The Girl Who Lives In My Garage • Jenlisa

nineteen

"Someone died," Jisoo says. "That's why cops show up at your house for no reason, right? To tell you someone died? Oh my God..."

"Stop freaking out," I snap, but it takes me three tries to unbuckle my seat belt, which proves I'm not taking my own advice. "No one died."

"Wait," Jisoo says. "Do you know about this? Have you been hanging out with Jung Hoseok?"

"God, no," I say, getting out of the car. "Just...stop talking." I'm unable to handle both Jisoo's panic and my own. We walk in through the middle stall of the garage, but instead of taking a right toward the door, I take a left.

"Where are you going?" Jisoo demands.

"Hang on." My hands shake and my lungs tighten as I step around the front of the Trans Am. Lisa and her backpack are both gone, but the tarps and blankets are in a state of disarray, like she either left in a hurry or was taken away. I peer under the car. No dice.

As I approach my sister, she stares at me like I've grown a third eyeball in the middle of my forehead. Ignoring the look, I say, "Let's go."

When I open the door, the house smells of freshly brewed coffee and dread. Voices stutter to a stop. Jisoo closes the door behind us, and I lean over to take off my heels, heart pounding against my rib cage.

"Jennie?" Dad calls from the kitchen.

If it was something other than Lisa, he'd be asking for both of us. Not just me. Taking a shaky breath, I stand up straight. "Yeah?"

"Come in here, please."

I don't go right away. Not only do I put my heels away for a change, but I take my time and hang my coat neatly on the rack as well.

When I finally make my way into the kitchen, Mom and Dad are seated at the kitchen table with two uniformed police officers. It's jarring to see the coffee mugs we use every day in the hands of cops.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"Why don't you have a seat?" Dad's words are an order in a suggestion disguise.

One of the officers is sitting in my usual seat, so I take Jisoo's.

"Jennie, these are Officers Lee and Song," Dad says.

Mom turns on her tablet and slides it across the table. The browser is open to a news site. The headline reads "Traverse City teen still missing." The girl in the picture is familiar. Even though her hair is shorter and she looks slightly younger, it's unmistakably Lisa. I'm hot and cold at the same time and wonder if this is what people feel like right before they pass out.

"I finally figured out why Lisa looked so familiar," Dad says. "It was because I'd seen her picture on the news."

"Jennie," the older of the two officers says, "do you know where Lisa is now?"

"The truth," Mom says, warning in her tone.

They didn't catch her. She got away. Though I'm not sure I should be relieved, I still am. "No. I don't."

The younger officer asks, "When was the last time you saw her?"

"This morning. Before school."

The first officer nods. "How long have you known Lisa?" They bounce the questions back and forth like this is a well-practiced ping pong match and I'm predestined to lose.

I consider. "A little over a month."

Back to the second officer. "And how do you know her?"

If I tell the truth, Lisa's hiding place isn't safe anymore. It's gone. She's gone. But if I don't tell the truth, I'm going to be in deep shit. Even I'm not ballsy enough to flat-out lie to the police. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "I found her living in our garage."

"What?" Dad demands. "What the hell are you talking about? Officers, I assure you that—"

The younger officer cuts him off with a held-up hand. "Are you saying Lisa has been living in your garage for over a month?"

"Not consistently. And probably longer than that, because I didn't know at first. But yes."

"Damn it, Jennie," Mom says. Even including this instance, I can count the number of times I've heard her swear on one hand.

"How exactly has Lisa been living in our garage?" Dad demands.

With a sigh, I tell them how she came in initially. How she stayed hidden. How she unlocked the side door to come and go. How our set-up was perfect for her.

When I'm done, my parents are silent. Seething. But the officers aren't finished yet.

"Did Lisa ever take anything from you or your family? Did she hurt you in any way?"

This is the first question that I can answer without any form of hesitation. "No," I say. "She'd never even think about hurting me. And she didn't take anything that I didn't give to her. I swear."

"Why did you let her stay?" the younger officer asks.

Heat rises to my cheeks. An answer resembling anything close to the truth—because she's sweet, because I understand what it's like to need to get away, because I fell in love with her—would make me sound like an idiot.

"Don't answer that, Jennie," Dad says, making the jump from "father" to "lawyer." "Why does Jennie's reason for letting her stay matter? Lisa was here under her own free will. She is seventeen. Under Seoul's law, she's a minor but not a child. Why are the police so involved with a seventeen-year-old runaway?"

The older officer clears his throat. "We're not at liberty to discuss the situation. Our immediate concern is finding Lisa."

"What do you mean you're not at liberty to discuss the situation? There's no situation to discuss! She ran away from home. It's not like Lisa kidnapped him or was aiding and abetting a criminal."

The officers exchange a glance and don't say a word.

Dad pinches the bridge of his nose and swears under his breath. "Officers, if my daughter is going to be accused of harboring a fugitive, I'd really like to know what charges Lisa is facing."

Another glance between the officers. A longer pause. Then the older officer clears his throat and says, "Lisa is the primary suspect in the murder of her brother."

With the word "murder," all of the oxygen is sucked out of the room. Even though Dad is yelling, at me, at the officers, at me again, his words are eclipsed by the sound of my own heartbeat. An icy chill spreads through me, numbing my fingers and toes and heart. Murder.

Lisa is a murderer.

No.

The sound of a coffee cup clinking against the table snaps me back to reality. One of the officers is speaking, but I interrupt him. "But Bambam was sick."

"Bambam was sick," the younger officer agrees, "but that's not how he died." He pulls a few business cards out of his wallet and hands one to each of us. "Give us a call immediately if you see Lisa."

"We will," Mom assures them. Her voice is clogged with tears. I can't remember the last time my mom cried.

"Can we look around your garage before we go?" the older officer asks.

"Right this way."

My parents take them to the garage, but I stay put. I tear the business card into fourths, then eighths, then pieces that cross the line from fractions to snow. Then I leave the tiny pile on the table and head upstairs. I don't hear the Third Step Creak. Even when I crawl into bed and pull every one of my blankets up to my shoulders, I'm still cold.

When my parents return and storm into my room, there's a lot of yelling I barely hear. There are a lot of questions I don't answer. There are a lot of feelings I don't feel.

Dad squeezes my ankle through the covers. Hard. "Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"

My mind flashes back to the moment Lisa flinched when I joked about her being a murderer. But that can't be true. Lisa didn't kill Bambam. She wouldn't. Would she? "She didn't do it," I whisper, voice raw and unsteady.

"You don't know that," Mom says. "You don't know her."

I roll over and close my eyes because in order to wake up from a nightmare, you have to be asleep.