To think she could sink so low. To think she was so willing to hurt us. That’s the thing.

                  I didn’t think.

                  We’d sacrificed so much for her. We gave up opportunities and pushed back schedules for her. We wasted money for her.

                  And if I could’ve, I would’ve kept doing it.

                  But I couldn’t. No, we couldn’t keep bending over backwards for her. It wasn’t fair to the group…or the fans.

                  Everything was fine, until August. Something unexpected occurred. It had the potential to devastate this group. The rest of us weren’t expecting it to happen so soon. She told us, NO, she promised us next year. She promised to wait until next year.

                  She broke her promise. She lied.

                  We wanted to be supportive of Jessica. But she made it damn near impossible. Whenever we tried to talk she would be stubborn, despite what she did.

                  Things kept going downhill. She would’ve leave the country for immeasurable amounts of time without telling anyone. She’d miss practices and recordings. The only time we would see her was at performances. The rest of us grew agitated but we could never stay angry at her. But our manager did.

                  He became fed up with her lack of dedication. He grew tired of wasting money.

                  The rest of us tried talking to her. Tried to persuade her to hold off on her brand, but she wouldn’t budge.

                  The last time we met was terrible. Hyoyeon, Sooyoung, and Sunny yelled and ranted at Jessica for being so selfish. Tiffany cried because she couldn’t understand how Jessica could be so cold about this. Yuri tried to calm down Soo, Hyo, and Sunny while pleading with Jessica to cooperate. Seohyun shed angry tears as she yelled at Jessica for lying to us and jeopardizing the group. She’d never said anything the previous times we met up, the anger must’ve built up over time. Yoona just held Seohyun back until Seo broke down and curled up into a ball of tears and anger.

                  And me. What did I do?

                  I waited. I waited for the girls to let out all of their frustrations.

                  *Flashback*

                  “Look, Jessica, I understand how much Blanc means to you and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of that. But this has gone too far. We’ve sacrificed so much for you to achieve your dream but you treat us like we’re trying to hold you back.”

                  Jessica looked at me emotionlessly.

                  “You made promises to us and you’ve broken all of them. You’ve become a deterance to our goals and dreams as a group,” I said. “It has become all too clear that you cannot possibly tackle the responsibilities of being in this group while focusing on your company.”

                  I looked to the others for reassurance. Sunny gave me a nod for encouragement. I chewed nervously on my bottom lip.

                  I held the title in this group as our leader. It wasn’t necessary before, but in the midst of our current situation it was time for me to step up and assert myself as a leader. As Girls’ Generation’s leader.

                  “After much deliberation between the members and I, we’ve decided it is in Girls’ Generation’s best interest that you stick to one responsibility.

                  She looked at me in confusion.

                  “I don’t understand,” she said.

                  “Choose,” I retorted. “It’s either Girls’ Generation or your company, but you can’t have both. Not without the group suffering.”

                  Jessica’s face turned red.

                  “You can’t ask me to do that!”

                  “Yes, we can. You promised us you would launch next year. You lied to us! Then, despite how much GG suffered, you acted like you did nothing wrong!”

                  She walked over to the others.

                  “You can’t possibly agree with this!”

                  Yuri whispered, “You didn’t give us a choice.”
                  Jessica paced back and forth before stopping in the middle of the room.

                  “I thought you were my friends?!”

                  “We thought you were ours,” Sooyoung snapped as she pushed pass Yuri and Sunny. She walked until she was standing in front of Jessica.

                  “We supported you. I even bought three pairs of your expensive sunglasses,” she yelled as she threw the pair of sunglasses hanging off of her shirt.

                  “You’ve been treating this group like dirt. You jeopardized our careers and you didn’t even care.”

                  Jessica glared at us.

                  “I’m going to keep doing Blanc and I’m going to keep being a member of GG, for as long as I want.”

                  I remember casting my head down. I remember hearing the rapid clicking of heels against the linoleum. I thought it was Jessica leaving, until I heard the sound of skin colliding with skin.

                  I looked up and saw Hyoyeon standing between Jessica and Sooyoung, huffing angrily. Sooyoung had a look of pure shock on her face and Jessica’s head was turned to the side. A red mark on her left cheek.

                  “How can you be so selfish,” Hyoyeon questioned. “Don’t you see what is happening to our group?’

                  Jessica held her cheek in her hand. She was shocked but then looked angry. She looked at her phone.

                  “I have a flight to catch,” she stated before grabbing her purse and leaving the room.

                  *End*

                  That was at the beginning of September. She was gone the entire month and didn’t answer our calls or texts.

                  After much more consideration we finally went to Youngmin. We told him everything. He looked deep in thought afterwards then he said he would sleep on it.

                  He called us back the next day and agreed to remove Jessica. He had already emailed her. Later that day we all received multiple angry text messages from Jessica.

                  I remember reading her statement for the first time. I was so angry. How she victimized herself. How she trashed our reputation.

                  I’m reading it again and again. I get angrier and angrier until I push my laptop off the table.

                  “How can she say that, after everything we did for her?”