Jennie Kim always liked music. Loved it, actually. For her music was a way to communicate emotionally. A way to understand her happiness, sadness, rage, fear, envy, etc…Whatever the emotion is that she needed to feel, music allowed her to sit back and just feel whatever it was happening. She loved the fact that song lyrics can say what a person would like to but cannot. She loved how even on instrumental pieces the composer could tell a story and you could feel it even if there were no lyrics involved.

It all started when her mother passed away, she felt this indescribable, unfillable hole in her chest that no matter how much water she drank, how much food her grandma gave her, how much hugs she received it just couldn’t be filled. And then one day her dad plays her “Pictures of You.” by The Cure and although that hole remained unfilled she noticed she didn’t feel as empty when she listened to that song.

So she started asking her dad to play her more songs. If she said ‘Dad, I feel sad today.’ He’d play something like “Seasons in the sun” by Terry Jacks, if she said ‘Dad, I feel happy today.’ he’d play something like “Just Can’t Get Enough.” by Depeche Mode and if they’d go on the road to visit her uncles he’d play something like “Gimmie All Your Lovin’” by ZZ Top.

And that’s how her love for music started. As she grew she started adding to her music collection through things she’d hear on TV or on on the radio and then one day she discovered she could work on making music. She grew up wanting to make music, of course her teens came and they moved to the small town that was Riverfall and she thought well… I’m not making music here, how can you make music in such a small place?

All it took was one comment from a broody, yet enthusiastic tall dancer and a heartbreak to make up her mind. If you can’t make music here, then you go where music can be made, and so she made her choice, when the time came she’d apply for an internship in LA and go to college in LA.

When people think of LA they of it as the place where you go make your dreams come true, Jennie certainly did. When she first got there it was amazing, she’d found herself a nice little apartment she shared with a quiet yet nice girl from the same college, apparently neither wanted to deal with in campus living, she had an internship at a record company which hired her shortly after college, she had a long distance relationship with her girlfriend, she stayed in touch with Jisoo, so her life was great.

Fast forward four years later, and instead of dreams, Jennie found nightmares. She’d lost her girlfriend, her job , Jisoo was too busy to stay in touch as much as they used to, her new roommate was a , her passion, her drive it was all gone. If everything was so great before she wondered when exactly was it that everything went wrong?

“Jennie, I love you, and I want us to be together forever.”

“Chae, wait…”

There, right there is where it all went wrong. She never said yes to Rosie, hell she didn’t even let her ask the question. All she wanted was to wait, they were young and they had barely seen in each other, hell they almost broke up because of it and here she was asking for forever. She left her that same night. Jennie never told Chaeyoung this until two years after their marriage, but she went looking for her after that night.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Irene asks her wife as they both cuddled on the couch after dinner. It was late at night so it was strange to hear their doorbell ringing at this hour.

Shaking her head Seulgi, gets up to open the door. Pulling open the door the frown on her face deepens. “Jennie.” She looks past her waiting to see Chaeyoung as the girl had left four days ago with a ring on her pocket, but she sees no one else. And that’s when she notices the way her arms are wrapped around her waist, her eyes glassy.

“Where is she?” She asks Seulgi, not even saying hello. “Seulgi, I need to talk to her.” Her voice filled with something keen of desperation.

“Are you….She’s not here.” She wanted to ask if she was okay but something in the way Jennie looked and the way she asked told Seulgi she didn’t have time for pleasantries. “I… Jen, I promise you she’s not here.” She clarifies. “Have you…”

“Chaeyoung!” Jennie yells inviting herself to their house.

“Jennie?” Irene asks when she hears her yelling getting up from the couch and frowning at the state of her friend. “What is going on?” She asks her and then looks at her wife who shakes her head. “Jen, you are kind of freaking us out here.”

“Where is she?” Jennie asks again.

