Jisoo
My heels are completely frozen to the marble floor under me as I take in the girl standing in front of me.
A blue floor length dress that's just tight enough to show off every single one of her curves, the neckline plunging down well past her sternum, a ruby red necklace hanging over the bare skin of her chest matching her earrings and not coincidentally, my dress.
"Oh my God, Chae. You look..." I smile, meeting her bright eyes. "Beautiful."
She lets out a giggle that echoes through the foyer, her heels clicking over to me.
"Back at you. The dress looks so good. We made the right choice," she tells me. I look down at my mum's sparkly red dress and the pair of five inch heels that hopefully won't be my cause of death tonight.
"Thanks," I say, trying not to be too obvious as I pull the fabric down so it sits a little flatter.
"Shall we?" she asks, offering me her arm, a thin gold bracelet dangling from her wrist.
I blush and wrap my hand around her upper arm, letting her lead me into the gallery.
Whatever step five was in the plan, I think it's safe to say we're well past it.
We walk up to one of the many bars floating around the gigantic room.
"Hey, could I get two glasses of chardonnay?" Chaeyoung asks, surprising me, but unfortunately she can't quite manage to pull it off like... some other people can. The bartender dressed in a white shirt and a black bow tie sees right through it. He pours two ginger ales into champagne flutes without a word and slides them across the bar to us.
"It was worth a shot," I whisper.
As we begin to walk around the show together I spend most of the time looking at all the students dressed up in their fancy clothes, wondering if they're actually having a good time. I'm not sure how anyone could like all of this. I've never been much of an art connoisseur but the idea of looking at the art right in front of the artist makes me real nervous.
"Oh hey. This girl's in my lit class," Chaeyoung says, tugging me into an exhibit.
I follow her into an area with paintings hanging on makeshift walls in the middle of the room. Each painting looks a lot like the one before it, amorphous blobs of various sizes and skin colors on canvases ten feet tall.
"Hyeri?" Chaeyoung asks, approaching a girl a couple of feet taller than me, dressed in a velvet blazer and oxford shoes. She lifts her chin, squinting at Chaeyoung for a second before recognition floods her face.
"Chaeyoung." She smiles approvingly, obviously as entranced by Chaeyoung as everyone else. "Hey. It's great to see you."
"You too." Chaeyoung peeks back at me. "This is Jisoo," she introduces me, and I reach out to shake Hyeri's hand. "I didn't know you'd be here. This is your exhibit?"
"Yes, I've been working on it for almost two years now," Hyeri says, looking up at her masterpieces, her eyes shining proudly.
"Tell me what it's all about," Chaeyoung says. Hyeri starts telling us about how each piece represents the journey she's been on while trying to figure out how to translate what she's learned into this particular medium.
I try to listen at first but it all sounds so rehearsed, so dry, that I just can't rein my attention span in for long enough. Maybe I should've just asked Chaeyoung to go rollerskating after all. It would've been ten times the fun. Crappy chicken skewers, root beer, and maybe even a little hurdle game.
"It was nice to meet you, Jisoo," Hyeri says, snapping me out of my thoughts. She moves on to speak to another student who has wandered into her exhibit. I look back up at the largest painting with Chaeyoung next to me. I'm trying to understand how each painting represents something different when all ten of them look exactly the same.
Also, I think I could've painted them myself but I'm pretty sure that's a crappy thing to say at an art showing.
A funny thought hits me as I look up at the oversize painting, the brown, black, and tan shapes all pressed together. And once it hits I just cannot unsee it.
"Hey." I lean over, already laughing as I try to whisper in Chaeyoung's ear. "Doesn't it kinda look like... gigantic butt cheeks?" I laugh a little louder. It really does.
But Chaeyoung doesn't laugh with me. She just squints and shakes her head.
"Uh, not really. Not to me," she says.
"Oh yeah. No, they really don't. Sorry." I point my thumb over my shoulder. "You want to keep walking around?"
She smiles and nods, letting my unfunny joke thankfully fall into the past.
As we move around the room Chaeyoung comments on a lot of paintings and drawings and sculptures, but just like she didn't see the butt cheeks I don't see half of what she sees in them. Nonetheless, I stick by her as she talks to a million people about a million different pieces, my face feeling tired from having to smile every time she looks my way. I wish it were just the two of us but Chaeyoung seems to thrive off social interaction so maybe this is how it will always be...
As we move on through the exhibits, a text buzzes into my phone.
Jin
Jennie was here looking for you
She left but thought u should know
I suck in a sharp breath as a ringing in my ears blocks out all the sound in the room.
Jennie was looking for me.
Why was Jennie looking for me?
I wonder if she came to apologise.
I wonder what she wanted.
I wonder if she would've thought that painting looked like...
Yeah. I smile to myself. I know she would have.
And we would've laughed about it together, just the two of us because no one else would think it was funny, but it wouldn't matter. And then we would go get ice cream and walk around campus as late as we wanted, talking about all the things that we've never talked about with anyone else.
The good. The bad. It wouldn't matter. We'd talk about everything.
God, I miss–
No. I don't. Because it's like she said. None of that was real, so what is there to even miss?
