Jessica POV

I watched him walk away with his usual swagger.  I laughed at his boyish arrogance.  As I headed up the stairs to the door of my house, I saw my mother’s face through the window.  Damn it.  That means she saw the whole thing.  What was she doing here anyway?  She wasn’t supposed to come back from her business meeting in New York until tomorrow. I sighed and trudged up the stairs.  Before I could even open the door, she opened it for me.  As I entered through the door, she glared at me, but I was used to it. 

“You’re late,” she said with her usual coldness.  I responded the same way.

"Obviously.”  She face twitched in irritation from my response, but she quickly recovered.

“Who was that boy you were with?”  I tensed, but tried not to let her notice.

“Since when did you have so much interest in my life?”  With that said, I turned around and began to walk away, but she wouldn’t let me. 

“Jessica, answer my question,” she managed to say through clenched teeth as her grip on my arm tightened.  I sighed.  I had enough to deal with today and I so didn’t need this.  I abruptly shook my hand from her grasp.  She opened to say something, but stopped herself.  Thinking that she was finally going to leave me alone, I made my way up the stairs.  Just as I was on the last step, I heard her say,

“You are not to see this boy again.”  I froze on the step.  When my mother says something, she will do anything to make sure she gets what she wants.  I should have paid attention to her words, but instead I just ran into my room.  I fell onto my bed and closed my eyes, not wanting to deal with the rest of the world at that moment. 

As I lay down, I began to think of Jonghyun.  He hadn’t changed much from when he was eleven.  He was still the weird, talkative, puppy-eyed Jonghyun with the biggest ego the world had ever seen.  I smiled at the memories that I remembered us sharing together when we were little.  For the first time in a long while, I was genuinely and completely happy.  I was basking in my new-found happiness when I was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“What is it?” I yelled from my bed. 

“Your mother wants you to come down for dinner,” Ahjusshi said.  I leapt up from my bed and opened the door.  Ahjusshi had been in my family from before I was born and had become somewhat of a grandfather-like figure that I had come to trust and respect, unlike my parents. 

“Tell my mother that I’ll be right down Ahjusshi.”  He smiled kindly and made his way back down the stairs.  I began to rummage through my closet to see which dress I should wear for dinner.  I thought it was completely unnecessary to get dressed up for a family dinner, but mom always thought it was important to keep up appearances, something that she was the expert at.  I chose a simple black dress and made my way downstairs. 

I found my parents already seated at the table in their usual spots.  My father was naturally at the head of the table, my mother to his right, and my seat was right across from her.  I sighed.  I really didn’t want to face my parents.  I knew my mother had her ways about slowly just annoying me untill she got what she wanted.  But today I was going to stay strong.  I took my seat as I greeted my parents.  We quietly ate our dinner before my mother started her attack. 

“So Jessica, I saw you with that boy today.  Who is he?”  My dad looked up from dinner and turned to me.

“Who is this boy Jessica?”  I sighed.

“It’s nobody dad, just a friend from school.”  He seemed okay with this fact and went back to eating, but my mom wouldn’t give up. 

“Yeobo, your daughter is meeting this boy from school and you’re not going to do anything about it?  At least do a background check on this boy and see if he is decent enough to be around our daughter.”  I began to protest, but my father cut me off. 

“Don’t worry about this.  Jessica says that it is just a friend for school and you should trust her.”  I looked at my father gratefully.  It’s not that I didn’t like my father, he was okay most of the time, but he was just never part of my life.  Even while I was little, he was busy dealing with business affairs.  I was just about to excuse myself, but my mother had other plans.

“At least tell us the name of this boy.  That’s reasonable.”  Damn it.  My mother got me caught.  My father looked at me expectantly. 

“His name is Jonghyun,” I said before I could stop myself.  My mother’s eyes widened and I could see that she hadn’t forgot about him.  My father on the other hand did not know about this and was content with the fact that heat least knew the boy’s name.

“See yeobo, now you know his name?  What was it again?”  I stared at my food when I responded.

“Jonghyun,” I said quietly.  My father rose from his seat.

“Well, I’m full.  Yeobeo, I’ll be at work untill really late so don’t wait up for me.”  With that said, my dad left.  Now it was just me and my mother.  She was staring at me and all I could of think of was…….I’m in deep .