“Who? Chaeyoung? I don’t know we thought…” She trails off when she sees her wife shaking her head and waving her phone with her right hand. Seulgi texted Chaeyoung quickly receiving a text stating that she was okay and in New York and it’s in that moment that Seulgi puts two and two together, her wife doing so shortly after. “Look, I’ll call her.”

Irene calls her and that’s when she learns the whole truth, Jennie saying no, Chaeyoung getting a deal as songwriter, her leaving from LA to New York and suddenly Jennie being here in her living room made a lot of sense. When she hangs up Jennie looks at her hopeful and so she treads lightly when she speaks next. “She’s okay… um, how about you sit down?” She gently asks her.

“We have whiskey.” Seulgi says knowing that it was probably the only way to make Jennie sit down and talk.

Soon enough Seulgi and Irene sat in their pajamas flanking Jennie on the coach, a bottle of whiskey on their coffee table, a glass on Jennie’s hands, and a cup of coffee on each of their hands because they both have a feeling this would be a long night.

“I didn’t even let her finish and I just could see it in her eyes, the heartbreak and then… then she was gone.” Jennie sniffles and drains her glass. “She was gone, and I… God I can’t believe that this...love that we struggled with for so long, that I ran away from because it scared me so much and that we fought so hard for it’s over, just like that.” She reaches for the bottle and pours the rest of it on her glass. “Maybe I should’ve said yes.”

Seulgi and Irene look at each other and ultimately is the raven haired woman who talks, because she has always been better at words than Seulgi. “Jennie, look… I can’t pretend I understand it, but you are not ready to give up on LA, you are not ready to get married, that much is clear. “ She tells hers. “And that’s okay.” She quickly answers when she hears the girl about to respond. “You forcing yourself would not end up much differently.” It was hard to hear, but it was the truth. “I think you both just need to talk.”

“How?” Jennie asks them. “She’s gone, how are we supposed to talk if she’s not even answering her phone? Not that I blame her for avoiding me.”

“Jen…” Seulgi starts. “Chaeyoung is in New York right now, there’s a producer there who is interested in her songs, so she’s not avoiding you.” Lies. “It’s just bad timing, that’s all.”

That night she makes Irene and Seulgi promise to not tell Chaeyoung she was there. In her mind it was easier for both them that way. She now knows Irene spoke to Chaeyoung when she came back to Riverfall, gave her a piece of her mind and repeatedly told her the importance of communicating, listening and not leaving important conversations unfinished,

But in the end it didn’t matter how much the talked. To Jennie it all hurt just the same, Chaeyoung had walk out on her, walked out on them, on their forever. Her mom was gone, her dad left, Jisoo left and now she did too. People always leave. And yet the years passed and Jennie still felt the same, still felt the same guilt, the same emptiness. When Chaeyoung called her again she thought maybe this was a new start, like that was the moment she’d get another shot. And when she sees her with someone else… well Jennie thought it made sense because why would they deserve another chance? Why would she get another shot?

And so more time passed, and you’d think a lot would have changed, but no. For Jennie, she felt almost like when her mom passed. Everyone moving forward but her, everyone growing while she stayed stuck in the same place. Still in love with Chaeyoung, still moping around, still buying every stupid thing that had her name on it.

One day it all just got to be too much, what made LA so interesting and dreamy before was long gone, music didn’t fill her as it use to, the pretences, the heartbreaks, the broken dreams. It was all too much. So she wasted no time in quitting her job and booking a plane ticket home. Because that’s where she belonged.

It was about time she found herself again.

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Seeing Chaeyoung again was like a breath of fresh air. She has to admit she wasn’t expecting to see her. After she got settled with Jisoo the brunette decided to go for a walk to get reacquainted with the town, although she only had one destination in mind. Riverfall’s bridge. That bridge has always been special to her, it was the place she came to think when she needed peace.

Her heels clicked as they hit the concrete and she looked at the rail to see the faded names on the locks they left there on graduation night. She smiled to herself and then looked up as she heard the voice she has missed for two years. She turns around and the moment her eyes locked with hers it was as if the axis that the her world spinned on snapped back into place and her world started spinning again.

