KICK IT | JENLISA

126

Lisa

"Bath." In the first episode Jennie experienced at my house, she tried to burn her skin off in the shower. By now, she offered no resistance when I joined her in the bathroom.

With a nod, I started the bath. Since my custom-sized tub took a few minutes to fill, I sat on the edge and pulled her between my knees. Her arms were heavy, so I lifted her hands behind my neck. The splashing water behind me was the only sound between us. "Why are you so good to me, Lisa?" She leaned forward and rested her forehead on mine. "I'm such a mess."

"You're not a mess." My lips met the tip of her nose. "You're so strong, darling. And you deserve to be taken care of now and forever."

Her voice was so tiny, if she wasn't pressed against me, I would've missed her whispered request, "Can you... do something for me?"

I pulled back and swept a few strands of her hair over her shoulder. "Anything. What do you need?"

She stepped back, then retreated to her bathroom vanity. Pausing at the mirror, she yanked out her ponytail and let her black strands fall past her waist. A pair of scissors shook in her hands on her return. I frowned as she handed them to me, unsure of when she'd put them in the drawer. Selfishly, I loved my fist wrapped around Jennie's long hair. It was so long and thick, I needed eight passes before it coated my knuckles in black bands.

Her fingers lifted a trembling black lock of hair, uneven and split on the ends. Tears turned her eyes into mirrors, and her lips quivered. They parted, and she spoke in the tiniest voice, "Will you... cut my hair, Lisa?"

What? Thickness choked up the back of my throat and stole my answer. I wasn't sure what the reason was behind her never cutting it, but this felt significant. The heated air suffocated my lungs, but her blank expression offered no clues. "Only if you tell me why."

Her eyes closed, and her lashes fluttered on her cheeks. "I cut it before his last deployment, saying that I wouldn't cut it before I got him back."

I froze at the meaning behind her words. She never cut it because she never got him back. Fuck, that was hard to absorb, but the trust she wrapped around her admission meant more to me than I could express. Jennie's grief covered every inch of her, down to the ragged nails and long, split ends. By talking about it and opening up, she could keep taking steps forward to keep it from swallowing her up.

"It's stupid." She wiped at fresh tears in the corners of her eyes. "I know that he's not coming back. I just... I couldn't let go."

"It's not stupid. And you're learning how to let go. Baby steps, okay?" My eyes travelled over the shine of light over the blades as I turned the scissors in my palm. Fuck, they shook in my grasp. "You sure? I'm not known for my barber skills."

Her small smile and firm nod cut me off. "Please."

The gravity of her request and my lack of stylist experience struck my chest. Because once I snipped them off, I couldn't glue the strands back on. Could I? "How much of it should go?"

Her fingers stopped halfway up the strand, which I snipped off before she second-guessed herself. She lifted the straight edges and blinked at them. I sucked in a sharp breath and held it until her lips pursed and released a loud breath. I expelled a shaky exhale when she nodded. Tears returned in her eyes, but she held up another strand, which I cut off. My best efforts to keep her strands the same length, halfway down her arms instead of at her ass, were awful but I never stopped.

Snip after snip, the black tails of Jennie's hair fell. Messy piles landed across her bare feet and curled around her ankles, but she never moved. A burn gripped my lungs as I held my breath, with my heart pounding in my ears. I'm booking her a hair salon appointment tomorrow.

Tears dripped over her cheeks, and she released a shuddered breath. With uneven and choppy cuts, her hair looked terrible. I set down the scissors and stepped aside to let her see her reflection. "Fuck, I'm sorry, Jennie. It's awful..."

"No..." Tears poured over her cheeks, dripping down and dotting her chest. She sniffled, her nostrils flaring as she stared in the mirror. "I can work with this. It's time... to let go... of it all."

Her words flooded warmth through me, tightening my chest. For Jennie, my feelings developed quickly. I fell hard and fast. Although I hoped that she didn't, I was hers to push away if that was best for her. Love wasn't all big gestures and endless moments of heated passion. It was the quiet, and dark moments so sacred that they weren't shared outside of each other, where trust and connections took root.

A small smile tugged on the corners of her lips as Jennie undressed, and it tugged a pain in my chest. I had no future hairdresser prospects and hoped that she will never ask me to do that again, but its effect was instant. A weight lifted off her shoulders. "Thank you, Lisa. For being you. For everything."

Her eyes shone with gratitude, and the words I felt shone behind them. The same particular words knocked on my heart and tempted my mouth to let them spill out, but I clenched it shut. It didn't matter that she left them unsaid because I felt them.