KICK IT | JENLISA

97

Jennie

I made the mistake of looking behind me. The yellow garage light fell on her chiselled features. Concern and confusion battled in her dark eyes.

Lisa, being Lisa, couldn't leave the conversation at that. Wedging herself under my skin, she turned my shoulders around. Because, of fucking course, she wouldn't let me leave without poking and prodding for an explanation. "Look." The chords in her neck tightened with her hoarse voice. "I get that your ex-boyfriend fucked you up, but that's no reason to project your shit on me. I'm trying..."

My eyes fluttered closed, and I swayed on my feet. I was too open, too exposed. The hairs on my neck raised. Increased blood flow buzzed my veins, tingling the tips of my fingers as I clenched them. "He's not my ex-boyfriend!"

Her jaw set harder than cement. "Are you still seeing him!?"

It wasn't a question. The hardened edge wrapped around every word rendered them into a demand. I curled back the corner of my lip. "Are you still sleeping with them, Lisa!?"

With double accusations left unanswered, the air thickened between us. It was too thick. If I breathed, then I choked. I never knew how explosive silence could be until now. Red-faced, eyes slanted in narrow slits, nostrils flared - she was a baited bull, and I was the red flag. I kept my chin and eyes lifted.

"Fuck, I thought you were better than assuming shit without asking!" Her hands dragged over her face and over her chin. "Every time I try to crack through, you deflect or push me away. Do you even like me? You run away every time when I try to make you happy."

Happy.

The single word stole all of mine. I wasn't allowed to be happy but how to explain that escaped me. She couldn't have feelings for me. I would only poison her like I did to Taehyung.

My dry lips parted but her heated accusations continued, "You don't trust anyone! No wonder your ex-boyfriend..."

"Husband..." I muttered then snapped my mouth shut. Taking back the word was impossible, so I turned and conceded a sliver of the awful truth. "He... was my husband."

Too much, Jennie. Too, too much.

"Doesn't make a difference." Lisa looked at me as if I was certifiably insane. Her anger surged forward, curling malice around every word. "No wonder your husband left you!"

Irene and Jackson's gasps behind Lisa offered no comfort. I sucked in a sharp breath that whistled in my windpipe. Her correct words struck my chest like a sledgehammer. It exploded into shards of pain, gouging deep into my chest walls. I pricked my thumbs over the closest cuticles.

I deserved this pain, this mistake. Three years ago, love left my life. And I didn't deserve to get it back. My last response was a whisper as broken as I was.

"He did."