OUR PLAYLIST | JENLISA

TWENTY-EIGHT

Jennie

Playlist: A Moment of Silence | The Neighbourhood
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Lisa: Jennie, can we please talk?

I stared at the vertical blinking line in the empty text box. I set my phone facedown on Jisoo’s kitchen island and put my forehead in my hand.

“Was that her?” Jisoo asked, leaning on the counter.

Haein stood by the sink, giving Oliver a bath. He’d sculpted the baby’s hair into a Mohawk and Oliver was giggling.

I had Stuntman Mike in my lap wearing his EMOTIONAL SUPPORT LUNATIC shirt. Love lay curled at my feet. Lisa had called her dog to her before she left my house two days ago, but Love hadn’t budged from the bed, so Lisa had left her.

“Yes, that was her.”

“What did she say?”

“What she’s been saying.”

“She wants to talk?”

I nodded. My eyes filled up again and she ripped off a paper towel and handed it to me. “Jennie, why don’t you just talk to her?”

“About what? She doesn’t get this, Jisoo. She seriously thinks there’s nothing wrong with any of this. She lied to me. She let my mom—my mom—be the one to tell me about Lola. She just stood there shrugging like, ‘Well, nothing I could have done to prevent this. Sometimes famous recording artists show up to fuck me, I didn’t want to bother you with the details.’” I pressed the towel to my eyes.

“Well, she is a rock star…”

I did a laugh-cry.

Haein rinsed the baby’s hair with a cup. “Nah, she’s not a rock star. I didn’t get that vibe from her. That woman’s pretty grounded.”

Jisoo peered at me. “Do you think she cheated on you with her?”

I sniffled. “No. I believe her. But she should have at least told me about her.”

Haein lifted Oliver into a towel and handed him to Jisoo for a diaper. Then he kissed the side of his wife’s head on his way to the fridge. “Look, I’m gonna be honest. I like her, and I think you need to cut her some slack.” He grabbed a beer and pulled up a stool at the counter. “Did she handle the situation badly? Yes. But no person wants to tell his or her girlfriend about the women he's or she’s slept with, believe me.”

I shook my head at him. “So she should just get a pass for this? She was about to go on a year-long tour with her old hookup and I didn’t even know about it.”

Haein opened his beer. “I know what a person looks like when she‘s or he’s in love with you, Jennie. I saw the same look on Taehyung’s face once, and I’m telling you, this woman’s serious about you. Give her a break. She fucked up and she knows it. She’s probably losing her mind right now.”

She’s losing her mind? Lisa felt like a stranger to me with some torrid past and secret double life. Like the Lisa I’d known was a different person from the man who’d lied to me and hooked up with Lola Simone.

Maybe the bad woman was Lalisa.

“Did you even listen to that song?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Did you?” How many times had I heard that nasty Lola Simone song and not realized it was about Lisa? It was like I’d just found out my girlfriend had starred in a lyrical porno that everyone had seen. The whole situation was so cringy.

Jisoo shrugged while she fastened Oliver’s diaper. “I listened to it. So she got drunk and fucked her on a beach. Then she wrote a song about it. It’s messed up, but that just makes her a bitch. It doesn’t make her anything less than a woman who was exercising her God-given right to make bad choices six months before she knew you.”