And then she blurts out she was with someone else. Flashbacks come to her mind to when she saw her in LA. And then just like that her world stops spinning again. She expected it, how could she not. Of course Chaeyoung wouldn’t be single for long. She hoped otherwise, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

She then meets Hyeri and can’t help but chuckle because of course. Of course she’s the one she’d dating, she saw them together in L.A. and Jennie wonders how could she expect anything else. The girl is beautiful and she hates how she’s genuingly nice, so much so she feels guilty for doubting her intentions.

She tries to fight it, tells everyone that she didn’t come here for Chaeyoung even thought she knows that’s the sole reason she came back here. And the fact that Chaeyoung insists on helping her, on being nice to her, just confuses her and makes her heart beat wildly in her chest, because they were never friends, despite what it looked like they were always something more, there was always something pulling them together.

“Look we were in a relationship… we can’t pretend we didn’t but before that we were really close friends, there’s no reason we can’t have that again right?”

“Right.”

She sees her constantly and everywhere she goes Hyeri seems to be with her and then Jennie starts hating herself when even she starts calling Hyeri… Chaeyoung’s Hyeri, as if there was any other Hyeri in town. A blessing in disguise is when the girl leaves to New York for a week. Jennie never tells Hyeri that her and Chaeyoung went to some sort of “date” while she was gone, both Jennie and Chaeyoung needed a date to Jisoo’s store opening. At least per Jisoo they needed a date and couldn’t show up alone, and so they went together, on date, as friends. And is on that night that her guilt starts turning into anger…

Jennie and Chaeyoung spend the night together, it was somewhat awkward but yet familiar. And it’s not until Chaeyoung leaves to talk to Jisoo that she heads to bar and starts talking to somebody else, the thing about a broken heart is you become talented in talking to bartenders.

“Ready to go?” Chaeyoung asks her when she comes back. Placing a hand on the small of her back, just like she always used to do.

Jennie sends a smirk to the bartender. “Actually, I think I’m gonna stay. So… good night.”

The blonde eyes the bartender quickly and before she knows it she’s leaning towards her and tingles run up her spine when she feels her standing close behind her. “He’s not good enough for you.” She whispers.

And that’s everything inside her snapped because God dammit she was trying to move on!

“Don’t do that!” She yells when she catches up to Chaeyoung outside the store.

“Do what?” She asks casually.

“He’s not good enough for you!” She imitates her angrily. “I don’t want you saying things like that to me, Chaeyoung! That’s not fair to me! That’s not fair to Hyeri either!”

She yelled at her because how dare she, how dare she move on, leave her, walk away from their forever and how dare she keep the hold on her heart so tight she cannot think of anything else. And then the fiasco in her office happens, and Jennie gets even more angry because again how dare she insinuate she didn’t care, as if she didn’t pick up the phone countless of times only to back out everytime out of fear of hearing Chaeyoung say she hates her, as if she didn’t went looking for her, as if she didn’t keep those magazines, those albums so well kept like if her own life depended on it, as if she didn’t love her.

And then she finally admits it, she should’ve said yes, she should’ve fought harder, she should’ve gone to New York to find her. She shouldn’t have let her go. Yes she was young, yes she was scared, but wasn’t she the same way all through high school? Didn’t all those times of hurting herself and others enough for her to learn that running away with fear does not lead to anywhere good?

“You still love me don’t you?”

Her question went unanswered and if she had learned anything about avoidance is that you avoid talking about those things you can’t admit. And then she talks to Jisoo and she lets herself be convinced that there is still a chance, because there is just no way, that a story like theirs can end like that.

But she was wrong.

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“Do you think maybe Hyoyeon will let us out early so we can watch a move?”

