I'm almost me again (She's almost you)

Chapter 16

It was the best place to be, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the Sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything.

- E. B. White, Charlotte's Web.

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A couple of weeks passed by quickly. The weather grew warmer and was sprinkled with intermittent late spring showers, Lisa managed to fix the electrical circuit inside the narrowboat, giving herself some light spilling out of the windows as she slowly made progress on the skeletal belly of the hull. She'd finished bending and drilling the planks into place on one side, and had gotten to work on the other, which was soon finished as well. The boat was by no means finished, or ready for the water, but Lisa thought she'd be gone within the month. The thought almost made her sad.

After so long lingering in one place, with nowhere to rush to and no way to escape, she'd become familiar with the place. The hills and valleys of the downs were familiar at dawn as rosy coloured fingers parted saffron curtains, revealing the blue sky of a warm, cloudless day. She knew the wine-dark shimmer of the river beneath a red sunset, and the warren of rabbit holes that grew amongst wild mushrooms. She'd grown accustomed to the sweet apple smell of the orchard behind the cottage as the trees bloomed with tiny apples, waiting to be harvested at the end of summer.

Lisa worked with determined resignation, amongst the dwindling stacks of cedar wood and dirt, her fingers blistered and aching from hours clutching tools as she sanded and sawed and hammered. Her reservations were only normal, and she knew she had to leave. It didn't make it any easier, her stomach twisting uncomfortably at the mere thought of it, but she brushed it off as nerves.

She felt so much these days, no longer tucking everything away inside her, but Lisa still didn't quite know how to manage what she felt. But it felt good to feel things, to let some gentle emotions swell within her, quietly acknowledged as she came to terms with this reprieve from numbness. It was new, different, and Lisa felt as if the ragged edges of her broken heart had come back together, not quite fitting together properly, but smoothed and less likely to prick her on a stray thought. Not that she didn't miss Jisoo and dwell in the vastness of her sadness, but she was distracted enough that even those depressing moments of grief became less frequent.

And everywhere, all the time, was Jennie. For weeks now, they'd lived together, bumping into each other on the staircase, eating in the café, in Jennie's apartment, in Lisa's room, only a few days here and there to start with, until by some unspoken agreement, it was every night. Jennie taught Lisa how to cook a few dishes, the two of them standing side by side as they chopped vegetables, made pasta from scratch and stirred sauces, or bottled up the wine that Lisa had helped make. In turn, Lisa showed Jennie the basics of carpentry, the blonde shifting from her perch on the stack of wood to crouching beside Lisa, quietly coached through sanding the wood and sawing, Lisa's hand covering Jennie's as she guided her through the motions of cutting through the plank of sweet cedar.

They were nearly inseparable. Sometimes it felt like they were dancing around each other, coyly treading lightly, waiting for something, although Lisa didn't quite know what. But she enjoyed being with Jennie, liked the lightness she brought to her, the sweet relief of pressure to put on a smile when she didn't feel like it, or speak when she would rather sit in silence. As the days grew longer, more often than not, they would spend hours at night, sitting by the riverbank and reading, each of them absorbed in their respective books as they shared a bottle of wine and a slice of pie. There was never any pressure with Jennie; it all just felt effortless.