She never called. 

The phone call she promised was replaced with a simple text of “made it home”, followed by complete silence in days following. You had tried to call. Once, twice, three times. Each time, the only Jennie you heard was the cheery one telling you to leave a message, but you always hung up before she got that far. The first time you had made it through, only to push an “I love you” through sobs and hung up immediately after, feeling stupid for even saying that much. 

And you don’t really know how, but you ended up frozen in front of Jennie’s door on the other side of the world, nearly a month after she had tearfully walked out of your life. Just staring at this door brought back so many memories. All the times Jennie fumbled with her keys while you teasingly placed kisses along the side of her neck. You can still hear her giggling as she tells you to stop long enough so she can open the door. Or, another time you both created a holiday wreath to place on the door, standing in the hallway admiring both of your handiwork after spending nearly an entire day finishing the project, high-fiving as you re-entered the apartment.

Your hands clenched at your sides as you tried your best to keep your tears at bay at the fallen memories. 

You called out of work the day after Jennie had left, only relaying that you were sick. It wasn’t a total lie. You were exhausted from not sleeping the night before and every inch of your body ached from laying on the cold, hard ground. All you wanted to do was crawl under a blanket and be sad, so that’s what you did. 

In the week following, you tried to pull yourself together enough to go to work and get your job done, only to drag yourself back home and fall prisoner to your own thoughts night after night, unable to bring yourself to take coworkers up on their offers to get dinner or go out. Even they were beginning to see a change in you. You kept wondering if there was more you could’ve done, or if you could have fought harder. These thoughts cycled through your brain until you came up with the only solution that would put you at peace. 

You had requested to be transferred back to the main branch of the firm, and as soon as it was approved, you put plans in motion to move back home as fast as you could. Packing proved to be a challenge as you had to bring out all of Jennie’s things that you had hid away for very good reason. Each item seemed to hold its own memory. Jennie, Jennie, Jennie. It’s all you could think of as you packed up each piece, scribbling “JENNIE’S THINGS” in thick black ink on the boxes to be sent with you back home. 

Standing in front of her door, you kept going through what you were going to say to her once you saw her face to face again. You thought about how she would react. Would she be shocked? Happy? Sad? Your mind suddenly went blank. You raised your hand to knock just as you heard loud laughter on the other side of the door. 

Sure, your family and your firm were surprised that you would be moving back home after a very successful professional year away. You were winning tough cases left and right, and you had built up a team of lawyers that was proving to be some of the state’s best. The professional successes couldn’t mask your unhappiness for much longer. You told them you just weren’t happy and never really found your place in America, and that was the end of the conversation. Even though your parents knew what had happened with Jennie, they really didn’t pry. You were happy about that. Otherwise, you’d be forced to face the reality that this maybe wasn’t the best of ideas. 

Time passed as you stood on her doorstep. You couldn’t even be sure how long had gone by while you were lost in your thoughts. It could’ve been an hour or five minutes, but it didn’t really matter. You shook your head free of thoughts one last time before brushing your knuckles across the door. Not too loud or too urgent, just loud enough to be heard in the apartment. 

When you moved back home, you waited another few weeks before actually deciding to pay Jennie a visit. Not being able to hear from Jennie at all made it seem like she never really existed. You passed her apartment building every morning and evening to and from work for days until you finally broke. You don’t know if you fully expected her to welcome you back with open arms, but you came to the conclusion that you needed to try one more time for yourself. 

You heard some footsteps on the other side of the door followed by another loud laugh. The sound of Jennie’s laugh, even through the door, was enough to make a few stray tears finally spill onto your cheeks. You never really thought you’d hear it again. 

The door swung open just as Jennie went to say something over her shoulder, face turned away from you. You were glad that she was smiling at least. At that moment, you couldn’t understand what she was saying. All you knew was that she was standing in front of you again, something you were unsure would happen. You let a small smile curve the edges of your mouth upwards.

She turned around and her expression immediately changed. She squinted at you, confused, as her brows furrowed together. Almost like she couldn’t decipher if it was really you standing at her door. Almost like she had already forgotten what you looked like. 

A weak “surprise…” left your lips at barely above a whisper as you held your arms up and more tears spilled out and down your face. She kept staring at you, confused, shocked and frozen in place. You put your arms down as you heard an unfamiliar voice and some footsteps moving towards the two of you in the apartment. 

“Babe! Who’s there?” She said as she came up behind Jennie and wrapped one arm around her shoulders. You immediately folded into yourself, wiping your tears with the sleeve of your hoodie as you looked away. 

“Oh. I’m sorry. This must be a bad time,” you mumbled out, suddenly dizzy, voice shaky and vision blurring, both of them looking at you confused for different reasons as you stumbled over your words, “um...this was a bad idea, I’ll just be going. Sorry.” 

The hallway was spinning and shrinking and you needed to get out as soon as you could. As you your heels to leave you heard the mystery woman turn to Jennie to say that was weird and ask again if she knew who you were. You kept walking down the hallway to exit, trying to make it out before you could even hear her respond. You were surprised when you heard silence, and even more surprised when just a beat later you heard a voice calling after you. 

“Y/N?” The voice sounded unsure, like her brain was catching up to the situation and finally realizing what was going on. 

“Y/N! Come back!” Her voice raised a little as you could hear her heavy steps getting closer behind you. You kept walking, keeping your gaze forward and hoping she would turn around and go back inside. You really weren’t in the mood to be humiliated more than you already were. 

To your surprise, once you pushed through the door, you could no longer hear her following you. 

You don’t really know why you were surprised. Of course she’s moved on. She looked happy. That’s all you wanted for her. Unfortunately it wasn’t with you, but you could live with your decision to go to her no matter how much it hurt. 

Sliding into your car, you placed your cold hands on the steering wheel, sniffled up the remainder of your tears and drove back home in silence.