lessons in love || chaennie

chapter three

"Jennie? Is that you?" Her mother asked as she heard the front door of her house bang closed.

Jennie sauntered into the kitchen where her mother was chopping vegetables and dropped her bag on the floor next to the dining table.

"Your one and only child," she said happily, going over to fridge and pulling out a can of diet coke.

She looked at Jennie strangely for a moment, her daughter was a happy person, but she always seemed somewhat... isolated. Ever since she was a baby she had preferred being on her own, happy with just the company of herself or her mother. Jennie's father had been an immature, mean man who had run for the hills as soon as he had found out that his girlfriend was pregnant and it had just been the two of them ever since. The one positive was that their mother/daughter relationship was a lot stronger than most, and Jennie was always completely honest with her. Her mother still worried about Jennie though, not having any friends your own age couldn't be healthy. When she'd been offered a promotion where she worked, she had thought the move to California might do them both the world of good. A fresh start. And judging from the smiling face of her child, she may just have been right.

"What's got you so smiley?" she asked, putting the knife in her hand down as Jennie took a seat at the table and popped the tab on her soda.

"Is it okay if I go out tomorrow after school?" Jennie answered, knowing her mother would say yes straightaway but still try and fish for more details.

"Of course it's okay, sugar. Where are you off to? Did you make a friend?"

"Kinda..."

Ms. Kim made her way over and sat down at the table.

"Spill it, sister."

Jennie giggled at her mother and took a swig of her coke.

"I met a girl, Mom."

"Does my little angel have a date?" Ms. Kim asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Jennie just blushed and nodded.

"Well tell me all about her."

Jennie had come out to her Mom during her freshman year. They had never had secrets before and when Jennie had figured it out for herself, she told her mother straight away, and it just brought them closer. Her mother was proud of her daughter and getting that kind of reaction to the first person she told just made Jennie proud of who she was, a pride she refused to relinquish even when the strict catholic school she had attended threatened to kick her out if she didn't play the role of 'heterosexual'. She wrote an English essay on gay marriage during her sophomore finals, which had mandated a parent-teacher conference about their 'concerns for Jennie's health'. Me. Kim's promotion couldn't have come at a better time, neither of them wanted to be involved in that kind of environment any longer.

Jennie's smile beamed as she thought about Chaeyoung.

"She has blonde hair and these really gorgeous brown eyes. She's beautiful, Mom, really beautiful and she has the most adorable smile. And I feel all giddy around her."

"What's her name?"

"Chaeyoung."

Ms. Kim heard the adoration in her daughter's voice and smiled. She hadn't seen her this elated since she was a small child and the idea of Santa was still very real.

"How did you meet?"

"Oh...Um, she fell over in gym class and I helped her inside."

"Uh huh," Ms. Kim nodded, knowing there was more to the story from the blush on her daughter's face and the way she was letting her hair fall over her face, "And..."