What is real is that she's selfish, cocky, a horrible skater, brutally honest... though, that's unintentionally funny at times, independent, loyal, easygoing, and–
"Hey, Jisoo." Chaeyoung's voice pulls me out of my head, back to the art gala that I just can't seem to stay present at this evening.
"Yeah?" I ask, blinking away the past and realising that we've made our way into a secluded corner all by ourselves.
Chaeyoung stands in front of me, wringing her hands together nervously which is a look I haven't seen on her before.
"I'm really glad you came with me tonight, but I want to be honest with you," she huffs out.
My chest is so tight that it hurts.
"I... uh. Lately I've been having some feelings for you," she says, and I feel my lips lift into a smile at the words I never ever thought I would hear from her.
This is it. I did it! We did it.
Again Jennie's face pops into my head, her brown cat-like eyes, the mole just beneath her left eyebrow, her cute small nose, her pink lips.
I picture Jennie slouched against the books, her foot up against mine. Telling me about her life, about the future she so desperately wants for herself. The future she could finally see.
"But I've realised I also have feelings for... Lisa."
My eyebrows shoot up in realisation.
"At first, I was good at ignoring the feelings. I knew that what I was feeling was forbidden. I was falling for my best friend... I didn't want to risk losing her or make the situation weird so I refused to tell her. Then I met you... believe me, I tried to make it work between us. I realised though, running away will just make it worse in the end. I'll be the one heartbroken and I'll end up breaking your heart on top of that... I can't do that to you. I'm so, so sorry, Jisoo."
None of this feels right. None of it feels like it was supposed to.
And then I remember...
I remember how electrifying the air felt between Jennie and me as we looked at each other that night in the library. Like there was this uncontrollable force pulling me toward her.
I remember the way I could feel my heart beating in every single part of me.
How I would've given everything to be close to her.
As I watch Chaeyoung shuffle hesitantly, waiting for my response, I realise that no matter how beautiful she is, no matter how perfect I thought she was for me, this is not that.
It never could be. Because the Chaeyoung I thought I could love existed only in my head. She wasn't real. And while she's still gorgeous funny, and magnetic...
For the first time I get it.
I understand.
There's a difference between a fantasy and, well...
Love.
"Chaeyoung," I say, and she straightens up. My eyes coat with tears upon what I've realised. "I think... I love Jennie," I whisper, wiping away a tear.
"What?" she asks, shock written all over her expression.
I take a deep breath in. "Chaeyoung, I have liked you for so long. You really have no idea. And when I came to university I wanted things to be different. I wanted to be different... for you. I'm not really the person you've gotten to know this past month. I don't like rugby or art. I can't even feel my feet in these heels. Jennie has been helping me become the person I thought you would like but... I guess I ended up becoming, well... me."
I step forward to catch her hands in mine. "I still want to be your friend, Chae. You're amazing. You deserve it all, you know. The best, the most honest, the most beautiful, and purest love in the world. I hope you receive that same love from Lisa." I say, taking a second to collect my thoughts. "But right now... I need to go find Jennie."
She looks stunned but she nods understandably, trying to take in the big twist of events. "I always knew there was something suspicious going on between the two of you," she lets out a small chuckle.
She gives my hands a squeeze. "Go get your girl, Jisoo. Meanwhile I have some catching up to do with my own."
• • •
Stumbling out into the cool night air and down the sidewalk in front of the art museum, I find my phone in my purse and dial Jennie's number as quickly as possible. It doesn't even ring once before I hear her automated voicemail.
I hang up and dial again, my chest feeling like it's going to rip open.
Straight to voicemail.
Shit!
I stop at the corner, putting my hands on my hips as I realise how much my feet are killing me from these death traps.
I remember all the stuff she said to me at the concert, that little voice in my head tells me that this is a bad idea, that she really doesn't care about me and she's just going to say the same thing again and it's never going to work.
But I shut it right up because all that stuff she said to me that night was such bullshit. I should've seen right through it at the time, but at least I can see it now.
She wasn't pretending. Moments like the one we shared in the library could only come from something real.
I have to talk to her.
I have to tell her how I feel.
I hold up my phone and redial her number one more time as I cross the street in the direction of her apartment.
As I listen to her voicemail again I catch a glimpse of something out of my peripheral that makes me stop dead on the sidewalk, my phone still up to my ear.
A silver bicycle locked up right outside the library.
Of course.
I run up the concrete steps, taking them two at a time which ends up being a big mistake. On the top step my ankle gives out beneath me and I grab on to the railing before the heels do too much damage.
Fuck this.
I peel the shoes off, clutching them both in one hand and then practically rip the door off the hinges with the other.
I sprint through the main floor in my long gown, and even though that turns pretty much everyone's head, for once I don't give a shit.
I just have to get to her.
I strain my muscles to make it to the top floor then swing around the railing, struggling to catch my breath as I fly through the stacks, each one blurring into the next until...
There.
I stop, looking down at her on the floor with a book in her lap, and even though I just sprinted to get here as fast as I could, now I pause, the events of the last month washing back over me just from seeing her again....
The party and biology.
Our bet at the coffee shop.
Rugby tryouts and ice cream.
Going to the mall with my mum.
Ping Pong.
The hurdle game.
The concert.
Our fight.
Chaeyoung.
All of it.
Leading me here.
Leading me... to her.