we keep this love in a photograph

Chapter 62

The next day, she woke around noon, her tongue thick in her dry mouth, her eyes gritty and her mind foggy with sleep. She'd slept through most of it in a drugged haze, despising the moment she woke and craving sleep again, but she couldn't sleep forever. Still, even when she woke, she couldn't bring herself to move, to eat, to drink or shower. Laying in bed, she just cried until she exhausted herself all over again and then slept some more, but even that stopped being a relief as dreams tortured her.

The entire time Rosie had been in Afghanistan, Jennie had been plagued by nightmares of gruesome deaths, but now that her worst fear had come to pass, her mind tortured her in new ways. Every time she slept, she was greeted with dreams of Rosie in bed beside her, echoes of her laughter weaving through her sleep and her voice as she whispered how much she loved Jennie, memories playing on loop. She woke from each one forgetting for a brief moment, clinging to the blissful haze of those warm dreams before she was doused in cold reality. Every time, the weight of losing Rosie came crashing down on her anew and the cycle repeated itself.

The past few days had been a void. Anything had to be better than this life without Rosie, and Jennie felt the ache of her absence in her very bones. Every waking second she was suffocated with the loss of her, and yet, there was a sense of something loosening inside her. For so many months now, the anticipation of disaster had left her carrying a knot of unease within her, and now that it had come to pass, that dread had left her. What was left behind was infinitely worse, but it just left her limp and empty.

Even though they were all grieving, Jennie couldn't bring herself to sit with them downstairs, couldn't bring herself to join them for dinner or help with the funeral plans. That was left up to Clare to plan with Ashley's help, while Taeyeon silently pulled strings in the background to get things sorted with as little fuss as possible. The most she managed was to occasionally use the bathroom, and on one occasion, pace around the room for a bit while she stared unseeingling, trapped in her own spinning thoughts, until she ended up in her closet, sobbing into one of Rosie's worn sweaters.

Her mother had enough eventually though, her compassion and patience only tolerating so much before she grew brusque with her daughter, although still mindful of her grief. Sitting on the edge of her bed on the fourth morning, Taeyeon forced soup down her throat, pressing the spoon to her lips until Jennie parted them and forced herself to swallow. She only ate a few spoonfuls but it was more than she'd eaten in days and Taeyeon seemed relieved.

Setting the bowl down, Taeyeon forced her out of bed then, running the hot water in the shower and pulling the covers off Jennie, firmly urging her to get up and shower. Her hair was greasy and she was still in the same pyjamas she'd been dressed in the night her mom had shown up, looking far from the rich CEO with her hollowed out cheeks and sunken eyes, but Jennie couldn't bring herself to care. Still, she didn't have the energy to fight her mother and drifted towards the shower like she was sleep walking, stripping off her clothes and stepping beneath the water, the stinging heat of it making her skin prickle as she stood motionlessly beneath the waterfall.

Taeyeon fetched clean clothes for her, more soft loungewear she'd be able to comfortably languish in for a few more days, and clicked her tongue at the rigid sight of her daughter through the fogged shower door. It took some gentle coaxing but when the shower gel was pressed into her hand, Jennie looked down at it in surprise and slowly squeezed some out, going through the motions as her body took over and left her mind to detach itself.

She stood beneath the shower until Taeyeon shut off the hot water, bundling her in a fluffy towel as she started to shiver and then dissolved into ragged, gasping sobs again as she was plunged back into reality. Dressing robotically, Jennie cried quietly as she brushed her teeth with the toothbrush put in her hand and then let her mother brush her damp hair, before she walked back into her bedroom to find the bed bare of its sheets. The curtains were open and fresh air cut through the closeness of the room, airing it out as Clare shoved the pillows into clean pillow cases.