The Girl Next Door - Jenlisa

Chapter 20

There goes her hope for little Lisa grandbabies.

The older Manoban woman grabbed a handful of berries and placed them sporadically on top of the cream cheese. Lisa slumped a little on the kitchen slab she was sitting on and grabbed a few berries to help place on top of the pie her mother was designing.

"Do you need the canned cream now?" Lisa asked quietly.

"Not yet, but you can get the extra strawberries from the chiller and you can help slice them up for these."

Lisa nodded as she jumped off towards the refrigerator. She brought the pack to the chopping board beside her mother and worked quietly to slice them the way her mom typically would.

She picked a plump red strawberry and pressed it absently with her fingers. The juice that seeped on her skin made her shiver, recognising how this fruit was tainted in her brain now.

She closed her eyes and willed the image away. So much has happened since, and she's not exactly sure where she's at with her emotions at the moment. Even the way her body reacted to memories was tinted warmly, with a lot more...affection than she's usually allowed herself.

Her head didn't just go to the teasing and seducing and yearning; it also went to a certain limbo, back when she woke up early in the morning and found a sleeping Jennie snuggled beside her. It went to how she lay there, frozen upon realising this new development of finding a woman in her sheets and not wanting to kick her out of the bed. How she observed Jennie's body partially wrapped in her duvet, naked except for a skimpy light blue underwear that clung tight to her seemingly frail pale skin, and her heart sank in this awareness that she's already lamenting she won't get to feel her neighbour's skin on hers again for days.

Of how she gazed at the woman, vulnerable in her sleep, and softly traced and eased the creases on Jennie's forehead as the latter seemed bothered in her slumber. The softness she has when she's not on guard; even the soft baby hairs that were growing near her temple.

Of how Lisa thought I wonder how she smells in the morning and found herself recklessly leaning to snuggle closer as an impulse to just fill the need to her curiosity: that Jennie smelled of her natural musk and hint of floral shampoo and found that it was warmer and more comforting than she imagined.

And as she gingerly placed a soft kiss on Jennie's temple, and as the woman hummed approvingly in her sleep, she felt her heart plunge towards the depths of anxiety she couldn't quite fathom yet.

And that there was a throbbing low ache in her chest.

The start of pain.

Her thumbnail pressed a little too hard on the strawberry.

"Are you okay?" Mrs Manoban's voice was faint, careful about pulling Lisa from her trance. The blonde just swallowed and started slicing through the strawberry.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She was met with more silence. Mrs Manoban plucked the strawberry slices from the chopping board. "I feel like this isn't about the new flat anymore."