Jessica spotted Tiffany immediately by the bar table. She quietly settled down Kyungsan at one of the booths, telling him he could order anything on the menu while she went to talk to mama. Her son nodded and gave her a hug for good luck before grabbing a menu from the table and nuzzling the cat tucked into his jacket. Jessica immediately saw him look for strawberry milkshake on the menu and smiled.

Like mother like son.

She kissed the top of his head and made her way silently to her wife.

“Excuse me miss? Is this seat taken?”

Tiffany whirled around, almost falling off the bar stool in shock.

“Jessica! What are you doing here?!”

“Trying not to be an idiot for the millionth time tonight.”

Tiffany raised an eyebrow at that, “You drove around in this weather to look for me? You really are an idiot.”

“I know, and I can’t promise I will stop being an idiot entirely, but I can promise to forever be crazily and insanely in love with you. Tiffany…I’m sorry I’ve put work before you and our son for so long. It’s no excuse and I know that. I just ask that you give me a chance to do things right this time. Let me love you and cherish you as you deserve.”

“That’s the thing Jessica, I…I don’t know if I deserve all or any of that…”

Jessica recoiled at that, grossly affronted, “What in god’s name do you mean?”

Tiffany looked down at her hands, thumbing at her wedding band and remembering the day Jessica had made her happier than she could ever believe she had a right to. And that was the problem. Nine and a half years after they had met, Tiffany still didn’t truly feel like she belonged here with Jessica, that she deserved or warranted any of the niceties her wife showered upon her. She didn’t feel worthy of any of the stability and steadiness that was her life for the past nine and a half years. She felt like an imposter and that someone would find out at any second and rip it all away from her in a cruel twist of fate. And then she would be left back where she belonged: in a nowhere town, as a nobody, that no one cared about.

“Tiffany Hwang Miyoung. You look me in the eyes and you listen to what I’m about to say and you better goddamn listen carefully. You are the most precious person to me in my life. I’ve been misguided into thinking that providing for you and Kyungsan materially would translate into you knowing how much you mean to me but obviously we’ve already established I’m an absolute asshat. But that doesn’t change the fact that you are the most amazing person that I’ve ever met. I know there's a lot of years of buried insecurities and anxiety that you’re dealing with and I’m sorry it took me nine and a half ing years to see that. But that’s ok. We’ll deal with it. We’ll go to therapy. Therapy for you to learn to appreciate the amazing person that you are all on your own, the incredible mother you are to our son, and the wonderful wife that you are to me. Therapy for us as a couple to learn to traverse these times together, to get better together and work all of this out. Therapy for everyone basically, like Oprah giving out cars.”

Tiffany laughed wetly, suddenly becoming aware she was crying. Jessica caressed her wife’s face, tenderly wiping away her tears with her thumb.

“I love you so much Tiffany, and I’m sorry I ever made you feel anything but that. It was never my intention and I will never be making that mistake again. Please, just, give this idiot the rest of our years to make it up to you, to love and cherish like I should have every day of my life.”

Tiffany stared into Jessica’s auburn eyes and couldn’t help but want to throw herself back into the blonde’s arms, where she had always felt the safest. But still she held herself back.

“Jessica I…I need to feel like I am contributing to the household. I feel like some trophy wife just sitting and waiting at home while you provide everything for us. I know how your parents and family see us and…I don’t want that. I want to be worthy of y–”

“No. Absolutely not. No. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, about who provides what to whom. They don’t know us Tiffany. They don’t know me and they sure as hell don’t know you. They don’t know how strong you are to have come this far. They don’t know how you’ve been working your off at school and getting the top grades in your class. They don’t know that you’re dead set on one day helping out other women who have fallen into hard times such as you had in the past. They don’t know this sheer passion and kindness that you embody for everyone around you. They don’t know how amazing of a mother you are to our son, how you’ve raised him to be respectful, loving and kind. They don’t know how you take care of me when I am at my lowest. Tiffany, my business would have failed without you. And I do not mean that figuratively, I mean that in a very literal sense. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but all those leftovers you cooked for me and left in the fridge was what fed