KICK IT | JENLISA

102

Lisa

I scrubbed both hands down my face. Jennie deserved to know I wasn't who she thought I was, that she was the only one in four years I'd slept with, other than Kendall. I am not a liar nor cheater.

First, she deserved an apology. I stood at Jackson's front door before I questioned my actions. Irene's apologetic face verified what I knew from Jennie's truck being absent in the driveway. Hope lifted my eyebrows. "Is she back at the studio?"

"Lisa." She shook her head and sagged into the door frame. "I know it's hard, but you need to be patient. She went for one of her drives. It's not you. She needs time."

Drives? Where did she go when she hit her rock-bottom moments? Was it a specific place or nowhere at all? "I need to know if she regrets it." I blurted out and dropped my head. "If she regrets me. If I'm making things worse for her."

"She doesn't." Irene's soft voice brought my eyes to the sympathy swimming in hers. "If anything, she feels guilty for not regretting it. You've unlocked feelings in her, feelings she didn't expect, and it might not look like it, but she's processing them."

Same answer every time. I couldn't wrap my brain around her feeling guilty for not feeling guilty. Jennie, more than anyone I knew, deserved to be happy. Her processing those feelings alone, with misinformation, made me restless enough to search the entire state for her.

"She's pulling back from me." my whispered admission surprised me as much as Irene's rounding mouth. My heart stuttered from the exposed, and vulnerable sensation coating my skin.

"No." Her head shook, which slid a few of her braids over her shoulder. Warmth cupped my shoulder. "She's putting herself back together. This is how she does it. She pulls back into silence until she feels strong enough to re-join life. Pushing her will only..."

"It can't be the only option." I understood self-preservation, but Jennie suffering on her own settled hard in my stomach. "She doesn't have to be strong and alone all the time."

Warmth filled Irene's dark brown eyes, and she leaned against the doorway, her arms crossed. "That's all she knows how to do, Lisa. It's all she has."

I wasn't going to force myself on Jennie, but I hoped Irene's sympathetic smile meant she delivered my message, "No, it's not."