Convincing her

Jen eventually continued eating her food once she had gotten over her brief moment of anger she carried the plate back to the kitchen afterwards and put on her shoes before she left the house. She had noticed that Rachel had not called her at all throughout the day so she decided that she'll just go see her.

As she waited for the elevator, she texted Laura to tell her that she was going downstairs so she'll be ready to receive her, even though she was giving her short notice. She got in the elevator and was standing in front of the girls' suite in a few minutes.

After ringing the doorbell, the door was opened a few seconds later by Rachel who was wearing a pair of jeans and a rib and lace turtleneck that was long sleeved. She blinked her big blue eyes at Jen before smiling and stepping aside to let her in.

"Aren't you hot?" Jen asked as she walked into the suite.

"There's air conditioning" Rachel answered as she went to the kitchen to pour Jen something to drink. She came back with two glasses of juice and set one in front of Jen on the coffee table as she sat down on the sofa next to Jen's.

Jen looked at her as if she was checking if she was doing fine making Rachel look away in embarrassment.

"Is something wrong?" Rachel finally asked when she could not take it anymore.

"Nothing really, it's just about this morning" Jen said and took a sip of her juice.

"I had told Laura when she returned last night that I was going to meet Brian, she was probably too drunk to remember" Rachel explained.

Jen felt a bit strange when she heard the explanation. She felt like she was an overprotective mother who discovered that her daughter snuck out of the house in the middle of the night to go meet her boyfriend.

Except, she was not a mother, and Rachel was not her daughter, so she didn't need to ask for permission whenever she went out. She should probably reign in the overprotective tendencies she had towards her friends.

"Ahem, you don't need to report to me or anything" Jen said self-consciously making Rachel smile.

"I know that you are just worried about me. I won't ask you to stop since there's only you and Laura who actually care about me" Rachel replied.

"We are the same age, I really shouldn't be treating you the same way I treat Jake" Jen said as she smiled sheepishly.

"I don't mind actually. It's endearing" Rachel said with a smile. Rachel does not have any siblings and was raised by a single mother who loved her dearly.

Her mother however, was living in the countryside by herself and refused to go back and live in the city ever since her husband passed away. Rachel's father was authoritarian so Rachel had always lived with strict discipline up to the point her father passed.

Her mother was a bit meek but she had loved her husband dearly so she went to stay at his hometown once he passed as Rachel was mostly in university anyways.

She had found comfort in the friends that she had had for years and treated them like her own sisters during that difficult time, and it was at this point she found herself dating men who would get violent with her.

Whenever she was assaulted she could not fight back and was even convinced that she had earned the treatment she was receiving because she talked back or didn't listen to them.

She confused fear with love and found it hard to walk away from the obviously destructive relationships. This continued until the day she had come home late from work and her boyfriend was waiting for her to arrive.

He was mad at her because she came late and he was angry and in her exhaustion she said that he could have cooked or ordered out, why did she need to cook him food everyday after a long day at work. Her response only fueled his anger and he beat her up.

The beating was not the normal smack on the face or the roughing up he normally did. He had decided to release all his frustrations that day and at some point she had blacked out from the beating. All she could remember up to that point was her getting kicked on the floor as she spit out blood.

Her whole body hurt especially her torso and face and as she was losing consciousness, she felt guilty and angry at herself, that she never took the initiative to walk away, that she had made herself go through all that because she thought she loved him and that he may actually kill her if he kept it up.

At that time, she vowed that if she survived that ordeal, she would break up with him, and if possible press charges against him.

Her ribs were broken and so were both of her arms. She suffered from internal bleeding and had to go through surgery. She also had a dislocated jaw so her head was wrapped up in an elastic bandage.

She remembered opening her eyes to the sight of a crying Jen and a completely pissed of Laura who was talking to the police. When she was asked if she wanted to file charges against him she had automatically nodded her head.

Jen had sent her away once she was well enough to travel and had even sent her all her savings so she could establish something for herself. She knew what Jen had sacrificed for her so she worked hard to make something of herself and could not focus on dating.

Before she left the country, she was working in a company as a jewelry designer and since that was the only thing that she knew how to do she opened a workshop where she designed custom made jewelry.

She was able to survive that time because of the money that Jen had given her and also the funds that her father had left for her. Even Laura took the risk and invested her savings into her business and worked with her.

Although she later started modeling the products, she was responsible for a lot of the administrative and communication aspects of the business. They had both worked hard and they are now seeing returns.

Laura as expected, once the business could do without her, she stepped aside and earned a living from the shares she had in the company and continued modeling the company products so that she wouldn't be too idle. Both their careers had continued advancing into new heights and their love lives became bland.

Rachel was averse to developing a new relationship with someone after that traumatic experience but she had managed to surprise both herself and her friends when it came to Brian.