Trials and Tribulations [Chaelisa]

Chapter 80

“Yeah,” Chaeyoung said quietly, lowering her hand to Jisoo’s knee and squeezing it lightly in acknowledgement, her eyes never leaving her girlfriend.

“It is.” They continued to watch Lisa as Jules scooted closer to her, the younger girl wrapping her arms around her sisters’ shoulders affectionately as Lisa levelled out the sand that they’d collected in their bucket in order to create another turret for their sandcastle. When she’d finished, Lisa lifted one hand up to rub Jules’s forearm tenderly and the younger girl kissed her quickly on the cheek before taking the bucket from her grasp and tipping it upside down next to the rest of their creation. Lisa leant forward on to her knees and carefully helped Jules to lift the bucket up, the six year old jumping up and down excitedly on the spot when it came away and left a perfectly formed and ideally shaped pile of sand behind it. Lisa held up her hand for Jules to high five and the younger girl obliged enthusiastically, Lisa’s fingers enclosing around her sisters for a brief moment before she released them again. Chaeyoung felt her smile grow wider as she admired the obvious transformation that Lisa had undergone since she’d first met her. She was so different now that she was almost unrecognisable as the person Chaeyoung had first encountered almost ten months ago.

The deeply troubled girl that she’d approached in the school hallway had completely disappeared that night on the beach following prom, had vanished in to some unknown void that Chaeyoung secretly hoped she would never return from. Lisa was so full of life now, so blissfully grateful for every moment, so carefree that Chaeyoung couldn’t help but smile every time that her eyes fell on her girlfriend, no matter what the brunette was doing. Lisa could be sat, lounging on the sofa watching a movie with Jules or quietly reading a book and Chaeyoung would notice that her cheeks were starting to ache at the involuntary smile that had appeared on her face at the sight of her girlfriend. Chaeyoung’s muscles were so unused to having to maintain the countenance for any prolonged length of time that they would protest profusely but she didn’t mind the discomfort it caused her at all. In fact, she welcomed it with open arms. She welcomed it because she vividly remembered every time that her girlfriend had sobbed violently against her chest until the verge of suffocating.

She remembered with perfect clarity how Lisa had been unable to face her reflection in the mirror, how she’d struggled to express herself, to complete the most menial of tasks with any particular ease. Chaeyoung remembered how Lisa had hated herself so vehemently that she’d rather have died than suffer another day in her own personal prison. She remembered every heartbreaking moment like it had happened just yesterday but instead of filling her with a melancholy that made her chest ache painfully and her eyes brim with tears, those memories now only served to remind her of the incredible journey that her girlfriend had made. Watching Lisa now as she played with Jules, Chaeyoung believed wholeheartedly that her girlfriend’s journey was definitely something that was worth smiling about. It was because of this that despite her friends teasing, Chaeyoung took every opportunity that she could to stare at Lisa, to smile at her, to appreciate her transition from the despondent girl that had careened in to her life like a runaway train and somehow managed to blossom in to the one that sat before her now.

Even from her position fifteen feet away Chaeyoung could see the newfound energy that Lisa exuded; she could see her recently discovered confidence, her relaxed and unfazed posture. All those troubled thoughts that had plagued her so much in the past no longer seemed to exist and instead of festering in a perpetual state of selfhatred Lisa was now thriving in one of selfworth. Whenever Chaeyoung looked at Lisa now she felt a sense of pride surge within her so unexpectedly that it took her breath away; the air in her lungs catching in her throat and making her heart beat furiously in her chest. It was pride that Chaeyoung had felt when the anniversary of Lisa’s accident had passed with barely even a mention from her girlfriend. She and Lisa had been spending the day with the rest of their friends and Jules at the park, the group taking a picnic with them that Luca had attempted to sample at every available chance he was afforded.