Jennie
She smiles, relieved. "Thank you, Jennie. Thank you so..."
"You're wasting time," I interrupt, uncomfortable with her gratitude. I don't deserve it. I should have given her the chance to explain days ago if that's what she wanted, especially after my crazy stunts with the charades and handcuffs.
"Right." she nods and clears her throat.
"I don't even know where to begin," she starts nervously. I raise my eyebrows, silently waiting. "Okay, well Kai and I used to be friends back in middle school. He was an all right guy until we entered high school. Then he became... promiscuous, I guess you could say." Lisa's eyes flit nervously to mine as she gauges my reaction, but I remain neutral.
"He always had a thing for my sister, Rosé. He never said anything to me about it, but then one day she had a pool party at the house with a bunch of her little friends. She was outside in her bathing suit, and I caught him staring at her.
"He had this sickening expression, Jennie. And she had just turned fourteen. So later, I confronted him about it, and he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. But when I told him to stay away from her he got defensive. He told me if she ever chose to do anything with him that it would be her decision, that she was old enough to make decisions like that. But she was fucking fourteen." Lisa runs a hand through her hair in agitation or disgust, I can't be sure. She's not even looking at me.
"Then one day, I caught her flirting with Kai. She was so young, and he had been a friend of mine - she didn't know any better," he says, as though defending her against an unspoken accusation. "So I talked to her and told her not to get involved with him. I told her how he was and how he treated girls and, of course, being told not to do something just made her want to do it more."
Lisa looks at me, her expression pleading, and I feel a little nauseous at the implications of what's to come.
"Rosé went out with him behind my back," Lisa confesses. "Each time I confronted her about it, she would brush me aside and grow more distant. I asked Marco to talk to her, but she denied that anything was going on. I threatened Kai repeatedly. But I didn't have any proof that anything bad was actually happening. Kai was sixteen at the time, about to turn seventeen."
Lisa sighs heavily.
"Then one day Rosé came home upset and withdrawn. She got depressed and wouldn't talk to me. To this day she still won't tell me everything. I had to find out from her boyfriend, Chanyeol," she says bitterly. "Chan is the first male she's trusted in years.
"But then Kai would show up out of the blue and talk to Rosé and leave her threatening messages from unknown numbers. She eventually listened to us and got a restraining order, but then one day she came home to find him at the house. Marco and Chitthip were gone for a medical conference out of town, and I wasn't living there anymore. Thankfully, she got away before he could do anything, but she called Chanyeol in hysterics and said she still didn't feel safe living anywhere near Kai. She said a restraining order is just a piece of paper, and that Kai can still get to her if he really wants to."
Lisa pauses, her pained eyes seeking mine. "And she's right, you know," she confirms.
I feel frozen, unable to even nod.
"That's why Rosé moved to San Francisco," she states. "She did it to get away from Kai. She put nearly half a world between them - between us. And Chanyeol, God bless him, packed up his life and went with her."
This is a lot to process. I'm repulsed that I actually let that slime-bag – Kai put his tongue in my mouth. But he didn't seem like such a sleaze until the end. He'd actually been quite complimentary, even a gentlemen at times.
But there was always something... off. And there was that one night. That one night when he'd tried to take things further and I'd stopped him. He got frustrated and angry, but later he apologized and chalked it up to a bad day.
How could I have been so stupid?
"I'm sorry, Lisa," I whisper. I'm not sure how this ties in with the bet, but it's a terrible situation either way.
Lisa goes on with her explanation. "When they first started going out Kai apparently took some... pictures... of her." She grits his teeth on the words. "I don't really think she thought much about them for a while - maybe she figured he no longer had them? I'm not sure. But then right before she moved away, he threw them up in her face, threatening to spread them around for everyone to see. "When she told Max about them, he got pissed. And rightfully so. I mean, God, if I would have found out..." Lisa's voice trails, but she quickly regroups and launches into her story again. "Chanyeol went to Kai's place in the middle of the night, while Kai was out, and broke in. He tore the place apart looking for them, but he eventually found them. Thank fucking God." Lisa looks at me with glazed eyes. "Rosé was only fourteen goddamn years old when he took those pictures," she reiterates angrily.
I can only nod helplessly.