OUR PLAYLIST | JENLISA

FORTY-FIVE

Jennie

Playlist: Proof | Lalisa Manoban
***

Eunwoo had two hands behind his back. “Pick one.” He smiled and his cheeky eyes creased at the corners. We were sitting in a steakhouse waiting on appetizers.

Eunwoo held open doors for me. He pulled out my chair and ordered me a glass of wine that he seemed to know a lot about. He was funny, charming, and engaging. Intelligent, successful, and attractive. And he was trying very hard to show me a good time.

It totally wasn’t working. I couldn’t stop thinking about Zane’s letter.

Eunwoo waited for me to pick a hand. I pointed unenthusiastically to the left one. He put a full-size bottle of vanilla creamer on the table in front of me. I cracked a small smile. We’d stopped at the gas station on the way over and he’d caught me putting a few single-serve creamers in my purse.

“Smooth,” Jisoo said from across the table. “But she likes the little ones.”

He smiled. “Well, I can’t help you there.”

Jisoo kicked my shin under the table.

Eunwoo was flirting with me. Hard.

And I. Felt. Nothing.

If the complete and total lack of butterflies in my stomach wasn’t depressing enough, I kept looking at the clock. One hour until Lisa’s show. I felt like I was going to burst into tears. The moments that she was in town were ticking down before my eyes. Running out like sand in an hourglass. And instead of being where she was, I was on a date with someone amazing who couldn’t even hold my attention because I was too damaged and in love with somebody else to even entertain it.

“Excuse me.” I got up. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”

Jisoo’s chair raked against the floor as she got up to follow me. As soon as the door closed behind us she pounced on me. “Damn, that dude wants to eat you alive. I think you should let him.”

“And I think you need to see this,” I said. I dug in my purse and pulled out the letter. I unfolded it, handed it to her, and watched with my arms crossed as she read it.

The longer she looked at it, the deeper her frown got. “Oh my God…” She looked up at me. “Do you believe what she said?”

I sniffed and nodded. “She wouldn’t lie. And the Lola thing never felt right. That’s why I came back to her hotel room that day. There was something off about it from the very beginning. Why would she lie about it, though?”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t know, Jennie. Maybe she had to lie to you to break up with you. I mean, you know how you are.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “How am I?”

She shrugged. “You don’t like to get rid of things that aren’t good for you. You know this. Taehyung’s stuff, your shitty car, your dilapidated house? You don’t exactly have a history of making rational, sensible life choices. You’re sentimental to a fault. You’ve always been that way and I bet Lisa knew that.”

My chin started to shake.

“Maybe she knew you wouldn’t take her logical reasoning for whatever it was, and she needed to do something extra. Because let’s be honest, what she did was really fucking extra.”

I leaned over the sink and snatched a paper towel out of the dispenser. “So what’s your theory, then?” I asked, blowing my nose.

“I don’t know. But my gut tells me that dude fell on a sword. If Zane is saying she’s all fucked up and she thinks you should see her…I don’t know. Even Haein is giving her the benefit of the doubt, and you know Haein.”