Jennie
The most awful flavour in the world was humble pie. And not Aunt Soo-mi's berries in a homemade crust. Mine tasted as if I deep-throated a bale of hay soaked in a trough of regret, gagged it up with a side of remorse, and slammed it back down with a chaser of shame.
I chewed, swallowed, and regurgitated that humble pie for two days straight. Fuck, I hated being wrong. Under the most emotional laser surgery performed in my life, shame was a powerful, and quiet emotion. It lowered my eyes. "I misjudged her."
Irene's frozen gasp was more graceful than Jackson's, "I told you so." For that, she directed him out of the bathroom.
"This is going to melt off within the first hole." I murmured as she blotted my smoothed lips sticky with gloss. "Like a before Botox picture."
She winked from behind my shoulder. "It's not for golf."
I overthought my exchange with Lisa. My brain spun with disorientation that lingered and morphed into self-doubt. I must've radiated a resting bitch face, but her guarded distance in Friday's class offered me mental breathing room. "Fuck, she's living rent-free in my head now." I grumbled.
Instead of public happy-face PR, I wanted to cancel and tuck myself in between my sheets. Take a break from adulting, rest my body, plan next week's classes, and reflect in my journal. Open on my lap, conflicting thoughts screamed off the page.
Positive inaction exists, especially in the presence of negative stimuli. Physical relaxation with still movements, 'unplugging' from electronic devices, and meditation for mental clarity lead to a healthy, balanced spirit.
Acting by inaction. Total mindfuck. Biting back a hurled insult or using restraint against petty as fuck instigations were inactions I still struggled with. A simple 'no' instead of a knee to a groin, for example. Romance story characters who quit under pressure drove me as mad as making mistakes. Hello, miscommunication trope.
Irene swiped on the liquid liner, the pats on my eyelids making me roll in my lips. "What if we didn't deliberately choose to do nothing?"
She paused at my word vomit. "Loaded hindsight question."
"What if ignorance makes us so helpless that inaction is our only option?"
Her hands warmed my shoulders with a soft touch. "Jennie, that's your one-way trip to guilt city."
The heavy pit in my chest proved that I was already there. "I'm just not used to... you know."
"Leaving your bed?" she teased.
"Yes." Restructured into a creature of regimented habit, I set an alarm and woke to it. My grocery lists remained the same, although Lisa's cooking spoiled me. "Fuck, I was so stupid in my overreaction about Taehyung's truck."
I wanted to uphold my appreciation for Lisa. So, I slathered mayo-thick sunscreen on every patch of uncovered skin and a one-inch border underneath my clothes. Plus, the obnoxious blare from her truck horn was hard to ignore.