. You've decided."
Quickly following her inside, Rosie shut the door behind her and then held her hands out as if to calm Jennie, to keep her at bay like she was soothing a wild animal. "No, just listen-"
"I guess that's that then."
"Jennie, I-"
Rosie cut off then, trailing into silence as she found herself unable to get the words past the lump in her throat. She felt like she didn't have enough air in her lungs, couldn't breathe past the heavy weight pressing on her chest. It was like she could feel her heart breaking as the guilt ate away at her.
"No, go on," Jennie said with a wan smile, "I deserve an explanation at least, right?"
Deflating, shoulders drooping and chest caving in, Rosie made a small sound of protest. It was pitiful and her eyes filled with tears as she gave Jennie a pleading look, urging her to understand.
With a shaky in-drawn breath, Rosie reached for her, but neither of them moved to close the distance.
"I'm twenty-three!" Rosie finally exclaimed, her voice loud in the echoey foyer of the old house, a chill emanating from the stone. "I'm too young to be- to make a decision like this."
"I'm only two years older than you," Jennie countered with a mournful look on her face, "two years older and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I want to marry you."
"But it's different for me!" Rosie cried, pressing her hand to her chest, desperately grabbing at the cotton of her shirt. "You know that it's different. It's not fair for you to ask me to make a decision like this!"
With a choked sound of surprise, Jennie's pale eyebrows rose and her eyes widened a fraction. "Fair? I'm in the same situation as you. We're in this together. We can be in this together too!"
Closing her eyes, Rosie fought against the stinging feeling building up behind and swallowed the fluttering feeling in her throat, the urge to cry creeping up on her. Frustration welled up too, smouldering anger at Jennie's blindness to their predicament.
"We are in this together! I don't understand why we have to change it. It's good," Rosie said, her voice softening as she opened her eyes again, fixing Jennie with her stare. "It's good. We're good right now. I don't- why mess with it?"
"Because I love you! I love you and I want a future with you, and if I'm being honest, I don't think you do."
Jennie's voice broke slightly at the end, her breathing hitching on a barely stifled sob as she took a half-step towards Rosie. Her brown eyes were accusing and heavy where they landed on Rosie, and she looked down as shame crawled over her, making her cheeks redden.
"I do," Rosie said after a long pause.
Her brow crumpled with confusion and she balled her hands into fists. "I want a future with you. But not now. I can't marry you now."
"I'm not asking you to marry me right now," Jennie laughed, high and breathless, "I just want to know that you want to marry me too. Someday."
"I don't know when someday is. I'm still trying to make it to the next time I come back! You left me - twice - and I love you but if I- if I say yes ... it'll just be more painful if you go again. And ... honestly ... I'm not sure if I- if I'll ever be allowed to-"
With a scoff, Jennie gave her a contemptuous look. "Allowed. Of course this is about them. Have you ever made a decision for yourself? None of them owns you, Rosie! You can choose this for yourself. I don't want anything from you; I don't want to control you. I just- I just want you to be happy. I thought I made you happy."
"You do! Of course you do," Rosie said, exhaling sharply as if she'd been punched in the chest. "But you know I can't make this decision for myself. I still have two more albums to make for Chanyeol. Maybe after that-"
"Two more records? Do you hear yourself? You want me to wait that long for you to make up your mind? To decide if I'm worth the risk for you. That's going to be five years, Rosie. Five years. And what assurance do I get out of that, huh? I'm supposed to hide who I am for five more years and trust that you'll come out and we can publicly be together afterwards?"
"No, that's not- I don't want you to hide. I want you to be open about yourself, to come out if that's what you want. I'll love you as much as ever ... but I can't risk getting caught up in that myself. You know it. And getting engaged ... that'll just make it harder for us. I don't want you to be a secret."
"I already am."
"Can we just- can we talk about this properly? Let's sit down and-"
With a choked laugh, Jennie gave her a wry smile, her brown eyes crystalline with a sheen of tears. One slid down her tanned cheek and was hastily brushed away as she sniffed. The sight broke Rosie's heart.
"What? And drink coffee while you go into detail about how you don't see a future with me? I think I'll pass on that. You can leave; I'll call you tomorrow."
Stepping towards her, Rosie reached out as her face crumpled into a desolate look. Casting her eyes aside, Jennie studied the stone floor and pretended not to notice the hand Rosie held out, as if to comfort her, and left her to halt in stride and limply drop her hand back down to her side.
"I want a future with you," Rosie cautiously continued, despite the dismissal, "but now's not- it's not a good time, and I-"
"When is?" Jennie weakly chuckled. "Please, tell me when it's convenient for you. My offer's not going anywhere."
With a heavy sigh, Rosie closed the gap between them and wrapped Jennie in a tight hug, kissing her temple and feeling the birdlike bones of her willowy body as she buried her face into her shoulder.
"I don't know," Rosie cried into her shirt, her words muffled and distorted.
Her eyes stung with tears that she let fall, dampening Jennie's clothes, and she sniffed and exhaled softly against the solid warmth she clung to.
