Heal me - JENLISA

A

Please, tell me it's a dream.

Well, even if it was a dream I wouldn't want it to end.

I was sitting across from Jennie in the local Subway where few people came to eat. Either that sandwich shop made the worst sandwiches in town or it was really just a coincidence that we were the only two. It was even one of the first times a cashier didn't judge me by my looks. I mean, when I went to a place, people were immediately prejudiced because I dressed like a hooligan and they could see that something was wrong with me.

Jennie was definitely my protective angel. With her, people smiled at me and treated me with respect. All the more reason to fall in love with her except it wasn't a good idea. Like sharing that sandwich with her.

"Good choice. The signature sandwich at their house never disappointed," she was talking with her mouth full, which makes me smile faintly. How could anyone be so adorable and perfect? Her dark brown, slightly wavy hair matched her face perfectly. Her eyes so piercing that she could read you like an open book. Her lips that I've always dreamed of tasting, if I was lucky enough. Everything screamed to perfection that she could have been a creature sent by a divine entity. Her mission would be to bewitch me with her charm, which I would let myself succumb to at will.

"Why would you want to eat with me?" the question came up without me realizing I'd said it out loud. She looked into my eyes intensely that I could not decipher her expression. Yet she seemed to be easy to analyze except that she was more mysterious than I thought.

She cleaned the corner of her lips with the poor tissue that the cashier had given on the tray. Then she clasped her hand, leaving us in a silence where only the sounds of the kitchen utensils could be heard.

"Let's be friends,"

"What?" 

"I said let's be friends. I want to get to know you and I won't consider what your father or Chaerin said about you because I won't believe them," my heart healed a bit. I felt something I'd never had a chance to experience before. And she was the one that causing that. 

"Why?"

"I didn't know there had to be a reason," she said, teasing me. She was disarming the shell that I have tried over the years to create for myself in order to protect me from any feelings. What I've been doing for years, she was destroying it in a matter of seconds.

"I'm boring, you'll soon get tired of me," 

"Okay, let's prove then!" she got up from the chair, grabbed her purse and waited for me to do the same.

"Where are we going?" I followed her outside as she walked confidently when I didn't know what she had in mind.

"I bet you had a painting there earlier so let's go look at an artist's exhibition in Hongdae," her gummy smile nearly killed me. I couldn't believe I was following my crush that had just invited me to visit a gallery.

"Don't you have to go back to work?"

"Nope. I'm done with my shift, so I got the whole day off," I was about to ask her why she wouldn't go and see Mark instead of wasting her time with someone she barely knew, but I decided to keep my mouth shut as I didn't want to hear her answer which could hurt me. I guess I had no choice but to follow her in the hope that she would make my life even more difficult.

In my life, I never thought I'd find someone who could walk around an art gallery for more than three hours. I thought I had broken the record, but Jennie definitely won first place. She snaked her way through the aisles where paintings by different artists were on display. On top of that, she would stop in front of each painting for the description or she would start analyzing each stroke and ask me questions about the technique and the choice of paints and brushes. So much so that I wondered if I had come to be her guide.