The sound of her voice came out playful, sad, bittersweet. She let her go. She had to. Chaeyoung had stood in her office a few days earlier, yelling at her, asking why she wouldn’t, why she couldn't let her go before. She had her reasons. But the past conversations they’ve had has showed her that sometimes it hurt more to hold on that letting go. That is she wanted to salvage whatever was left of her relationship with Chaeyoung she needed to let her go.

She sat on a old bench by the bridge, looking out over the lights shimmering in the water, she kept breathing in deeply the night air to try and ease the tightness she felt in her chest. In front of her, lay a constant reminder of everything they used to have. “R + J = TLA” That’s what they had written on their lock. True Love Always.

Those locks now sat there forgotten as the people they used to be and the promises they had made. What was intended to be a promise between them was now a painful reminder of everyday she’d left behind. A painful reminder of the life she used to have with her. The moment she gathered courage she needed to let her go because Jennie didn’t think she had it in her to keep going otherwise.

She had let her go. And it was fine, everything would be fine. Maybe that’s way it should be.

“I hate you. “

Those were the words leaving her lips. Directed at her. The words that broke her heart, the words she had fear so much to hear had finally come out of her lips. The girl who had always been the one to fix her heart, to save her was the one breaking it. And it . Because when Hyeri left she let herself once again be convinced that her and Chaeyoung were meant to be forever.

She needed Chaeyoung. She's where her heart is. And it doesn’t matter how much she pretends to come back for some other reason, how much she tells her she has let her go, how much she flirts with other people, the truth is that it would always come back to her. Nothing made sense, she felt as incomplete as she did three years ago and she has a feeling she will always stay that way. So she might as well get to use it right?

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Jennie Kim hated the idea of of marriage. She dreamed of it once upon a time, the idea of forever with someone. But then her mother passed away, her father got the job at the dredging boat. Her relatives were pretty much non existent. She moved away leaving her friends behind. So she started thinking what is the point of forever with someone if they’ll always leave anyways.

Granted, Jennie knows this thought comes from the way her mother's death affected her. Her dad got the job shortly after and Jennie could see the change in him, that sadness changing into happiness again. And so Jennie always felt like he moved on without her, he found happiness again while she remained stuck in the same place.

And so she gave up the idea of happiness. And she was happy with that until one Park Chaeyoung happened. She just barged into her life one day and no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t get rid of her. And then when she least expected it she found that she was happy to let her stay. You see Chaeyoung didn’t force her presence on Jennie’s life, had Jennie not come back to her, not listened to her, not open up to her she wouldn’t have stayed.

Jennie Kim will become Jennie Park.

When she heard that, she notices she didn’t mind. And that maybe that dream of getting married she had when she was five had never really gone away. But rather had gone dormant waiting for her Princess so it could wake up. Her princess who was not perfect a lot, but she was imperfect in a way that made her perfect for her.

So, of course when she asked her to marry her she couldn’t say no. Not again. She learned her lesson. This time she didn’t let her finish either but it wasn’t fear who made stopped her now, no, it was eagerness, she was eager to start their new life together so much so she took control over her own proposal, she just couldn’t wait anymore.

Jennie Kim never pictured herself setting up a nursery, singing lullabies, buying little clothes and little shoes. Never was really a fan of them. And then Park Chaeyoung happened, she found, she wanted to have little versions of her because the world needed more Park Chaeyoungs in it.

And that’s how she finds herself sitting with her beautiful Ella Park bundled up in her baby blanket on her arms, this little girl with Chaeyoung’s eyes, looking up at her stealing every bit of her heart every single time as her wife sits by the piano playing a slow down version of an old lullaby.

Jennie Kim lost her mom at a young age. Her loss leaving an unfillable hole in her heart.

Jennie Kim didn’t believe in the idea of forever.

Jennie Kim didn’t see herself having kids.

But Jennie Park… Jennie Park felt complete, Jennie Park felt loved, Jennie Park fought for her forever and Jennie Park was holding her forever.