"I don't know, and I- I'm sorry. I wish that I could, but-"
"You can't," Jennie whispered, her breath grazing Rosie's cheek as the words came out like a resigned sigh.
A gentle hand stroked her dark hair and Rosie's heart ached painfully in her chest. "But I love you. I don't want you to go; I don't-"
Jennie stiffened beneath her touch and Rosie pulled back, looking up at her with sad, searching brown eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Her lips parted with a shuddering breath and she waited with bated breath and fear gripping her.
With a bitter smile, Jennie reached up and touched her face, lips pressed tightly together and a smattering of freckles across her nose, and she briefly let her forehead fall against Rosie's, before pulling back again.
"I promised you I wouldn't leave again without us talking about it first," Jennie softly said, her hands sliding down to cradle Rosie's hips. "And now we have. And I don't know if I can wait as long as you're asking me to. Not without any promises that we'll be together at the end of it."
"Please," Rosie choked out.
Quietly hushing her, Jennie gave her a watery smile and sighed wistfully as she wiped another tear from her cheek, before reclaiming her hold on Rosie's body.
"Okay. If you want me to, I will."
Bewilderment crumpled Rosie's brow, quickly followed by the twisted look of outrage as she jerked backwards. Cheeks reddening, Rosie swallowed as much of her anger as she could.
"I don't want you to stay for me," Rosie sharply replied, "I want you to stay because you want to."
"I don't," Jennie quietly admitted, "but not like this."
Shock flitted across Rosie's face as she was rocked with sickening understanding. "Oh."
"You won't budge on this," Jennie quickly continued, reaching for Rosie again and encircling her wrists with her long fingers.
They were warm against Rosie's skin, like brands shackling her to the spot as embarrassment made her want to run.
"And neither will I. But I won't make you choose something you don't want; not for me. So I- the only thing to do is just ... end it. End it for good. It's better for both of us," Jennie said, nodding solemnly as she said it, as if convincing herself as well as Rosie. "That way we can both move on."
"No," Rosie whispered, her voice low and harsh, her eyes fiercely bright with stubbornness.
"Tell me something; do you ever picture our future? Do you see us, retired, old, kids and grandkids and a faraway house, forgotten about by the rest of the world? Do you see that when you envision your future? Tell me that and I'll stay. I'll wait. But ... be honest."
Rosie paused for a moment. The truth was that she didn't. The only future she saw for herself was one full of critical acclaim, a long list of awards and achievements, immortalising herself in the history books as one of the greatest artists of all time. She didn't see any of what Jennie spoke of; not even the kids. In Rosie's future, no one forgot who she was. She made them remember with album after album and record-breaking tours. They'd still be screaming her name when she was sixty years old, playing her greatest hits, and it was a devastating blow to realise that.
The answer was written all over her face and Jennie looked at her with so much sympathy that all of Rosie's suppressed emotions overflowed. She fell apart with her face buried into Jennie's shoulder, hands bunched up in the fabric of her shirt, and she breathed in the smell of her perfume for perhaps the last time.
"I can't see myself with anyone."
"And that's okay," Jennie whispered in her hair, her lips brushing it as she pressed her face as close to Rosie as possible. "As long as it's what you want."
"I want you."
"But only for now. And I want more than just now. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
-
"So, you see, really, I did it to myself," Rosie said, her voice soft and miserable as she leant forward on the armchair, elbows braced on her knees and shoulders curled inwards. "And that's not even the worst part."
"What is?" Nayeon asked, gentle and curious as she leaned forward, almost mirroring Rosie's movements in complete thrall to her story.
With a weak laugh, Rosie smiled bitterly, wiping a stray hair out of her face as she sighed faintly. "She called me a week later. She said she wanted me back. But I was already gone, and I didn't think there was any coming back from that this time. And I don't blame her for leaving, but I'm mad, because she- she wanted to come back, but I was angry that she didn't stay so I ... I pushed her away, just like she did to me."
"Why'd you do it?"
The bluntness of Nayeon's tone jerked Rosie out of her reverie as she blinked with surprise. Drawing in a deep breath, filling herself up, Rosie straightened and gave her a questioning look, arching one eyebrow.
"Say no. Why? Because it sounds to me like you just didn't want the inconvenience that came with saying yes."
"Well, I- yes, I suppose you're right, in some aspect. But it was more that just being inconvenienced. It was ... fear. I was scared, and I know my whole image is to be fearless and all of that, but it's wasn't quite as easy as that. This was deeply personal. This wasn't a silly song or a coy remark dropped in an interview, hinting at something that other people thought was shockingly brazen of a young woman. This was a part of me that was such a big secret that I knew it, in my soul, that we would be found out. A secret relationship was one thing, but an engagement was something else entirely."
"Do you regret it?"
Rosie was silent for so long, unmoving and stony-faced, that it was like she'd turned into a statue. One could almost imagine that she hadn't heard the question, but there was a barely visible twinge in her jaw as a muscle jump, and eventually she deflated, slumping in a despondent hunch as she ran a hand over her face.
"I regret it every day."