we keep this love in a photograph

Chapter 54

Two weeks dragged by without work or Rosie, and ordinarily Jennie would have been fine with dinner or drinks or brunch with Alice and Ashley to fill that hole of socialising, but she was stubbornly holding onto the wounded betrayal of Alice calling her mom and ignored them both. Taeyeon left the following day, a brittle warning for her daughter and an exasperatedly amused look in parting before she caught a flight back home, and Jennie briefly considered seeing if she could flaunt her mom's orders but thought better of it as the mortifying image of security bodily removing her from J Corporations came to mind.

Instead, Jennie resolved to wait out the two weeks and let them see she had every intention of being serious about her work. Every day, she woke up and completed a workout before briefly speaking to Rosie and then spent at least an hour on the phone with Jisoo, the CFO filling her in on as much information as possible while Jennie coached her from her end. They still made a good team, even if Jennie had been frozen out of the meetings, and Jennie felt a small sense of satisfaction at the slight victory. It was short-lived though, because two weeks was a long time to be removed from her office and the inner-workings of the business.

She had lunch with Jisoo on Thursday and was glum and unconvincing at trying to bribe her to bring a laptop connected to the J Corporations server to Jennie's house. Jisoo was sheepish but no pushover and Jennie admired her more for that before brushing aside the topic of work and trying to evoke some sense of normalcy from their lunch.

Boredom started to settle in, holed up in her house with nothing to do. She tried her hand at cooking, scrambled eggs turning rubbery, muffins raw in the middle while starting to blacken on top, tended to her garden and read a dozen books outside in the cold, drinking coffee bundled up beneath a blanket as Athena lolled at her feet. Jennie wasn't used to taking time off work to spend time with herself and it was unsettling to be in the house with no one around and nowhere to go.

Of course, there was nothing stopping her from buying a ticket to Bali and spending two weeks in the sunshine, pool-side with a cocktail in hand, but Jennie had never been one for relaxing holidays. She had never been one to relax at all, her mind needing stimulation, needing to be kept busy, and she felt like she was going insane with nothing to do. In the end, Jennie fetched a dusty prototype for one of their upcoming nuclear batteries - an older model that they'd quickly upgraded - and disassembled it in the attic offece, piecing it back together and trying to work out any other improvements as she cross-referenced hard copies of current blueprints.

That took up most of a day and she left Jisoo a long voicemail with her findings before ordering takeout for dinner and watching Pride & Prejudice for the fifth time that week. Her phone rang halfway through the movie and she set down her wine glass and stared at Ashley's name on the screen before softly sighing and answering it. She wasn't as pissed off with Ashley but they came as a package deal and Jennie had missed her in the days she'd been left alone.

"Hi."

"Oh. You finally decided to pick up."

Wincing slightly, Jennie slunk down on the sofa, pouting as she reached for the remote and paused the movie. "I've been busy."

"You're sulking."

Jennie didn't deign to reply and Ashley softly sighed.

"How've you been? You've had us worried."

A stab of guilt cut through her and Jennie's lips twitched ruefully, "I'm alright. You?"

"She feels bad."

"Yeah, I know. I just- I needed a minute to be dramatic about it all."

"Can we have dinner tomorrow? I'll cook."