artistic experimentation || chaelisa

lunch plans

•••

Chaeyoung couldn't say how long they sat like that.

The tears stopped, after a while. Lisa kept sobbing though, dry, gasping sounds like an animal in pain, her whole body jerking against Chaeyoung's. Eventually, that stopped too. A mixture of exhaustion and acceptance claimed her, and she lay still, clinging to Chaeyoung like a rock in a storm.

The shadow of Chaeyoung's desk, over by the window, tracked a steady path across the floor, marking the sun's steady progress. Still they sat. The size of what had passed between them, the weight of it, seemed to fill every inch of the small room. There was no way either of them could move, the act of forcing air into her lungs was all Chaeyoung had the strength for right now.

Still, they held on.

By degrees, the room became part of the wider world once again. There was a buzz at the window pane, a fly maybe, and Chaeyoung tried to focus on it. Focus on what was here, and now, and happening to her. She brought her hand up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Lisa's ear, and the girl made a soft sound in response. Chaeyoung stilled, but a moment later Lisa's hand emerged from the tight bundle of her body and found Chaeyoung's, and their fingers knit together again.

More silence. A little softer, maybe.

Lisa was no longer holding onto Chaeyoung like a lifeboat, but she didn't want to let go just yet either. They were, for the time being, one person. They breathed in and out, they focused on being.

Chaeyoung tried not to think too much about everything that had been said, worrying that that might be selfish of her. There didn't seem to be any choice though. What had been said was so huge Chaeyoung felt like she couldn't see the real shape of it. Like a mountain or a skyscraper, she could only look at one small part of it at a time, and from that she had to try and work out a whole.

She could only imagine how Lisa must have felt.

Must feel.

When Lisa spoke, and it was Lisa who spoke first, Chaeyoung still feeling unable to process everything that had been said, and still hadn't been said. When Lisa spoke, it was in a voice hoarse from crying.

"The worst part," she stopped, and coughed a little, clearing her throat, "the worst part of it all. No the worst part is that it happened, obviously. That we were in this fucking situation. But the part I kept thinking about. When she was in hospital and I was stuck in my room screaming. I kept thinking about the last things we said to each other."

Lisa blew out a shaky breath, and Chaeyoung thought for a second she was going to start crying again, but after a beat she continued.

"We had this huge fight." she said, "I told her. I don't know. I asked her out I guessed, and she was pissed. She accused me of some stuff. Lying to her and stuff. And I called her a bitch and," a shaky breath, a twitch of the shoulder like maybe she wanted to raise her head but thought better of it, "and I said a lot of stuff I didn't mean. Obviously. And if it had been a normal day we would have been fine. Or if I had kept my mouth shut we would have been fine. She was going to stay at mine the night... yeah. Whatever. I fucked everything because I couldn't keep my mouth shut." Her voice was faster now, a little more panicked and angry.

"And now I've gone and fucked up doing," she pulled her hand out of Chaeyoung's roughly and punched the ground with each angry word, "doing," punch, "the," punch, "exact," punch, "same," punch, "thing."

Chaeyoung caught the other girl's hand before she could hurt herself again. She was so confused at Lisa's reaction, at how much blame she could pile on the narrow shoulder blades bent in front of her.