Jenny (Babysitter's Club 5)

“Okay, tell me about yourself…”

Jenny

He doesn’t remember me. I didn’t show the hurt I felt as I looked at him, not square in the eye, of course, but in his general direction. My mouth felt like cotton wool, and the words were lodged in my throat as I tried to answer without breaking into tears.

“Well, I’m in my last year of high school. I’m an honor student, top of my class. I’d like to go on to be a child psychiatrist, so I’ve spent the last two years taking care of kids as part of my extracurricular activities. If you call any of the numbers on that list, they’ll tell you my record, and of course, you may run a background check.”

“Have you ever babysat kids as young as these? That’s Emma in the pink and Sara in the blue, by the way.” I looked over at the two beautiful little girls and felt the same pang in my heart as I did the first time I found out about them. I was starting to regret my decision to come here.

I’d tried to think up an excuse to refuse the interview, but how could I when Mrs. Sorenson was trying to be helpful? She and her husband were taking their young preschool kids away for the winter and knew that I’d be short one family.

Not because I needed the money, but because of the study I was conducting. True, the twins were much younger than the Sorenson kids, but they would be perfect for the project, something Mrs. Sorenson knows.

So had I refused, there would’ve been questions and not a little confusion. I’d dreaded having to see him once I’d heard that he was back. It’s been two years since he got married, and I still haven’t gotten over it yet. It had been one of the hardest blows of my life. Even worse than the time he went away to college.

I’d spent the last ten years with one thing on my mind, marrying him. Everything I did was to get me to that point. Sure, as I grew older, I knew that that day he’d only said what he had as a joke, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming.

He’s the only guy I’ve ever loved. The reason I didn’t date, the reason I tried so hard in school because I wanted to be worthy of him, and in some way, wanted him to be proud of me. I’d kept up with all of his achievements over the years, which wasn’t hard since his parents had still lived in the neighborhood and were friendly enough with my parents that they shared such things.

I’d always stayed in the background, though, out of the way, though I carried myself a certain way lest my future in-laws should hear anything untoward about me. By the time I was sixteen, it had been six years since I’d seen him, six years since he went away to college.

It always seemed like I was never here when he came home to visit since I was always away on vacation with my parents. That was the year he got married, two years ago, in June, a few days before my birthday. I’d been crushed to the point of not being able to get out of bed.

No one knew why everyone thought I was sick that I’d come down with some peculiar bug, no one remembered the silly crush I’d had on him as a child, and now it looked like he hadn’t either. I died as I sat there across from him in the home he shared with her. Looking at the children, he’d…

I took a deep breath and collected my thoughts as he asked me questions. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help taking him in. He’d grown into as fine a man as I’d expected. He wasn’t just handsome or gorgeous; in my eyes, he was angelic.

But it wasn’t just his face or his masculine physique. There was an air about him, that air that my young heart had noticed all those years ago. I could never quite put my finger on it, but even then, I felt that he was a part of my soul.

The more he questioned me, the more I felt the need to run out of there before I started screaming. And then one of the little girls, Emma I think it was, started fussing. “Excuse me a minute.” He walked over to the playpen and lifted her in his arms.

“Hey, my little love, what’s the matter?” He touched her little chin and kissed her forehead while her little arms went around his neck, and I felt a pain so deep I almost doubled over.

No, I’m not a monster, I have no plans on harming his children or interfering with his marriage. As hard as it was, I’d come to accept in the last few months since he’d moved back here with his family that everything had been one-sided and dumb. But it was still hard, still unbearable to see him like this.