[✔] ADF «» Jenlisa

Chapter 24

Well, it didn't really matter now, other than to stop her cutting her feet. She paused, as the last shard lay on the floor, and experimentally pressed the sole of her foot down on it, feeling the sharp edge cut into the skin, a welcome jolt of pain flowing through her, wishing this was all it took to show Jennie how she felt, to prove her love without having to go through the far worse torment of actually telling her.

She felt instantly ashamed, and quickly prised her foot away, hobbling to the sink and throwing the broken pieces in there, running the water until the blood swirled down the plug hole. She swabbed at her foot with a paper towel, and then limped back to the chair.

Wretched. If, as a writer, she'd been called upon to sum up her predicament in a single word, it would be that, she decided. Wretched.

Not heartbroken - heartbroken suggested a certain nobility, a pure love thwarted. But wretched, wretched spoke of abject failure, of being beneath contempt. Of a hopelessness so complete, so self-pitying, that others would shun you in case it turned out to be contagious. Yes, wretched would do nicely.

She stared at the table. She felt hollow, uninspired. There was something missing, something that usually filled this void with rage, something that...

You're pathetic.

Ah, there it was. That little voice. Other people had a conscience. She had this. It was an amalgam of the cold logic she'd inherited from her father, and her own intractable self-loathing, and if it had a face, then... well, it would probably look like her mom.

She closed her eyes and let it wash over her. Hello darkness, my old friend.

So that's it, is it? It said, coldly. That's your best shot? Mildly injuring yourself in private and then washing up afterward?

What else can I do?

Do? the voice sneered. You haven't done anything, yet.
She already made her choice.

No, she hasn't. You know why?

No.

Because she doesn't even know there's a choice to make, dumbass. Eggs and donuts, remember?
I don't send you these dreams because I've got a hankering for a chocolate-frosted omelet.

But-

Just stick the damned donut on the counter, Lisa. Or it's going to go moldy.

.

.

.

And so there were flowers. Not hundreds and hundreds of them, intended to overwhelm Jennie with sheer extravagance, but enough. The apartment was once again spotless, the blood wiped away, the broken crockery swept up.

Lisa looked in the mirror for the umpteenth time, and frowned. She was dressed in a smart black dress, her make-up applied with painstaking delicacy, her nails painted and polished. She looked as good, she decided, as it was humanly possible for her to look without divine intervention.

Looks weren't everything, of course, but it couldn't hurt to make an impression. But then she was struck by a sudden worry that perhaps it was Nana's total slovenliness that Jennie liked about her - what if what the Korean girl really wanted was a bad girl? The badder the better?

Maybe she should ditch the dress, grab a few beers and a bag of weed, and slob out in front of the TV. Was there time for another tattoo? If she hurried, she could just catch the tattoo artist at the-